After nearly three years of battling the Liberty Place project — a 28-story high rise slated to take over the corner of Washington and Beach Streets, in Chinatown — neighborhood advocates finally declared victory last week. On December 16, the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) dropped a three-month-old lawsuit against the Liberty Place developer, as well as the City of Boston, after it won guarantees for hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of affordable housing in the area.

"We settled because of the significant concessions being offered," says Lydia Lowe, the director of the CPA, which filed the lawsuit last September after an August 2002 community referendum showed that residents overwhelmingly opposed the project (see "Chinatown Says ‘No’ to High Rise," This Just In, August 9). She adds, "There were real concessions that were important to the community."

Under the settlement, the Liberty Place developer, Kevin Fitzgerald, of 1025 Hancock Street, has agreed to contribute $650,000 to a special fund to build 30 units of permanently affordable housing on an as-yet-to-be-determined site in Chinatown. To this end, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which is overseeing Liberty Place, has agreed to buy or designate a location for the 30-unit building, which will consist of single-room-occupancy apartments. Such housing, Lowe explains, "will help the tenants who are most at risk of being forced out from gentrification."

While the affordable housing is something to celebrate, an even bigger coup for Chinatown residents may relate to a different city concession. As part of the settlement, BRA and city officials agreed to treat the Chinatown Residents Association (CRA), a neighborhood group, as an officially designated "neighborhood council." That means that the CRA will serve as an advisory body when future development proposals emerge. And for residents who’ve fought for years to have more of a voice in the process, Lowe notes, "a city-recognized resident council is a political victory."

BRA spokesperson Maureen Baumann hails the recent agreement as "good news for all involved." City officials, the developer, and advocates, she adds, "worked tirelessly to resolve the situation and their efforts will benefit not only Chinatown, but the entire city." After all, the Liberty Place project will now bring even more affordable housing to the city, which, Baumann points out, "is at the very forefront of [Mayor Tom Menino’s] priority list."

Although the settlement paves the way for all 28 stories of the high rise to go up starting this spring, advocates are taking stock of their achievements. Over the past three years, their opposition has resulted in the Liberty Place proposal going from strictly market-rate housing to a more modestly priced project, with the number of affordable apartments rising from five percent to 20 percent today. And now that a residents’ council has been established — a council that Baumann says the BRA "welcomes to the table" — neighborhood advocates are gearing up for future development battles, including the proposed Kensington Place, a multi-million-dollar, 31-story high-rise.

As Lowe herself puts it, "We feel like we have made a difference and we will keep up the fight. So all in all, this is a victory for residents."