On May 6, 2026, the Boston City Council Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Councillor Ben Weber, held a hearing to review the Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget for the Planning Department (Docket #0733-0740). The hearing began at 10:00 AM and was live-streamed. The panel included Chief of Planning Kyro Shan, Deputy Chief Devin Quirk, and Executive Director Teresa Paulinas. The budget is proposed at $29.4 million, slightly lower than the previous year. The discussion covered the department's mission, achievements, and challenges, followed by questions from councillors and public testimony.
Good morning. My name's Ben Weber. I'm the district six city counselor and the chair of the Boston City Council on Ways and Means. Today is May 5th, 2026, and the exact time is ten AM. We did send out a notice that this hearing is going to start at ten fifteen. My apologies. But this hearing is being recorded, it's also being live streamed at Boston.gov/slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN, Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964. The council's budget review process will encompass a series of public hearings that began in April and will run through June.gov slash council-budget. So you can give testimony in person or by Zoom, in person testimony. For that, you need to sign up on the sign-in sheet near the entrance.gov, or by emailing Chris Machohan at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAM at Boston.gov. When you are called to testify, please state your name and affiliation or your residence and limit your comments to a few minutes. We'll give you two minutes to testify. In lieu of showing up at a hearing virtually or in person, you can email written testimony to the committee, which can be sent to our web or email address at ccc.wm at Boston.gov. Lastly, you can submit a two-minute video of your testimony through the forum on our website. For more information on the council budget process and how to testify, please visit the city council's budget website at Boston.gov/slash council dash budget. In-person public testimony will be taken following the first round of counselor questions. Individuals will be called on the order in which they've signed up and will have two minutes to testify. Again, if you uh need to uh sign up for public testimony online and haven't done so, you can email our director of legislative budget analysis, Karishma at K-A-R-I-S-H-M-A.CHOUHAN at Boston.gov for the zoom link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0733 to 0740, an overview of the FY27 operating budget for the planning department. Okay. This uh is one of a series of hearings to review the fiscal year 2027 budget. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on April 8th, 2026. I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Flynn. Um, uh generally we waive opening statements uh at these budget hearings. So I'm just gonna introduce the panel. We're joined by Chief of Planning Kyro Shan, uh Deputy Chief Devin Quirk and Executive Director Teresa here. Paul Polinus. Paulinas, okay. Um, okay, so we are gonna if you have a presentation, we'll hear your presentation and then we'll go to counselor questions. Thank you. Good morning uh Chair Weber and Counselor Flynn. Uh we do have a brief presentation to give you some general orientation and um the presentation will be divided into a few sessions. I will briefly go over the mission of the planning department and the org chart, and then um talk briefly a little bit about our work, and then I will pass it on to uh Devin to go over specifically some of the accomplishments in in terms of development and transformation that the planning department has um implemented over the last year, and then we'll finish with a budget overview that would be led by Teresa. Um, so you know, our mission statement is quite straightforward. Um in this moment of need, we have an opportunity and an obligation to change how we plan for Boston's future. We're charting a new course for growth with people as our compass. This is a direct quote from Mayor Wu on January 25th, 200 uh 2023. Um, our mission, as you can uh, is quite direct. Uh we are organize um, our work is organized around taking on some of the key challenges that the city faces today, and we summarized it in three brief categories affordability, equity, and resilience. Now, the larger mission of the planning department um that has been charted by Mayor Wu is to really transform the planning and development culture that our city has been um structured in for almost 70 years since open renewal, and there are a few sort of key components of that. Uh central to that in the first term of Mayor Wu's administration was to actually remake a new city planning department with a few key objectives. Number one, to build uh greater trust and accountability for the planning activity of our department. Number two, to enlarge the table where these kinds of discussions on planning and development were occurring, and then three, to elevate the dialogue and knowledge that is uh used in these forums. Now, to that extent, there are a few direct um applications of these principles. Number one, that our planning department always puts planning first. Second, um, we actually systematically look at modernizing the city's zoning regular zoning and other planning regulations, and then finally, um, to reform the development review and permitting process that is uh central to the planning department's work. So in that, within that general framework, we have spent a lot of time working with the community on long and short-term plans. We have really modernized our zoning code to be much more predictable and accountable. And then we have spent time working on a much more inclusive design standard. And with the Article 80 reform, we have actually created a much more predictable and transparent development review procedures.