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Background on the zoning updates

‣ Highlight clips from *The Rozzie Zoning Zoom:* an expert panel discussed how the new zoning will it affect housing, amenities, affordability, parking, and displacement.

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Sample Talking Points

WHAT I LIKE | Allowing up to 7 stories in Roslindale Square’s commercial core, and up to 5 stories in sections of Washington, Cummins, and Belgrade.
- Taller buildings in the heart of the Square will look great. High-demand commercial areas near transit should be taller! That’s how most cities do it.
- We need more neighbors! Boston already has a shortage of tens of thousands of homes, but Roslindale’s population and housing stock has grown at an even slower rate than neighborhoods. From the Small Area Plan: Roslindale’s population only grew 2.7% between 2010 and 2020, compared with the citywide growth rate of 13.2%.
- More people living in the heart of the Square means more customers for local businesses.
- The ground floor active use requirement will protect against a loss in storefront space in the Square. If anything, we may see more of them.
- The flexibility in how the upper floors can be used will allow for a wider variety of organizations to set roots here. In addition to housing, the upper floors can be used for offices, art studios, museums, places of worship, K12 education, health clinics, and restaurants!
- Having more public transit commuters strengthens the case for increased commuter rail service, or better yet, extending Orange Line service along the Needham Line. Greater train frequency will mean more riders. This means fewer cars on the road, and that’s good for everyone, especially the people who really do need to drive.
- More homes and businesses will generate more tax revenue for the City, taking some of the growing property tax burden off of individual renters and homeowners.
WHAT I LIKE | Allowing for a high-rise placemaker development on the MBTA lots and Citizens Bank site.
- This creates an opportunity to build something really special, like the Bolling Building in Nubian Square.
- This is the best location for a taller structure in the Square, as it abuts existing commercial buildings, parking lots, the Beacon Academy school, and an existing high-density apartment building on Conway St.
- Given its location, it won’t be casting shadows on anyone’s flower garden!
- The placemaker development must set aside at least 30% of its area for an outdoor amenity space. This means more greenery and public gathering places for our community.
- This makes it more likely that our neighborhood will change significantly in the years to come, and I’m for it. To thrive, we need to add more dynamism to the Square. Cities and neighborhoods that stagnate lose out to those that build and adapt. I don’t want that to be our fate.
- [The points above about the 7- and 5-story buildings apply here, too]
WHAT I LIKE | Allowing for 4-story structures in various places
- The places mapped with S0 or S1 basically just legalizes (or affirms) what’s already built there. It’s unlikely these areas will be significantly redeveloped under this zoning.
- It would be great to see more 2F-5000 areas like Lee Hill Rd. changed to S0/S1 to reflect the actual density that these areas already have, which is often more than 2F.
WHAT CAN BE BETTER | Cummins Highway should be zoned S0 or S1 all the way to Hyde Park Ave.
- Especially with the investment in the former Irving School site, we should be encouraging more people to live nearby and improving the area’s walkability.
WHAT CAN BE BETTER | We need to revisit this zoning again in 5 years, rather than having to wait another 15+ years
- Ideally, after these zones are adopted, the Planning Department will expand them and increase the zone density over time.
- The goal should be to revisit and increase the zoning (i.e. S1 to S2) every few years, as well as extend the borders of every Squares + Streets area. Good urban design involves continuous and connecting corridors to squares.
- For example, the Squares + Streets zoning should be extended further West on Belgrade to West Roxbury Parkway; further South on Washington street to Enneking Parkway; and further North on Washington Street until it links up with Forest Hills.
- We hope to see broader, citywide upzoning similar to what was recently passed in Cambridge, but see immediate benefit in this map.

Responses to common complaints about upzoning

“This will increase displacement.”
- Displacement is already a huge problem in Boston, and the biggest reason is that we don’t have enough homes, which creates cutthroat competition and drive up prices. In the 15 years since Rozzie last updated its zoning, median rents have more than doubled, up from around $1,300 to ~$2,700.
- Housing is too unaffordable today because there are not enough homes to rent or buy that meet people’s needs and budgets. We need more homes of a mix of different sizes and prices.
- Adding more housing options is a way to protect people from displacement.
“Developers will tear down perfectly good triple deckers and replace them with luxury apartments.”
- Concerns that triple deckers in the S0/S1 areas will be torn down and replaced with 4-story small apartment buildings don’t account for how little financial incentive there is to do so. If you build more than 6 homes in a project, 20% of them have to be affordable. If you go to 4 stories, you need to add an elevator, which is very expensive and eats up a lot of floor space. I haven’t met a developer yet who said they’d want to touch a project like this. That’s not to say there couldn’t be a project here and there that makes financial sense, but the point is that we’re not looking at an extinction-level event for triple deckers.
- There is very little interest among anyone - pro-housing activists or City planners - to see a bunch of naturally occurring affordable (at least theoretically) housing, i.e. triple deckers, get torn down. This zoning and other regulations are calibrated to discourage that by making it very expensive.