But the story of the Poor Clares’ monastery — or as it’s known on the books of the Boston Planning Department, 920 Centre Street — is, at least for now, a case study on how housing doesn’t get built in this city.

It’s a story about how one midsized project with everything going for it — a world-class architect, a brilliant landscape designer, and a developer willing to make one compromise after another to the size and layout of the plan — still can’t move the needle in the face of one powerful opponent.

Well, make that one powerful opponent who has the ear of City Hall.

Faced with dwindling numbers in their order (they were down to 10 in 2022) and a Vatican mandate to consolidate, the sisters decided to sell their 2.8-acre parcel and the aging monastery building to developer John Holland. The building, which they had occupied since 1934, was expensive to heat and in need of extensive repairs.

They relocated to Westwood in 2023, hoping to expand those quarters to accommodate another 10 nuns from around the country as soon as the sale of the Jamaica Plain property became final, contingent on the approval of its redevelopment.

They’re still waiting.

The former monastery is neighbor to the Arnold Arboretum, land owned by the city but under a renewable 1,000-year lease to Harvard University. And no question, the 281-acre parcel is a tree-filled treasure for researchers and picnickers alike. Just try getting near the place on Lilac Sunday.

But the Arboretum, or rather its director, William Friedman, a Harvard evolutionary biology professor, has emerged as a powerful foe.

“The development has been part of the city’s planning process for nearly five years and has undergone several revisions,” Sr. Mary Veronica McGuff, the order’s abbess, wrote in a letter to Mayor Michelle Wu in January and shared with the editorial board. “We are very disappointed to learn that the main obstacle is … the Arnold Arboretum.”

She revealed that the order had earlier offered to sell the property to the Arboretum, but was rebuffed.

“It’s upsetting that our progress is now being hindered by an institution that declined the opportunity to take stewardship of the land and is now making unreasonable demands for its redevelopment,” she said in the letter.

In fact, its market rate condo component, once slated to be five stories high, has been reduced to four stories. Those 38 senior rental units planned for the monastery building will include 25 affordable units.

Project architect David Hacin, winner of the Boston Preservation Alliance’s 2022 President’s Award for Excellence, is equally bewildered.

“I don’t understand how a project that is so good on so many levels is being held up for years, literally, over asks that seem, to me, completely unreasonable,” Hacin told Globe business reporter Catherine Carlock. “If we can’t build five-story buildings, how are we going to solve the housing crisis?”

How indeed.

The developers have done shadow studies, a sunlight analysis, and tree root studies to convince Arboretum officials that the planned housing would do no damage to the magnolia tree roots on the perimeter of Harvard’s grounds, which seem to be their main bone of contention.

The project’s landscape architect Mikyoung Kim has surely not acquired her international reputation for “ecological restoration” by murdering magnolia trees.

Friedman has met with Boston’s planning chief, Kairos Shen, but as of Thursday the sisters have not yet been granted a similar opportunity. Nor have they heard from either Wu or Shen (who was copied in on the Jan. 12 letter) since they made their appeal for help “in finding a solution that allows this project to move forward and for our community to finally settle into our new home.”

In a statement to the Globe editorial board, Wu said, “Large properties like 920 Centre Street are significant housing sites for Boston, and we are working actively with all parties to advance a plan that would deliver homes our city needs.”

For the past year, experts have been warning that the slumping number of building permits in Greater Boston — down 44 percent last year from four years ago — do not bode well for an increase in the future housing supply. That dearth in supply is driving up prices and rents.

And while the Wu administration is quick to blame President Trump’s tariffs and rising costs for the construction slump, it fails to look in the mirror. Enabling the kind of Not In My Back Yard obstructionism that is keeping a good project on the drawing boards for years will never get Boston the kind of housing it needs to keep pace with demand and allow this city to thrive.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.

“In moments of challenge and in moments of conflict, it does feel easier to put your head down,” Wu said at an event at the Old State House commemorating Attucks.

“Remembering the full history pushes us to be the beacon of freedom that the rest of the country and the rest of the world so very much needs.”

Inside the Old State House’s council chambers, city leaders, historians, and students gathered to celebrate Attucks’ legacy. They talked about the importance of memorializing him during a time when many present said the contributions of people of color to American history were being erased by the Trump administration, and the country’s founding principles were under attack.

Senator Lydia Edwards said the death of Attucks and the four others killed during the Boston Massacre helped establish important legal principles that still guide the country today.

Following the killings, British soldiers involved in the incident were put on trial. John Adams, who later became president, agreed to defend them in court, arguing that the rule of law must be upheld even during times of intense conflict.

“Even in these moments of strife, oppression of rogue federal government, that we remember that we stood up and still held to our court system, to the rule of law and to due process,” Edwards said. “We also remember who had to die in order to remind ourselves to do that.”

City Councilor Brian Worrell said Attucks was a symbol of the long struggle for equality in the country.

“It’s a story that is a reminder that Black and Indigenous Americans have always been at the forefront [of] the fight for justice,” Worrell said.

He said when he recounts Boston’s Black history, he almost always starts with Attucks’ story.

“He fought not simply against the tea tax or the Stamp Act, he fought for the most basic of rights. He fought for equal human lives. It’s a fight we as a city are still having,” he said.

Wu spoke about how on March 5, 2025, she was called to testify before Congress about Boston’s immigration policies during a six-hour hearing. She touted Boston’s safety record amid aggressive questioning, arguing that the city’s immigration policies improved public safety.

“On the 255th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, on Crispus Attucks Day, there was no way that this city wasn’t going to be represented in standing up for what’s right,” Wu said.

A chandelier lit the council chamber and red curtains covered its historic windows. On both sides of the room, students sat with their teachers. Winners of the Crispus Attucks Essay Contest, which invites local students to explore Attucks’ legacy, sat next to the podium.

