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Mcgregor Legere & Stevens Proudly Represents the Friends of the Prouty Garden Featured

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Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) has had a world-class healing garden. It was built and endowed over 60 years ago by popular author Olive Higgins Prouty of Brookline, MA in memory of her two daughters who died in childhood.

The Prouty Garden is a half-acre in size. Until destruction by BCH in December 2016, it provided open sky, shade trees (including a mature Dawn Redwood), walking paths, wide swaths of grass, beautiful flowers, playful statuary, pond and fountain, private alcoves for solitude, and the opportunity to experience wildlife such as birds, squirrels and rabbits.
 
Olive Prouty meant for her Garden to remain in perpetuity and BCH accepted it on that condition. A plaque at the entrance read: “Mrs. Prouty insisted on maintaining this location as a ‘haven for patients, families, and staff to enjoy it…This Garden will exist as long as Children’s Hospital has patients, families, and staff to enjoy it.”
 
Our firm represents the Friends of the Prouty Garden (FPG) on its mission to save the Garden from permanent destruction by raising awareness about its importance and gathering support to urge BCH to change its plans to put its $1 billion expansion on the Garden.
 
The FPG is comprised of hundreds of members around New England, the US, and the world, including many patients, family members, community supporters, financial donors, physicians and other medical professionals, as well as over 13,000 online supporters.
 
Research demonstrates this value. Patients with access to nature or even just able to see trees heal faster, need less pain medication, and have fewer post-surgery complications. Countless former and present BCH  patients have spoken out to say that Prouty Garden has been a place where they can escape, for a while, the confining hospital atmosphere and feel like kids again.
 
Professor Clare Cooper Marcus, emeritus professor of landscape architecture at he University of California and Berkeley and a leading expert in therapeutic landscaping, calling the Prouty Garden “one of the ‘most successful hospital gardens in the country.’”
 
We are also supported by noted biologist Professor E.O. Wilson and “America’s pediatrician” Dr. T. Berry Brazelton. They wrote and  testified for the proven healing power of nature and against the devastating loss of the Prouty Garden.
 
Our firm is honored to represent the FPG intervenor group in state licensing proceedings and now in the courts over compliance with the laws of Massachusetts. Our clients and witnesses are firm in their opinion that  BCH’s business plan to increase revenues, by drawing on more full-pay international patients, is heavily outweighed by sacrifice of the Prouty Garden.

Read our FAQ regarding the Prouty Garden...

 

Read 3603 times Last modified on Monday, 23 January 2017 11:22
Gregor I. McGregor, Esq.

GREGOR I. McGREGOR, Esq. is the founder of New England’s oldest environmental law firm McGregor & Associates, PC in Boston, formed in 1975 and now McGregor Legere & Stevens,PC (formerly McGregor & Legere PC). The firm handles all aspects of environmental law, land use, real estate, and related litigation. The firm is a founding member of the Environmental Law Network (ELN), an alliance of specialty law firms, in the United States and abroad, sharing their legal expertise and practical experience for the benefit of their clients. Mr. McGregor enjoys Martindale-Hubbell’s highest rating for attorneys (AV).

In 45 years of environmental practice, Mr. McGregor's cases in court broke new ground in the law of Environmental Impact Statements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), wetland and floodplain protection under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, hazardous waste cleanup liability and cost-recovery under the Massachusetts Superfund, reduced taxes and tax exemptions for qualified land conservation transactions, constitutional protections for open space and parkland, Home Rule environmental ordinances and bylaws of cities and towns, law enforcement and contempt remedies, and the constitutional doctrine of Regulatory Takings.

Before 1975, Mr. McGregor was an Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts and the first chief of the Attorney General’s Division of Environmental Protection. In that capacity he advised and represented the Commonwealth during the formative years of Massachusetts environmental statutes, agencies, regulations, enforcement and cases in court.

Mr. McGregor is editor of the two-volume treatise on Massachusetts Environmental Law, published by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc.(MCLE). He is co-chair of MCLE’s annual Environmental, Land Use, and Energy Law Conference and MCLE’s Real Estate and Environmental Law Curriculum Advisory Committee. He received from MCLE in 2013 its Scholar-Mentor Award recognizing his dedication to legal scholarship and leadership.

Mr. McGregor chairs the Environmental Committee of the Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts (REBA) and serves as a member of the REBA Board of Directors. He is an active member of the Massachusetts Municipal Lawyers Association (MMLA), which honored him for his career contributions to legal education and effective advocacy on the Home Rule Doctrine. At the National CLE Conference in Vail, CO, Mr. McGregor co-chairs an annual seminar on Environmental Law, Land Use, Energy & Litigation for attorneys from across the United States.

Mr. McGregor is a long time member of the board of directors of the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions (MACC) having served as Board President twice. He has handled several cases for MACC as amicus and is a regular presenter at their annual meeting.

Mr. McGregor is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.

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