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Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Downtown Boston zoning changes could allow buildings up to 700 feet tall
The skyline of downtown Boston could soon be getting a lot taller. Zoning changes proposed for downtown, stretching from the Boston Common to the Rose Kennedy Greenway, would allow developers to construct new buildings up to 700 feet tall, or about 70 stories, in some areas. Closer to the Common, heights will be capped at 100 to 155 feet. Currently, the tallest building in that area is Winthrop Center at 691 feet and 52 stories tall, which was completed last year. The next-tallest is the Millennium Tower, at 684 feet and 60 stories; the South Station tower, currently under construction, will eventually reach 677 feet and 51 stories. Almost immediately after the final draft zoning was released Thursday, downtown residents began airing their concerns about what it could lead to. 'This is not thoughtful, comprehensive planning - it is a high-rise tower gamble devoid of sound analysis and valid proof of concept,' a group of neighborhood organizations wrote in a shared statement Thursday evening. 'Furthermore, it will not yield meaningful on-site, truly affordable housing and stands to threaten the character of the neighborhood.' The changes are part of Boston's PLAN: Downtown initiative, part of the larger overhaul of the convoluted zoning code. The city has said the changes will allow for higher housing density, creating more homes to address the housing crisis. Any residential development will have to set aside 20% of the units created as affordable housing under the existing inclusionary zoning rules. The original draft of the new zoning was released in January, and from the beginning, it received fierce opposition. During the initial public comment period, hundreds of residents sent in letters, the vast majority railing against the proposal. 'To me, this plan represents the 'Manhattanization' of Boston, and (I) am strongly opposed to that happening in a city with a totally different history, character, and size from that of New York,' one downtown resident, Esther Messing, wrote in an email to the Planning Department, according to a compilation of public comment letters released by the city. 'We did not buy in a high-rise tower in the Seaport, we chose to be in a neighborhood that we committed to making more of a community,' wrote Anne Peacher, another downtown resident. 'This plan does the EXACT OPPOSITE of what we hoped.' Under the newest version, the area will be broken up into two zoning districts, 'SKY' and 'SKY-LOW-D.' The latter, consisting of the corridor closest to the Boston Common and another section closer to the waterfront, has lower maximum building heights to prioritize 'preservation of existing structures and scale' in areas with many historic buildings. Since the initial January proposal, the map has been changed to include more areas in this district, including Park Plaza, the areas around Reader's Plaza and the Old South Meeting House and the Ladder Blocks along Washington Street. In the newest draft, the SKY-LOW-D district also allows for planned development areas, a type of development project that introduces specialty zoning, usually more permissive than the existing zoning. Planned Development Areas will only be possible on lots of at least 1 acre that include a city landmark, and must be predominantly residential. In the remaining SKY district, building heights will be restricted by laws governing shadows on the Common and Federal Aviation Administration airspace rules, whichever is lower. This means that in the area farthest from the Common, buildings can reach 700 feet, but as they get closer, the maximum height will decrease. The Back Bay, Bay Village and Downtown Boston Neighborhood Associations, Beacon Hill Civic Association, Boston Preservation Alliance, Freedom Trail Foundation, Friends of the Public Garden, Revolutionary Spaces and other residents of the area, who released the statement Thursday, said they would be happy with a compromise that extended the lower height restrictions further but still allowed tall buildings further into the Financial District. 'Boston still bears the scars of misguided, top-down planning efforts that led to the destruction of the West End and portions of Roxbury and the South End,' they wrote. 'We cannot afford to repeat those mistakes.' Boston cornhole competition to raise money for performing arts scholarship Feds put Boston and other cities 'on notice' over sanctuary laws WATCH: Baseball team congrats Mass. teen for completing cancer treatment Beloved New England gourmet grilled cheese brand opens new Boston spot Man who rented apartments for Mass. high-end brothel network sentenced to prison Read the original article on MassLive.
Boston Globe
29-01-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Wu trying to make the world a better place for people who love glass towers
The new plan is now on a fast track to approval — all in the name of creating more housing. Advertisement 'Nobody knew this was coming. Nobody had seen it before January and now they're saying you've got a month to approve it,' said Anthony Pangaro, one of the developers of Millennium Tower and now a resident of the area. 'This isn't planning. This is the very opposite of planning.' Get The Gavel [Coming soon] A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up He isn't alone in opposing the 'up-zoning' plan that was the topic of the BPDA's only public meeting earlier this month — a Pangaro, who knows a little something about building high rises and housing, said units in a new high rise in the Ladder District would cost at least $1,000 a square foot to build and would need to sell for at least $2,000 a square foot. 'They are very expensive to build, so you get luxury housing,' he said. 'There are more cost effective ways to build [housing].' One example is Advertisement Boston is no stranger to skyscrapers, even in the Downtown Crossing area, where the 60-story Millennium Tower — built in what But since 2018, city planners and community leaders had been working on a plan for the other side of Washington Street that extended through those 'ladder' streets to Boston Common — a preservation district where buildings would be capped at 155 feet. Then came COVID-19 and the Wu administration — first with Arthur Jemison heading the BPDA. Jemison left in mid-September. Kairos Shen returned to the BPDA in October to become the city's chief of planning after a stint at MIT. And, voila , a new more encompassing plan — running from the western side of Washington Street to the Common and Public Garden, from School Street and running along Stuart Street to Arlington Street. The new plan would allow buildings of up to 500 feet in much of that corridor, but only if they are 60 percent or more residential. Those who were part of the planning process over the past several years are feeling blindsided. 'What this amendment tells me is that you have not taken anything that we have said over these last years into account,' Martha McNamara, board chair of Revolutionary Spaces, which oversees the operations of the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, said during the Zoom meeting. 'The plan that Shen unveiled was completely different,' Pangaro said, 'and now it affects thousands of people. It's a very one-dimensional plan — essentially it says you build towers and you solve the housing problem. … The old plan was about preservation, renovation, and protection of the parks.' Advertisement As of last April that much smaller zone would have established a 155-foot height limit in the Ladder District and Washington Street, with an exception for a 23-story building proposed for the old and long vacant City Sports site on Bromfield Street. Shen told the virtual meeting that the proposal was actually a 'kind of compromise.' Well, kind of is right. That former low-rise zone is now bifurcated — lower buildings closer to the Common but the potential for 50-story ones on or nearer to Washington Street. It would also allow those hideous pencil buildings that now dot the Manhattan skyline. There is another way to create housing, and New York City seems to have found it with its What is astonishing is that Wu, who fought to bring the BPDA under her control and who as a city councilor fought for greater transparency in its workings, would then use it to produce a plan that makes the world a better place for people who love to live in glass towers. Rachelle G. Cohen is a Globe opinion writer. She can be reached at
