In Massachusetts, like many other states across the country, development and construction of housing, commercial buildings and other land use is not haphazard. What can be built and developed depends on the zoning classification and zoning approval. Each of the 351 municipalities in the state adopts its own zoning system. A new plan can often take several years to create and legislate and can be hotly contested with competing interest groups who have their own take on whether more or less housing is built, how dense it should be, whether other commercial facilities should be allowed, provision for municipal services and where light and heavy industry should be located.
Zoning in Boston: who is in charge?
To give an example of a single municipality and how it organizes the zoning process, consider how zoning in Boston, Massachusetts’s largest city is organized. Several different agencies exert control over the zoning process in Boston.
The Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA), renamed from its former existence as the Boston Redevelopment Authority, is in charge of planning new neighborhoods. It does this in consultation with residents; it decides on things like height limits and density of new structures and strives to achieve a balance between what is worth keeping in older parts of Boston’s 26 neighborhoods with a vision for the future.
The city’s zoning code is maintained by the Zoning Commission.
Zoning compliance is overseen by the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA). The ZBA basically ensures that as development takes place anywhere in the city that it complies with the city’s zoning codes.
The agency that inspects buildings for health, sanitation and safety conditions is the Inspectional Services Department (ISD).
Boston’s mayor has overall control over all these agencies. The ISD Commissioner is appointed by the mayor as well as the director of the BPDA and members to the ZBA and the Zoning Commission.
Zoning classifications differ per municipality
As each municipality has its own zoning rules, the type of zoning classification in one town or city may be markedly different from its neighbor. Generally, residential districts are in a different zone than other land use classifications, such as open space / recreational, industrial and commercial, but whereas one zoning plan may include some commercial development in a largely residential zone, another may make it exclusively residential.
Also, what residents can do with their properties in one municipality’s zoning plan may not be the same as the next one. To give a simple example, residents in Boston cannot keep or raise poultry on their properties, but they can in neighboring Brookline.
Within each residential zone, there are also different rules for the type of home that can be built. In one residential zone, approvals may be granted for single family buildings, two family buildings, three family buildings, multi-family buildings, apartments, etc.
Zoning classifications don’t last forever. In an area that has been rezoned or where the zoning rules have changed it doesn’t necessarily mean that any building that doesn’t fit the new rules has to be torn down or removed. Depending on the municipality, zoning rules may be relaxed for specific purposes. Older buildings or structures may be “grandfathered,” basically left as they are or modified partly to fit the new rules. Features that have a particular value in their own right such as parks, wetlands and historic buildings may be protected in a new zoning classification in what is termed “overlay zoning.”
Types of Zoning Restrictions
Apart from the number of families in a single building allowed as mentioned above, there may be further classifications in a largely residential zone. One such classification is the floor to area ratio (FAR). This ratio is calculated by dividing the useful floor area of a building (excluding things like basements, attics or storage spaces) by the total area of the lot the building has been built on. The FAR is a useful measure of building density because a low FAR has greater empty space between adjacent buildings than a higher FAR. A FAR classification for a particular zone may restrict or allow renovations and extensions to existing homes.
Another similar zoning classification may be the maximum height of a new building. Height restrictions may not be aimed solely at residential buildings, but may be applied to all types of buildings such as commercial or industrial buildings.
Owners of buildings are also restricted in what they can use their properties for and how they can modify them, depending on the zoning classification where their home lies. The limits to what an owner can or cannot do are called “as-of-right” use. Getting an approval for a building renovation may become a contentious subject if it clashes with or exceeds zoning rules. The use of a homeowner’s building for commercial use may not be allowed “as-of-right,” for example, if the zoning plans are designed to separate residential from commercial areas.
How to find out zoning rules in Massachusetts
Each municipality generally has an online method which can be accessed publicly to find out what the zoning classification and codes are for a specific neighborhood. In Boston, for example, the BDPA has a “zoning viewer” that shows all relevant details for neighborhoods in the city. To take a simple example of how the zoning viewer can be used, if the Jamaica Plain neighborhood residential zoning rules are examined, you can see that the FAR must not exceed 0.6, building heights must not exceed 2 and a half stories or 35 feet in one family or two family residential sub-districts, while in three family residential sub-districts, often row houses or townhouses, the FAR goes up to 0.8, with the same maximum building height.
Zoning planning in action: deciding the fate of Suffolk Downs in Massachusetts.
Slated as the largest project that the BPDA has had to decide on, the fate of Suffolk Downs, an almost disused racetrack on the border between East Boston and Revere, is still to be decided. The main contender for redevelopment is the HYM Investment Group, which has put forward a plan for a mixture of apartments and office space. The size of the redevelopment is huge, with HYM’s plans envisioning around 10,000 apartments and office space for up to 20,000 employees, but the BPDA has to listen to the community before approving any new zoning plans for this part of the city.
It won’t be an easy decision to make. HYM is planning on about a quarter of the 161 acre plot to be covered with an interconnected network of open spaces, but critics are questioning who will be allowed to use these areas. Others question the affordability of the planned apartment buildings. Some worry that Suffolk Downs could end up just like the city’s Seaport District, a mix of expensive apartments, office blocks and pricey restaurants with no “true neighborhood feel.”
Architects can Accelerate Zoning Approvals:
Mixed-use building in Wakefied, MA
Located in Wakefield, MA, this new mixed-use building contains 60 residential units, a large restaurant, a shop, a fitness center and parking for 114 cars. A planted private courtyard at the second level provides shared outdoor living space as well as private patios for the abutting units. The penthouse level units each have private roof decks.
Harrison Mulhern Architects was able to demonstrate how the proposed structure would interact with the neighborhood through a 3D model of the site and surroundings which facilitated zoning approvals.
About Us: Harrison Mulhern is an architectural design firm specializing in residential and commercial projects with focus on innovative solutions with breathtaking results.
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