Wu taps HUD and former Mass. housing official to lead development
“We are at a turning point when it comes to our future as a coastal community."
James Arthur Jemison II, a senior official with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development who worked in the Menino and Patrick administrations, is Mayor Michelle Wu’s choice to serve as Boston’s top planner and is expected to play an outsized role in helping her fulfill a major campaign promise to overhaul the city’s real estate development process.
The move follows longtime Boston Planning and Development Agency Director Brian Golden announcing his resignation last week. Jemison, 51, steps into a newly-created Cabinet-level position of Chief of Planning that will coordinate and elevate planning across multiple city departments, including those with major infrastructure and land-use needs, such as transportation, housing, schools and libraries.
He will also become the administration’s point person on reforming the BPDA, and the mayor plans to ask the agency’s board at its May 12 meeting to have Jemison serve as director as well. He will not be paid additional compensation beyond his Cabinet salary of $179,000, and is expected to start May 23.
Finish the story at BostonGlobe.com.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com