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The latest Boston downtown rezoning plan heads for approval next month with a new high-rise district designed to stimulate housing development.
Boston’s new chief of planning, Kairos Shen, said the post-pandemic changes in the largely-commercial downtown area created a sense of urgency to create a mixed-use neighborhood.
“There is a recognition we should have more housing, so that people can live in the place that has the most transit capacity,” Shen said during a Boston Planning Department presentation Wednesday.
Downtown residents and preservationists said they were blindsided by the last-minute changes to a planning process that’s been taking place since 2018.
“From my point of view, there’s no real planning here,” said Anthony Pangaro, the Millennium Partners developer and a trustee of the One Charles condominium building. “It’s a development scheme that inflates land value and deflates land values of existing buildings.”
The revised plan allows maximum building heights of 500 feet on parcels lining the western side of Washington Street in a new “Sky-R” district, in buildings that are predominantly residential. Previously, the taller heights proposal only applied to one parcel west of Washington Street in Downtown Crossing, the 11-21 Bromfield St. site where an office tower is proposed by New York-based Midwood Investment & Development. However, many of these parcels are also covered by laws limiting the shadows that can be cast on the Public Garden.
The district also includes a section of properties at the southern end of Boston Common, including such properties as the Hilton Boston Park Plaza and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation headquarters.
Opponents predicted the zoning will result in a row of luxury condominium towers replacing the low-rise buildings along Washington Street. Members of an advisory group that’s been studying the PLAN: Downtown changes objected to the timing of the changes presented by planning department staff.
“What this amendment tells me if you have not taken anything we’ve said over the last four years into account,” said Martha McNamara, board chair of the Revolutionary Spaces group that operates the Old State House and Old South Meetinghouse historic sites.
The new zoning also encourages adaptive reuse of existing buildings, BPDA planners said Wednesday. It encourages “on top” additions similar to the one constructed at 40 Water St. in Post Office Square by Related Beal.
A public comment period runs through Feb. 4, and a vote is expected at the February meeting of the Boston Planning & Development Agency directors, Shen said.
Michael Nichols, president of the Downtown Business Alliance, said the group is “largely in support” of the updated plan but needed additional time to submit comments.
Declining commercial tax revenues have prompted an ongoing debate over new sources of funding as residential property taxes rise in Boston and the city searches for new revenue sources or faces significant budget cuts in coming years.
Image courtesy of Boston Planning Department
