PLAN: East Boston | Bostonplans.org

Adopted PLAN: East Boston and Accompanying Zoning Amendments

PLAN: East Boston was adopted by the BPDA Board on January 18, 2024. Its accompanying zoning amendments were approved by the BPDA Board on March 14, 2024 and adopted by the Boston Zoning Commission on April 24, 2024.

Overview of PLAN: East Boston

Context

PLAN: East Boston is a neighborhood-wide planning initiative to guide growth in East Boston. The BPDA initiated the PLAN following a City Council hearing in the summer of 2018, sponsored by then City Councilor (now Senator) Lydia Edwards and the then Chair of the Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation (now Mayor) Michelle Wu. These stakeholders called on the BPDA and all other relevant City of Boston departments to confront the many challenges facing the East Boston community, naming specifically the pressures of growth, the threats of climate change, and the need for planning that prioritizes equity, resilience, and quality of life.

Following six years of planning and community engagement, the BPDA Board adopted the PLAN on January 18, 2024. The PLAN area includes the entirety of the neighborhood, except for Logan Airport and the Suffolk Downs Redevelopment site. The roughly two square miles included in the plan are home to more than 47,000 residents and comprise a geography similar in size to the City of Somerville. It is connected to the cities of Boston, Chelsea, and Revere and the town of Winthrop by no fewer than three tunnels, three bridges, and a highway. It is serviced by five stops on the MBTA Blue Line. The PLAN: East Boston Study Area also fronts two major bodies of water, including over 12 miles of coastline, and is home to the City's last remaining salt marsh.

Summary & Goals

PLAN: East Boston details planning recommendations focused on: (1) public realm and transportation improvements, including strategies slated for both near- and long-term implementation; (2) updated regulations for land use and built form, which re-calibrate and modernize zoning for the neighborhood; and (3) broader policy and program considerations that highlight ambitious, inter-departmental planning opportunities throughout East Boston, as well as the recommended strategies for achieving them. The PLAN’s recommendations are organized by “character areas” (including Neighborhood Residential Areas, Squares and Corridors, and Evolving Waterfront and Industrial Areas), to provide geographically- and typologically-specific planning strategies for each of East Boston’s varied built and natural environments.

View a map of Neighborhood Character Areas

The development of PLAN: East Boston and its accompanying recommendations was guided by five key goals:

Housing - Expand access to housing options that are affordable, stable, and able to meet households needs as they change over time.
Climate and Environment - Advance climate preparedness and promote a healthy environment.
Transportation - Ensure access to travel choices that connect all parts of the neighborhood to all parts of the city both safely and reliably.
Jobs and Economy - Support neighborhood economies that meet the needs of local communities as well as regional industries.
Urban Form - Guide neighborhood growth that is predictable and contextual and contributes to a public realm that is active and connected.

Transportation & Public Realm Recommendations

PLAN: East Boston’s transportation and public realm recommendations are comprehensive, spanning all character areas and touching upon topics that are neighborhood or even regional in scale. In neighborhood residential areas, recommendations prioritize quality of life and safer streets by calling for traffic calming, smaller intersections, more greenery, and better access to bikeshare and carshare. The PLAN reimagines squares and corridors as dynamic gathering places for people, served by expanded and more frequent transit and made safer with simpler intersections and more crossings. Within waterfront and evolving industrial areas, the PLAN links Climate Ready Boston recommendations for coastal resilience with modernized bridges and corridors or even new regional transit connections. Throughout all character areas, the plan emphasizes strategies to manage stormwater, protect from coastal flooding, and reduce extreme heat island effect.

Land Use & Built Form Recommendations

PLAN: East Boston’s land use and built form recommendations introduce strategies to reform East Boston’s zoning. These recommendations, implemented through amendments to Article 53 of the Zoning Code (East Boston’s Neighborhood Zoning): recalibrate residential zoning to better reflect East Boston’s existing buildings, provide opportunities for new mixed-use development to occur in specific geographies that are in direct proximity to transit; encourage active streets by relaxing commercial land use allowances and amending parking requirements; and simplify and modernize zoning to improve accessibility to the Code and better align regulation with current best practices and the Planning Department’s ongoing zoning reform efforts.

Policy & Program Considerations

PLAN: East Boston’s policy and program recommendations communicate big-picture, inter-departmental considerations that, at times, look both beyond the 30-year timeline of the PLAN and the boundaries of the neighborhood itself. These program and policy considerations demonstrate the city’s commitment to supporting existing residents and growth of small businesses and creative enterprises, and present bold and ambitious ideas including, but not limited to, the transformation of the Blue Line and the Route 1A corridor.

Community Engagement

Overview

Engagement for PLAN: East Boston began in the summer of 2018 and continued through the PLAN’s adoption in 2024. Engagement events were designed to reach a wide range of participants, and special effort was made to engage groups typically underrepresented in planning processes. Engagement events included in-person workshops, open houses, neighborhood walking tours, and “chat with a planner” and “pop-up” events. Spanish language access, including translated materials and simultaneous interpretation services, was provided at all in-person and virtual events. Staff regularly attended neighborhood and civic association meetings and other community-hosted events. Over the PLAN’s development, staff hosted and attended more than 200 community engagement events. In addition, community input on PLAN: East Boston and its accompanying zoning amendments was gathered through a 100+ day public comment period.

PLAN: East Boston Public Comments

East Boston Tomorrow - Existing Conditions Report

The first 18 months of the PLAN: East Boston initiative focused on establishing existing conditions for the neighborhood, using publicly available data and deep local knowledge to document the neighborhood as it exists today. That process culminated in the 2019 release of East Boston Today, a comprehensive existing conditions report of East Boston.