The Hyde Park Neighborhood Association (HPNA) met last Thursday June 4. Earlier that day, the Boston Planning Department had given official notice that a community meeting to present its updated Squares + Streets (S+S) zoning map and plan for Cleary Square would be held on Wednesday, June 17 from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at the Hyde Park Municipal Building (1179 River St.).

The initial draft plan and map for Cleary Square was released for public comment on March 17.

Since then, there have been two Planning Board public meetings in which most participating residents expressed profound dissatisfaction with the map’s proposed seven-story zones (especially for the block of River Street between Hyde Park Avenue and Harvard Avenue) and the spread of the S+S zoning districts into the residential areas surrounding the business district.

At the heart of the S+S initiative is the rezoning of neighborhood business districts to allow for greatly increased residential development – while also allowing for a reduction in commercial footprints. Hyde Park’s Cleary Square and Roslindale Square were the first two areas selected for S+S by City Hall, and their planning processes kicked off in February 2024.

Roslindale Square’s S+S zoning map was adopted by the Boston Zoning Commission last May. Among the districts, the one around Adams Park allows for up to seven stories (from three). Another, at Roslindale Village commuter station, allows for up to 145 feet (about 12 stories).

A property owner is permitted to build to the scale, height, and use of that site’s zoning code as of right. As an example, if a developer were to adhere to the guidelines of a seven-story S+S zoning district, the community would have much less binding leverage in the matter because there would be no violations requiring any variances from the Zoning Board of Appeal.

That is the basic idea of S+S zoning: to ease building restrictions to encourage more housing.

S+S rezoning for Cleary Square has proceeded at a slower pace because – for the last two-and-a-half years – Hyde Park community groups have raised concerns about the negative impacts of the largely untested S+S zoning districts; they include residential and business displacement, affordability; traffic congestion, parking problems (there are no parking minimums), inadequate public transportation for what is being proposed, and a lack of tree canopy protection.

In response, the Planning Department paused the Cleary Square S+S process, City Hall put together an anti-displacement action plan, and an ad hoc S+S committee drafted a citizens petition that led to a non-public dialogue with City Hall resulting in two new S+S zones and what the committee had thought was a working agreement on the S+S zoning map.

Yet, when the Planning Department finally released its draft map in March, there was incredulous shock from some, followed by community-led efforts attempting to downsize the zones.

Consequently, the June 17 meeting notice was the first item of business discussed last Thursday, and HPNA President Mimi Turchinetz announced that she had been informed by the Planning Department that the updated S+S zoning map would only be released the day before it.

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The meeting is being advertised as a “Plan Updates and Closeout” session and – shifting forward the timetable presented by the Planning Department in March – it is slated to be the last scheduled public meeting before the Cleary Square S+S plan goes before the BPDA Board for approval in July and the zoning map goes before the BZC for adoption in August.

“Having the map and the small area plan one day before makes it very difficult to analyze and be able to critique,” Turchinetz said of the limited review time. “It just makes it really, really hard.”

HPNA member Craig Martin was more succinct. “It’s a slap in the face.”

The request was made to District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepén and Mayor Wu’s Office of Neighborhood Services – via constituent services staff members in attendance – to see if the Planning Board would either release the map earlier or reschedule the meeting to a later date.

As a byproduct of S+S, the meeting’s only appointment focused on nascent community efforts to ratchet up historical preservation in Hyde Park. Local resident Dean Lampros gave an overview of the protections provided by architectural conservation districts (ACD), for which major exterior property changes would need to be reviewed by a local commission established for that purpose.

Hyde Park Avenue from West Street to Webster Street, Central Avenue from Dell Avenue to Logan Square, and the Pierce and Davison section behind the fire station were all suggested as possible ACDs. All of those sections have also been mapped for S+S zoning districts that – if adopted – would open the door to larger scale development in those residential areas.

“This is a work in progress,” Lampros made clear. “There are no boundaries right now because nothing has been proposed. It’s the very beginning of the conversation.”

The HPNA meets on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the Hyde Park Municipal Building/BCYF (1179 River St.). For information, email hydeparkneighbors@gmail.com.