“Sometimes history repeats itself,” said Toni Martin, an attendee at the event, who came to support her niece, who was being awarded. “Sometimes it gets better, but it takes revolutionary people to make change perfect.”

Outside of the State House after the commemoration, Sharahn Pullum, 18, who came in second for the essay contest, said, “My inspiration was just getting the opportunity to speak on something that matters.”

Michael Kelly, 65, joined the wreath-laying ceremony that took place at the Boston Massacre Commemorative Plaza. Kelly held a sign that said, “Ice Out Be Goode,” referring to Renee Good, a US citizen who was shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Kelly said he had been standing at the plaza for three hours and is planning to stand there the entire day.

“People can stretch their imaginations to understand that this place, what happened here, is not at all different than what happened in Minneapolis,” Kelly said with tears in his eyes. “People standing up for something they believe in is vastly important, and we can’t be daunted.”

Aayushi Datta can be reached at aayushi.datta@globe.com.

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Born and raised in Southie, Heather Foley has seen her neighborhood morph over the past three decades of scrubbing, renovation, and new construction for higher-income new arrivals.

But even Foley was surprised to discover that her South Boston, where kids once went to the corner to buy milk and cigarettes for parents, has emerged with the city’s second-highest average income, even ahead of Charlestown and Beacon Hill.

Her first thought?: “I gotta start being nicer to my neighbors if that’s the kind of money they’re making.”

What’s a household?

Decades ago, when “Good Will Hunting” was filmed in the neighborhood and Southie was known as a working-class area, there were more kids around and maybe just a single breadwinner in some homes.

Since then, Southie saw more two-earner households, fewer kids, and spiffier rental units where three or four roommates could contribute to a “household.” The changes, along with spillover from the adjacent, pricier Seaport, or South Boston waterfront, are factors in Census data showing more than 40 percent of Southie households earn more than $200,000 a year.

Staying put

Foley, 46, a photo shoot producer, considers herself lucky. She didn’t move out to the South Shore like many neighborhood longtimers. She’s living in a family home on a block with residents — oldtimers and newer arrivals — who aren’t flipping properties for big bucks.

Another blessing, particularly valuable this winter? She has a driveway.

As a kid, she went to church and school at Gate of Heaven, St. Brigid, and St. Peter, and jokes that she’s “so sad I didn’t buy a three-decker with my First Communion money, because I probably could have.”

Waves of gentrification

She remembers the earlier waves of newcomers, when glassy sports bars like Stats Bar & Grille muscled in among longtime restaurants like Amrheins.

But now, even the popular Stats is moving out at the end of the month. The property owner is developing a five-story, mixed-use residential building at the site.

A small silver lining

Foley notes that some of the onetime “newcomers” have been here for three decades — and in some ways, have stabilized the place. Many have raised kids, who, like her son, may return to the neighborhood as young adults (albeit splitting a rented apartment with friends). Stats, the sports bar, says it will also return to the neighborhood’s thriving food scene.

“We have a lot of great restaurants now,” Foley says, “and everyone cleans up after their dog.”

Read: These maps show Boston’s wealthiest and most populous neighborhoods — plus other key trends.

🧩 6 Across: More scarce | 🌧️ 42° Another storm

Grand New Party: How do you build a statewide slate of Republicans in a Democratic state? Nearly half of the Mass. GOP candidates didn’t use to be Republicans.

Farewell advice: After nearly 15 years of health system leadership, the departing CEO of Beth Israel Lahey Health offers this advice to others.

Hitting the brakes? After an ambitious state law, Lexington welcomed a wave of new housing. Now, people there are having second thoughts.

Hyde Park fatal bus crash: The driver has been indicted.

Patriots, strippers, and hookahs: A downtown restaurant’s liquor license is in jeopardy after it allegedly hosted Patriots players and guests after their AFC Championship in January. A decision is expected today.

‘Culture of secrecy’: In a scathing report, R.I. authorities accused the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence of decades of “inaction, concealment, and revictimization” in complaints of clergy sexual abuse of hundreds of children.

Centers of suffering, campaigning: Federal immigration facilities have become backdrops for Democratic politicians seeking to fight President Trump’s immigration policies.

‘The best time to remember God’: Amid crackdowns, the Somali community leans into faith during Ramadan.

When is a reno worth it? Here’s how to judge the return on a home investment.

🧸 ‘Ted’ talk: Seth MacFarlane and the “Ted” cast talk Massholes, potty-mouthed teddy bears, and why Boston may have “the worst accent”

🩰 A ‘Black Swan’ premiere: That’s among 30 sparkling arts events happening this spring around New England. Plus, why are more artists being banned from America?

🎥 Quiz: Test yourself with the Globe’s Academy Awards quiz.

⚽ Will $7.8 million stop the World Cup from coming here? Can Foxborough’s insistence on up-front security payments force the world’s soccer governing body to send matches somewhere else this summer?

♯ Teenage dreams: The future rock stars were teenagers when they wrote songs, influenced by David Bowie and Stevie Wonder, about a fictional nightclub. A half-century later, Squeeze has reworked and is releasing those songs.

💻 Death by chatbot? A new lawsuit alleges Google’s chatbot sent a man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit. When that failed, it set a suicide countdown clock for him. (WSJ)

🍕 And a red cup, please: Fans are tracking down the few Pizza Hut Classic red-roofed restaurants that remain in the 6,200-store chain. (NYT)

Thanks for reading Starting Point.

This newsletter was edited by Heather Ciras and produced by Ryan Orlecki.

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Dave Beard can be reached at dave.beard@gmail.com. Follow him on X @dabeard.