Zoning Board dismisses project to bring Roxbury birth center, nonprofit offices

The Roxbury development proposal that would have converted four parcels near Nubian Square into a birth center, community space, and offices for nonprofits was rejected by the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals last week.

The project, officially called Community Movement Commons, was proposed for an almost 20,000-square-foot space at the intersection of Winthrop Street and Kearsarge Avenue, off Warren Street. It was dismissed without prejudice by the zoning board at its Feb. 25 hearing.

The project ignited community debate about the merits of bringing in the birth center and other non-residential uses into an area that is currently zoned for residential construction.

A victory for homeowners

For community members who opposed the project, the zoning board’s decision was a win for Roxbury’s homeowners.

“I just think, all in all, because it respected the neighborhood, it was just a good decision,” said Lorraine Payne Wheeler, president of the Roxbury Path Forward Neighborhood Association, which represents the area.

Opponents of the project had objected to a development that would have brought more nonresidential construction into an area they said is already congested with two schools and four houses of worship.

The decision from the board, she said, “really respected the zoning code,” which currently permits three-family homes to be built on each of the properties.

“If you bought a house across from other houses, you’re assuming that’s going to be the residential zoning,” Payne Wheeler said.

Throughout the process, community members also expressed concerns that the project might open the door to further commercial development in the neighborhood.

“This isn’t just about one project; it’s about the future of our neighborhood,” said Nadie Riggs, who lives down the street from where the development was proposed, during the zoning hearing. “Once this land is rezoned for commercial use, it will stay commercial forever, opening the floodgates for the next business to come in and destroy the fabric of our community.”

Notably, the project, if it had been approved, would not have rezoned the parcels — a step which would make a lasting change to what is allowed to be built there — but would have created variances, which apply specifically to the proposed development.

The dismissal by the zoning board, Payne Wheeler said, could free the space up for more housing to be built instead, something some community members voiced as a priority. At the same time, others said they would oppose any proposal that would tear down the two historic homes on the property, one of which was previously condemned by the city of Boston.

What housing in that spot would look like, or if it could get built, is unclear. For now, the land is still owned by Community Movement Commons, so what happens in that space next is up to them.

If they sold it to another developer, the size and scale would be another question. A previous proposal at the site would have created 40 units of housing, something residents opposed out of the concern it would be too dense. That proposal didn’t make it far enough in the process to end up before the Zoning Board.

Payne Wheeler didn’t offer an estimate of what size would be acceptable but said the Roxbury Path Forward Neighborhood Association would consider a proposal as it comes.

“We respond to what the developer offers,” she said, acknowledging that, while 40 units is too many, the four three-family homes that are zoned on the parcels by-right are likely too few.

“It’s got to be something that’s in between those two extremes, and that’s what you need,” Payne Wheeler said. “You need to have a talented architect who can create a vision for the space that works for everybody.”

Also of concern, both at the hearing and prior, neighbors said they took issue with the fact that all the organizations that would have looked to move into the Community Movement Commons project are incorporated with addresses in other parts of the city.

At the hearing, District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson said she viewed the project as an attempt for outside individuals and organizations to push their priorities on Roxbury.

“People that are not from Roxbury come in and say, ‘Look, you need this, so we should impose it,’” Fernandes Anderson said. “‘We should encroach it on your livelihood, and we should encroach it in your space — whether or not you like it. We know what’s good for you; you Black people don’t know what’s good for you,’” Fernandes Anderson said.

Nashira Baril, president of Community Movement Commons and executive director at the Neighborhood Birth Center, as well as others involved in the leadership of the nonprofit organizations that make up the coalition of nonprofits, are Black.

Baril said suggesting that nonprofits are outsiders doesn’t accurately represent what it means for an organization to be incorporated in a different neighborhood.

“There just is a misunderstanding of what it means for an organization to be incorporated at a different address,” she said. “I think that that was disingenuous and actually really harmful to say that we’re coming in from outside and telling Roxbury what Roxbury needs.”

For example, she said Neighborhood Birth Center is incorporated using her home address because it has no existing space of its own. The other organizations are largely incorporated with addresses in Jamaica Plain, where they could find affordable office space.

“This is not about for-profit businesses or commercial developers coming into Roxbury,” said Sen. Liz Miranda during the zoning hearing. “This is about organizations whose work, mission, and membership are from Roxbury, but have only been able to access office space elsewhere for years.”

Development team ‘regrouping’

But for the team that had proposed the decision by the Zoning Board, it is a blow to a decades-long dream.

“I felt gutted,” Baril said. “Right after the call, I felt surprised, very surprised, given the support we had amassed for this.”

With the requested variances denied, Baril said the team is regrouping and trying to determine what might be next for the coalition of nonprofits.

Chrislene DeJean, senior director of people and culture at the Center for Economic Democracy, one of the organizations included under the Community Movement Commons umbrella, said that the group is considering all the options on the table.

