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WEEK OF MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2017
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A Publication of The Warren Group PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE
REGULATORY READINESS
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
Who Owns The Waterfront?
Preparation Underway For HMDA Changes
Setbacks, Lawsuit Intensify Debate
Lenders By Now Well Versed In Regulatory Compliance
BY STEVE ADAMS BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
f only all development debates were this easy. Travel company Education First wants to begin the next phase of its East Cambridge campus with a new 300,000-square-foot student housing and office building. That drew the recent attention of the Conservation Law Foundation, which raised red flags to regulators in May about the extent of EF’s mitigation plans. Less than a week later, EF agreed to contribute $500,000 to a trust fund for upkeep of the nearby North Point Park. CLF threw its support behind the project, and the state’s top environmental official signed off on the plans. “It wasn’t like (EF’s) arms were getting twisted,” CLF Senior Counsel Peter Shelley said. “They were really trying to figure out how to integrate these public benefits into their private interest of having an expanded campus. It’s the kind of public-private outcome that everyone’s trying to accomplish.” Arm-twisting remains the name of the game in Boston, however, as developers grapple with abutters and watchdogs over a series of high-profile waterfront proposals. The projects, developers say, would generate untold millions in economic benefits while upgrading prime sites currently occupied by barrooms, a seafood pound, a 1970s-era parking garage and rotting harbor pilings. While each proposal faces unique regulatory and legal issues, all are fanning the debate over private ownership rights versus public access to the shoreline. Such luxury lodgings, high-rent office space and trendy restaurants will be enjoyed by a privileged few, opponents say, flaunting centuries-old legal doctrine that preserves the shore as a public trust. “We feel pretty strongly these parcel-by-parcel approaches are taking big bites out of the waterfront,” said Kathy Abbott, CEO of nonprofit advocacy group Boston Harbor Now.
I
Renovation In Red Sox Nation
FENWAY PARK Year Built: 1912 Capacity: 37,731
Yankees Learn A Hard Lesson In Why It’s Better To Renovate Than Rebuild BY SCOTT VAN VOORHIS | BANKER & TRADESMAN COLUMNIST
T
he Yankees looked poised to steam home in their crucial revenue race with the Red Sox when the Bronx Bombers opened up a new $1.3 billion stadium in 2009. But eight years later, it’s the Red Sox who are having the last laugh, with antique Fenway Park, buffed up by a couple hundred millions dollars in renovations over the past 15 years, outperforming the Yankees too-big-to-succeed new stadium. In the classic and never-ending debate over whether to renovate or tear down and rebuild, the decision of Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner to fix up Fenway wins hands down over the Yankees’ gamble that new automatically equals better. The Yankees hoped to pack in more high-paying fans. Instead, they have wound up with a first-class stadium debacle, with attendance at the new stadium having actually fallen by a stunning 18 percent since 2009.
YANKEE STADIUM Year Built: 2009 Capacity: 47,442
DEP Ruling A Setback To Hotel Developer
At Lewis Wharf in the North End, a recent ruling by the state Department of Environmental Protection dealt a blow to developer JW Capital’s plans for a 277-room
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CONTENTS
In Person ������������������������������������������������������������������ 7
Banking & Lending ������������������������������������������������� 10
Points ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
Residential................................................................8
Classified Sections ������������������������������������������������� 11
By The Numbers ������������������������������������������������������� 6
Commercial & Industrial...........................................9
Records Section ..................................................... B1
BY JIM MORRISON BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
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n the wake of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recent $1.75 million civil penalty against Nationstar Mortgage for Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) violations, mortgage lenders are well-advised to prepare for the changes in HMDA reporting requirements that take effect in less than six months. Starting Jan. 1, 2018, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reporting requirements are going to roughly double to include dozens of new and revised data points about borrowers and the properties they use to secure their loans. The changes apply to those loans closed in the new year and afterward, even if those loans were originated this year.
Preparation Is Key Brian Koss, executive vice president and national head of production at Mortgage Network, said his team has been preparing for compliance with the new HMDA data reporting requirements since they were announced. Koss plans to collect the new data and test Mortgage Network’s Loan Originating Software (LOS) before the new requirements take effect to ensure accuracy. “We have our own proprietary LOS and we have been customizing it for a while,” Koss wrote in an email. “I can tell you we have been working on meeting the requirements since we saw the announcement.” The Cape Cod Five Cent Savings Bank uses a third-party vendor for its LOS, according to David Brennan, the bank’s senior vice president and chief residential lending officer. He said the vendor is working on updating their software and Brennan expects it to be ready by the end of the third quarter or beginning of the fourth quarter of 2017. “In the meantime we’re looking at new developments regarding interpretation of the new requirements,” Brennan said. “We’re also training our people in the new processes in data collecting and getting used to that. You know, we’ve been here before with TRID.” The implementation of TRID in October 2015 was another big, federally-mandated change that changed the way lenders did business. There were some sticky moment in the beginning, but within few months, lenders and other stakeholdContinued on Page 8