It’s payback time on the Esplanade.

In August, 2007, Richard Sullivan, then the newly appointed commissioner for the state’s Department of Conservation and Reservation, gave a pleasant short talk to the Beacon Hill and Back Bay committee that had been working on plans to redo the Storrow Drive tunnels. Then he asked for questions from the audience.

A Boston Globe reporter—possibly tipped off by an insider who didn’t like the direction Sullivan was going—asked about Sullivan’s plan, revived from one two years before that had been rejected,  to pave a part of the Esplanade as a diversion for traffic while the tunnel repairs were going on.

The room erupted. Linda Cox, a co-founder of the Esplanade Association, the group formed to support and advocate for the park, vowed to chain herself to a tree slated to be removed for the paving. Tony Pangaro stated it succinctly: “It’s out of the question.”

The paving didn’t happen. The tunnels are now undergoing repairs without a diversion.

But the damage was done. The 50 or so neighbors at the meeting never trusted Sullivan or DCR again.

So two years later, that distrust has been addressed in a proposal to designate the Esplanade from Craigie Dam to the BU bridge a Boston Landmark. The proposal has made it, despite DCR’s objections, to the Boston Landmarks Commission. See the proposal for yourself at http://www.cityofboston.gov/environment, and scroll down to Reports and Publications.

On June 23, the Boston Landmark Commissioners are scheduled to vote on a couple of amendments mostly acknowledging that a permanent fence proposed around the Teddy Ebersol Fields can be considered. If those amendments pass, then they will vote on the designation itself.

If the commissioners approve the landmark designation, the matter will go to the mayor, who has two weeks to approve it, reject it, or not comment. Unless he rejects it, the proposal will go to the city council, which has a month to consider it. So we should have a resolution by summer’s end.

The Esplanade, which the Boston Landmarks Commission values at $264,557,000, is complicated in that it is owned by the state, administered by DCR, but is in the city of Boston. Most parks in Boston— the Boston Common, the Public Garden, the Back Bay Fens, Jamaica Pond, the Riverway and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall—are already “landmarked.” Other DCR properties in Boston that have been landmarked by the city are the parkland on the north side of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Brighton and Brook Farm in West Roxbury.

Linda Cox said she and others were shocked to find out after they heard Sullivan’s paving proposal that the Esplanade was not protected in that way, so they got going.

The designation has a small but vocal group opposing landmarking. Commissioner Sullivan said the Esplanade is already protected by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the park’s designation as a National Historic Landmark. “Resources are scarce,” he said. “It adds another layer and ties up more staff time. DCR is sensitive to and responsible about the historic aspects of all our properties.”

A group of Back Bay and Beacon Hill residents are also on record in opposition. Tani Marinovich, a Byron Street resident, said she has a stack of letters opposing the designation. She is afraid landmarking would hamper efforts some mothers have begun to bring a new playground to replace the one that was taken out almost a decade ago between the Hatch Shell and Community Boating. She also thinks other new uses, such as a dog park, a separation of bike and pedestrian lanes and repair or replacement of parts such as the area known as Commissioners’ Landing, would be more difficult to obtain. “The common ground we have is that we all love the Esplanade,” she said. “But there are several things that need to be taken care of before we start landmarking.”

Besides, she said, the fact that neighbors stopped the temporary paving during construction is proof that the restrictions now in place are adequate.

The designation, however, has a lot of support. Ellen Lipsey, executive director of the Boston Landmarks Commission, said the 850 signatures the commission received in support was the greatest number of signatures ever received for such a matter.

Historic preservation groups—the Esplanade Association and the Boston Preservation Alliance— have signed onto the landmarking proposal.

The alliance supports the designation, according to executive director Sarah Kelly, because the current historic designations are limited. Kelly said the best thing about a designation is that it would establish criteria that everyone would know about in advance and abide by, much like the historic districts do for Beacon Hill, the Back Bay and the South End. Such criteria could actually mean less time spent by an agency such as DCR, since they would know ahead of time what was permissible and what was not, she maintained.

Kelly also said the process toward landmarks commission approval is clearly spelled out and open to the public. In addition, she pointed out that hearings before the landmarks or neighborhood commission often result in better plans that might even be cheaper since preservationists always come down on the side of repairing rather than replacing historic materials.

I’m sympathetic to the mothers who want a playground and dog owners who want a place for dogs to run. But in downtown Boston, we’re so used to the historic restrictions that have made our neighborhoods such pleasant places in which to live—as well as contributing to the value of our properties—that this seems a no-brainer.

Of course the Esplanade deserves the same protections as the other parks in our fair city.