“It is making us think about what else could we do? Where else could we be?” DeJean said. “But we’re so early-stage in that, we’re working with a sea of unknowns.”

Baril attributed part of the outcome to the challenges of educating a community about what a birth center is. Throughout the process, including at the Feb. 25 zoning hearing, she said she heard suggestions that the birth center seeks space in commercial areas, like nearby Nubian Square.

“We really have a hospital down the street, literally,” said Daphnie Ellison, a neighbor opposed to the project in an interview before the zoning hearing. “There’s the trauma center and everything in Boston Medical Center. We don’t necessarily need a birthing center over here,”

Payne Wheeler, in an interview, said she would like to see the project move forward in another Roxbury location that “would fit this organization better,” pointing to things like parking concerns some neighbors had for the Winthrop Street site.

During the zoning hearing, the same offer was mentioned by Fernandes Anderson, who said she supported the project “wholeheartedly” but wanted to see it in a different location and had proposed to the team developing the project other potential locations, including sites along Warren Avenue and Quincy Street.

But while Baril acknowledged some birth centers may exist in commercial storefronts, her vision — and what she described as the goal of a birth center generally — is not closely aligned with that sort of space.

Rather than a hospital room, or a health clinic, a birth center is designed to be a home, she said. For the Neighborhood Birth Center, she described her goal as one to create a “sanctuary.”

“This version of this love letter to Roxbury — this love letter to Boston — is not in a storefront next to a liquor store or next to McDonald’s,” Baril said. “This is a sanctuary that should feel peaceful and luxurious.”

Baril said she’s “all ears” to hear other proposed locations from Fernandes Anderson, but not if it means placing the birth center in a shopping center.

And as the Community Movement Commons team regroups, the vision is to keep all six nonprofits together.

“We’re still in deep partnership with these other organizations,” Baril said. “So it’s the whole vision of the Commons that has to go elsewhere.”

Part of that is a functional goal. Baril had previously said that the collaboration between all of them and the effort to buy land together will help the birth center financially, allowing it to open without large debts from start-up and to be better positioned to accept insurance, including MassHealth, rather than requiring patients to pay out-of-pocket.

The collaboration would also be a boon for the other nonprofits, many of whom have long dreamed of a shared space with other organizers to work together and campaign together — something DeJean said could be especially important under the Trump administration.

“We think it would be great to be in one shared space, to be able to collaborate more, and that’s part of what we’ve imagined would be good to still have,” she said. “We understand it’s a lot of unknowns here, but I think the partnership piece is something that we really want to hold.”

In its decision, the Zoning Board voted 5-2 to dismiss the project without prejudice, a move that means that the applicant can initiate the process again whenever they choose, according to the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals guide. A flat-out dismissal from the board would require the applicant to wait a full year from the decision date.

The decision was a close one. An earlier motion that would have approved the project with a proviso — or a specific condition tacked on by the board — restricting who can operate the birth center’s clinical space narrowly failed in a 4-3 vote. To pass, a motion must be approved by five of the board’s members.

But, following the vote, Zoning Board of Appeals member Hansy Better Barraza warned that the ruling indicates that, without substantial changes to the proposal — likely removing the clinical and office space and switching it for housing — it would face the same challenges and likely be dismissed again.

“A denial without prejudice is not going to solve the issues in front of us unless the whole project changes completely in terms of its use,” she said.

But the team expressed hope about moving the vision forward somewhere and somehow, especially given the support it received. During the zoning hearing, community members and officials at both the state and city levels spoke in support of the project, in many cases, especially in support of the birth center in particular.

In the aftermath of the hearing, Baril said a number of supporters — including funders, officials, and Boston Medical Center, with whom the birth center signed an agreement to serve as the transfer hospital — reached out to say they were still committed to getting the birth center built.

Generally, both the state and the the city of Boston have expressed a desire to see more birth centers as a way to potentially address disparities in Black maternal morbidity.

According to a 2023 report from the Boston Public Health Commission, Black infants in the city experience higher rates of low birthweight, pre-term birth, and infant mortality.

But that road forward won’t be without its hiccups. They had been awarded one $150,000 grant for the project pending zoning approval. With the dismissal, those funds were pulled. And other funding sources may be on the ropes, Baril said.

The decision also complicates matters for the Neighborhood Birth Center as an organization. Unlike the five other nonprofits involved, all of which have existing offices and are currently operational, the birth center can’t do its work without facilities.

In the 10 years since the organization was formed, they’ve operated trying to open a facility, but Baril said the birth center can’t afford to continue to operate in long-term limbo.

“I do think that now is the time if we’re going to have a birth center in the city,” Baril said. “The need is high. The time is now. And I can’t sustain an organization and keep attracting funders and writing grants and not be operational.”

Still, Baril said she’s committed to seeing the project come to life.

“I don’t know what that looks like; I don’t know where it is, but this is not the end of the road,” she said. “This is just a really critical fork in the road.”