Longtime development activist Richard Giordano is stepping back from his position with the Fenway CDC, now filling a more supportive role in a neighborhood facing steep real estate headwinds.

Giordano served as the director of policy and community organizing with the Fenway Community Development Corporation (CDC) for over 20 years, handing over the reins to Cassie White in July.

Giordano will now be a “senior advisor for special projects,” a position he admits doesn’t have a clear-cut jurisdiction at this point.

“This has been in the works for more than a year and a half, so none of this is last-minute at all. As for the responsibilities of a senior advisor, we are kind of inventing things as we go along. I still have some useful connections and troubleshooting experience to help out with,” said Giordano.

During his time with the CDC Giordano has seen development in the Fenway change radically, with the life sciences boom pushing housing shortages to new heights. Community groups have made little progress in reinforcing zoning to rein in the development transforming their neighborhood.

“If you’re building that many square feet of lab, where’s the housing? Where’s the job training, the daycare? Most developers have all maintained that they can’t afford to build housing for the workforce they need. The project that gets built at the end of the day is the one that can pay for its construction costs,” said Giordano.

The recent approval of a 400-foot tower at 2 Charlesgate West by the Boston Planning and Development Agency highlighted many of these dynamics. The project saw overwhelming opposition from residents and requires a specific exemption to be added to the parks’ zoning ordinance, but with so few options for non-luxury housing there’s a lot of developers can get away with.

“People complain about the height of 2 Charlesgate West, but it’s practically the only development building market-rate housing. We have a million square feet of labs being built and more to come, each development producing 3,000-5,000 new jobs. Where do people live, and how do they get in and out if that’s not here? The city is yet to really give an answer to that,” said Giordano.

Developers and activists privately told The Boston Guardian those developers “could get a ham sandwich approved” by city planners in this environment, and Giordano didn’t contest that the narrative around development has been decidedly negative in recent months.

He wasn’t hopeful that the ongoing reform of Article 80 large project review would save the day, framing Boston’s issues as more about material conditions than pure institutional dysfunction.

“We’re all held captive by the same overall real estate market. There are large forces at work here that the City of Boston doesn’t really control, and it’s unfortunate that to some degree what gets built is what the market will decide has the greatest return. Developers will say costs are too high, residents will say we’re not building the housing we need for the people who are here. And they’re both right. But we can’t keep doing this,” said Giordano.

Solving a fundamental problem like that would in his eyes likely take a large-scale solution at the federal level like Section 8 housing subsidies.

Yet even without a federal bailout, there are options at the local level. Giordano was cautiously optimistic about what can be achieved by broad partnerships between civic housing organizations like the CDC, private investors, developers and local politicians coming together to oppose housing as a speculative asset.

“Something like what we saw in East Boston with MINT, a Mixed Income Neighborhood Trust. The East Boston Neighborhood Trust was a combination of everybody and his brother and sister, a private owner looking to sell a hundred and fourteen units, working with the local CDC and the city and tenant organizers and outside investors. It’s more complicated than just finding a conventional buyer, it’s a model that can preserve things” he said.