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Do you live, work, or have strong ties in Allston-Brighton? Are you interested in working with the City to shape the future of the community? You might be interested in joining a Community Advisory Board. Learn more and apply!
The Allston-Brighton Community Plan (ABCP) is a 20-month planning process that will develop a shared vision for future change, in close collaboration with the Allston-Brighton community. To realize this vision, the Plan will include strategies and recommendations for City staff, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, and more. These strategies and recommendations will guide:
- Where and how developers build new housing or other public amenities
- The type, appearance, and density of new buildings, in certain areas
- How people get around the community
- Park space or other open space development
- And more!
City staff will be developing the plan with a Boston-based consulting team (Meet the Team). The team includes planners, designers, and community advocates rooted in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. To ensure an equity-focused process, the team is committed to three goals:
- To share information and power with community members, community organizations, and City officials
- To invest in place-based leadership
- To enable community members & organizations and City officials to partner in creating shared priorities and strategies
The planning process will take place through the end of 2025. The Plan strategies will focus on what is possible in the next 3–10 years (from 2028–2035).
About
What is a community plan? What is the Allston-Brighton Community Plan?
A community plan guides future development (changes to the physical environment) for all parts of a community. The Allston-Brighton Community Plan will look at the next 3-10 years (from 2028-2035), which is within the range that plans often look at. This timeline allows the City to make reasonable projections about economic or population trends, and still “think big” about possible future changes.
The ABCP will take several factors into account, including:
- Community knowledge and feedback;
- An assessment of community needs and opportunities;
- Other plans or development projects that are happening in a community;
- Current conditions in land use, transportation, housing, open space, community resources, economic development, and employment.
The plan includes goals, recommendations, and implementation strategies that answer: what kinds of changes are desired by residents, businesses, large institutions, and others who may be impacted by future development in the community? How will these changes be achieved?
What can a community plan do, and what can’t it do?
A community plan is a powerful tool to achieve the types of changes that are desired for the future. In a nutshell: here’s what a plan does and does not do, plus what that means for the Allston-Brighton Community Plan.
A community plan does:
- Bring together different views through engagement, to create a shared vision for the future
- Provide guidance to the City on future developments and investments
- Coordinate City decisions on the location, financing, and timing of developments and investments
- Identify physical areas that should be rezoned to achieve community priorities (for example: more affordable housing, more open space, more areas that have a mix of residential and retail uses)
- Guide future zoning regulations in the community, which impacts the type (e.g., residential; retail), appearance, density, and distribution of buildings and open spaces
A community plan does not:
- Create new zoning codes for the community. This is usually part of a separate process. In Boston, zoning is overseen by the City’s Zoning Reform team. This team will work on zoning recommendations during the course of the Allston-Brighton Community Plan.
- Compel private or public actors (e.g., developers, City or state agencies, academic institutions) to invest or build on desired areas. However, the plan does identify priority areas, and it does include guidance on how investment and development should happen in these areas.
What city planners and the consultant team are doing for the ABCP:
- Making sure that community members can define what they want to see in the next 3–10 years
- Topics will include: land use & urban form; housing; economy & employment; resilience/ecology/open space; community capacity and resources; mobility; infrastructure & services
- Focus on how these changes will happen—making sure this plan does not “sit on the shelf”—and identifying where these changes should happen
- Making sure that this document is flexible and responds to community needs and desires over time—not a rigid policy document
- Coordinating with different City and community representatives to make sure everyone understands their role in implementation
Language Accessibility
Language access services are available to you free of charge. Please contact Christine Brandao to request.
Los servicios de acceso a idiomas están disponibles sin cargo. Por favor llame o envíe un mensaje a Christine Brandao con la solicitud.
您可以免费获得语言翻译服务。请联系 或 Christine Brandao 要求提供翻译。
免費向您提供語言服務。請聯絡 或 Christine Brandao 提出要求。
Meet the Team
City staff are working in partnership with a Boston-based consulting team of planners, designers, and community advocates. The consulting team is led by Grayscale Collaborative, with strategy and analysis support from Agency Landscape + Planning, RKG Associates, Toole Design Group, and the Allston-Brighton Health Collaborative (ABHC). The team will work with community stakeholders to analyze how zoning, land use, housing, economic development, transportation, and services work today—and to create a Plan that is both implementable and reflects the kind of changes that community stakeholders want to see.
Upcoming Planning Events in Allston-Brighton
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