The Article 80 reform process is finally about to begin public debate, though civic stakeholders in the South End say the committee’s consultants didn’t consult them for their expertise on the neighborhood’s fraught development review process.

The Steering Committee in charge of reforming Article 80 is preparing to deliver specific recommendations on how to change the law, which will kick off a full public review process before heading to the mayor’s office for a final decision.

Anthony D’Isidoro, president of the Allston Civic Association and the sole representative of civic groups on the nine-member steering committee, said the two consulting firms selected in June are expected to complete their public outreach and give their conclusions in the committee’s April meeting.

The steering committee has operated behind closed doors for 14 months. Completion of its work with consultants would kick off public debate through a wide range of platforms, including public meetings, online forums, surveys and office hours.

While the timeline and means of that public debate hasn’t yet been set, once it’s complete it will fall to the mayor’s office to decide what will and won’t be in the final legislation proposed to replace today’s Article 80 process.

The decision to begin the reform process with a closed door committee inaccessible to most of the public and civic community has already mired it in controversy. Despite claims that the consulting firms selected have reached out to a wide variety of stakeholders, the largest civic group in the South End is yet to hear from them.

Steve Fox, head of the South End Forum and a veteran of dozens of Article 80 reviews, said he would’ve loved to tell the consultants where the process falls short, but he was never invited to participate.

“Neighborhoods need to see the full menu of possible proposals. The Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) and developers essentially decide what the project is and then the community is brought in, very late in the process when the direction is already set. We used to engage very early with developers,” he said.

Ironically, that’s exactly what he says has already gone wrong with the process to reform the process.

“They’re bringing the public in late and asking us to respond to a set of recommendations they’ve formulated privately behind closed doors.

This is precisely the wrong approach, and it’s characteristic of city outreach. They make a set of recommendations, they decide what the initiative will look like, then they bring us in as an audience to give input,” he said.

Sue Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Improvement District, says she was invited to a meeting but that the process didn’t seem especially formalized.

“I have been minimally reached out to.

I was invited to one group meeting at City Hall, and I thought I would be grouped in with other similar organizations, but it was kind of all over the place, kind of random,” she said. “It didn’t really feel like we were part of the process.”

Sullivan said the most important thing for Article 80 reform is consistency from the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA,) for both developers and the community. “There’s been a shift toward less transparency rather than more, and a lot depends on which official handles a given project,” she said. “Often a developer wants fourteen stories in a four-story zone, the BPDA says they can have ten. They draw up a ten-story blueprint and then the BPDA says they actually want eight. That’s not a fair process for anyone.”