On Thursday, Oct. 15, the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) Board of Directors met at City Hall. There, it unanimously authorized the adoption of the Planning Department’s Squares + Streets (S+S) Small Area Plan for Cleary Square, as well as a petition to the Boston Zoning Commission (BZC) to adopt the S+S zoning map and text amendments.

It was the latest milestone in the arduous saga that has been playing out between City Hall and Hyde Park advocates – in fits and starts, and with grinding attrition – since February of 2024.

That’s when the then-BPDA came to the neighborhood to officially kick off Mayor Michelle Wu’s S+S initiative – the core of which is to rezoneneighborhood business districts to ease the way for greatly increased building height and density catering to residential development. Opponents in Hyde Park have stressed this will likely come at the expense of the rezoned areas commercial/business/retail-use potential.

The disconnect between the Planning Department and Hyde Park advocates regarding the rezoning was significant enough that – by the summer of 2024 – a group of neighborhood volunteers had formed an ad hoc committee to draft a citizens petition for submission to the BZC to address its concerns with the S+S zoning districts that had been codified that spring. It also began regularly holding meetings to try to better educate the community about the initiative.

The petition forced the Planning Department to engage and, over the course of the more than two years since then, the S+S process was temporarily paused, an anti-displacement action plan was released by City Hall, and two new S+S zoning districts – informed by those proposed in the citizens petition – were added to the six that had been codified in April of 2024.

The map authorized by the BPDA Board featured those two added zoning districts prominently, most notably with a four-story (SC) zone (reduced from seven stories and then six) on the block of River Street between Hyde Park Avenue and Harvard Avenue, and with a six-story (S3-6) zone (reduced from seven stories) on the Cleary Square blocks of Hyde Park Avenue.

An S3-6 zoning district was also mapped in the areaby Fairmount station parallel to Pierce Street, with the explanation that there had been community input for more transit-oriented housing there, and that its larger floorplate would better allow for structured parking layouts that can accommodate both residents and commuter rail riders.

The first version of the draft map was released in March, and its downsizing since then has been significant. Community pushback played a role in that, but the interaction between the ad hoc committee – which utilized District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepén and State Representative Rob Consalvo (14th Suffolk) as intermediaries – and the Planning Department was pivotal.

It was also done behind the scenes, and the Planning Department did not hold any public meetings– as it had in March and then in June after its first two versions of the map had been released – to present what would be the final BPDA Board version to the community at large.

Instead, the ad hoc committee held its own meeting the night before the BPDA Board’s vote to present the Planning Department’s map and text amendment – which had been posted on the Cleary Square S+S webpage the prior Thursday and released via email – to the 30-40 residents who attended, and to once again try to answer their questions about the zones and the initiative.

Unresolved concerns were also raised about anti-displacement, affordability, a neighborhood traffic study (S+S developments have no parking minimums), and tree canopy. There was also discussion about making the aspirations of the S+S Small Area Plan (which includes quality of life categories such as arts & culture and open space resiliency) more likely to be realized.

At the core, however, were still the incoming zoning districts, and their potential impact.

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“That’s where everybody in the room comes in,” Mimi Turchinetz, who had led the meeting, put forward at one point, alluding to the last couple of years. “They respond to organizing and they respond to people power, and we’re just going to have to keep on addressing those issues.”

The next day’s appointment at the BPDA Board for S+S was straightforward, and the outcome was never in doubt, but there was a telling exchange that took place when BPDA Board Chair Priscilla Rojas – in the context of the Cleary Square map’s reduced heights in response to community feedback – asked about the process for a developer to increase density beyond a zoning district’s limit.

Deputy Director of Comprehensive Planning Caitlin Coppingerresponded that “we’re happy to have that conversation and potentially rezone for a project once it goes through the Article 80 process. We’re happy to have that conversation if the project is in support of the community.”

As the S+S community process has played out, the point was raised at different times that the new zoning districts – with their more relaxed requirements enabling a greater range of as-of-right construction – would lead the Zoning Board of Appeal to grant fewer variances. However, developers are also able to petition the BZC to build beyond zoning limits – an option not typically utilized because of the relative ease of obtaining zoning relief under the current system.

“I’m just going to challenge us all, as an agency, and as a community, and fellow residents, to – as we come to these consensuses – be thinking about the entire housing need that we need, not just for… what we need to make available for this particular neighborhood, but across the city, and the magnitude of what that is,” Rojas replied, while still praising the Cleary Square package.

The exchange shed light – however briefly – on the push and pull between City Hall and the neighborhoods that could be felt from the beginning of the S+S community process, and the Planning Department’s balancing act between the neighborhoodand the BPDA Board.

The S+S zoning map and text amendment for Cleary Square will now go to the BZC, which meets virtually and will hold a public hearing prior to its vote. This is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18. To register, visit bosplans.org/BZC-Nov182026. For information, visit https://gvimes.link/plnbzc or call 617-918-4308.

To access the S+S map, text amendment, and small area plan for Cleary Square, visit https://gvimes.link/clearysquares