Chinatown steamed over proposal for large electronic billboard on Kneeland Street plant

The Zoning Board of Appeals today agreed with a request from the company that wants to put a large electronic billboard on the Veolia plant on Kneeland Street to defer any hearing until June, after a representative from the company acknowledged the company's having just a wee bit of trouble getting anybody in Chinatown to support the thing.

The board then agreed to let her try again, at least until a hearing in June, after which an angry person demanded the board deny the proposal altogether and, when board Chairwoman Christine Araujo demurred, used the microphone to urge people in the room to contact Mayor Walsh. He was one of about 20 Chinatown and Leather District residents who wasted three hours waiting for what turned into today's non-hearing.

Among those in the neighborhood who oppose the billboard, aimed mainly at drivers coming off I-93: The Chinatown Resident Association, which had issued a statement before the hearing urging a no vote:

We have heard of this proposal a couple of times now. In both both presentations, the Chinatown Resident Association has questioned the project’s community benefit. In both cases the Chinatown Resident Association membership has chose to not support the billboard. Chinatown and the Leather District are both neighborhoods with full-time residents. These two neighborhoods are not to be treated as billboards.

Important historical context: Chinatown was once recognized as a combat zone and red light district. It was heavy on crime, prostitution, public intoxication and etc. Why would we want to be in support of an electronic billboard sign that could bring us back to such stereotypes that people once had of Chinatown?