When housing gets too unaffordable, many US cities try to cool demand by increasing supply.

But, for Louise “Weezy” Waldstein, an activist who lives three blocks from an Orange Line station in Jamaica Plain, what’s good for a whole city can be something else at close range.

At a January 21 hearing, the Boston City Council’s Committee on Government Accountability, Transparency, and Accessibility listened to calls for more housing supply and fewer costly hurdles for developers, but also to pleas by Waldstein and fellow activists for more protections against displacement, especially where a cluster of new projects can push nearby market values even higher.

Though much of Jamaica Plain’s market has been rebounding for decades, Waldstein connected more recent growth in her neighborhood’s housing supply with higher property values and tax bills. Honored for advocacy last year by the Codman Square Neighborhood Council, she lives just outside an area where the city boosted housing production through less restrictive zoning under “Plan JP/Rox,” an initiative that started in 2015. The localized plan was a predecessor to broader initiatives advanced by Mayor Michelle Wu, including “Squares + Streets” and, for projects with at least 15 units, Article 80 modernization.

“From 2015 to 2025, my assessment went up a hundred percent and my taxes went up 80 percent,” Waldstein informed councillors. “I’m here to ask if the city overall, not the councillors, has done an assessment of the impact and evaluation of the impact of Squares + Streets and all the new building in the neighborhoods, on the housing costs of the residents who live around that new zoning footprint.”

In the “JP/Rox” area between Washington Street and the Southwest Corridor, new guidelines, even starting before adoption, spurred more supply and more density, with increases in market prices, but also in the number of income-restricted units, usually with city, state, or federal support.

Intended for properties near main streets and public transit, Squares + Streets programs are being drafted for three areas: Roslindale Square, Cleary Square in Hyde Park, and Dorchester’s Fields Corner. Though not included in the initiative, similar zoning measures have also been put into effect under “Plan Mattapan.” A Squares + Streets effort that was started for the Codman Square and Four Corners areas has been paused, pending development of an anti-displacement plan.

Over the past two decades, similar changes in zoning have been adopted in other US cities, most recently with the December 5 approval of the less restrictive “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” measure in New York City. Allowing more density and scaling back requirements for off-street parking, the new zoning also includes incentives for affordable housing production and more allowance for accessory dwelling units (ADUs). New York’s Dept. of City Planning estimates the changes will create 82,000 new housing units over the next 15 years.

The national push to relax zoning restrictions has also led to different views among researchers on the risks of displacement for residents and businesses, as well as gains in production and affordability. In the four-hour hearing chaired by Councillor At-Large Julia Mejia, activists and Boston Planning Dept. officials reaffirmed the need for more housing, with differences over how and when to incorporate anti-displacement measures.

“The zoning that exists today is not adequately addressing the equity, community preservation and displacement issues that you heard community members speak about, so we need to do something,” said Devin Quirk, the city’s interim chief of planning. “We also agree that unfettered development, that’s completely unregulated, would also lead to displacement, so our role is to try and find the balance in between. The Squares + Streets zoning that we’ve drafted to date is our best attempt to find that.”

Echoing arguments for previous zoning adjustments, Quirk also noted, “Certainly, doing nothing is not an option, given the displacement risks that exist in our communities.”

District 5 (Hyde Park/Roslindale) Councillor Enrique Pepén cited recent development under the current zoning that could have been more beneficial to the community if guided by Wu’s reforms. “It is important to highlight that displacement has happened even without Squares + Streets,” said Pepén. “And I think it has happened because there isn’t Squares + Streets.”

Most of the current housing in Boston is out of compliance with zoning restrictions adopted after its construction. As a result, replacing those buildings with something of similar dimensions, or even making limited alterations, would trigger the requirement for a zoning variance—in addition to the need for permits. In her 2019 report on zoning and planning reform, Wu faulted the added regulation—a frequent point of leverage for housing advocates and community groups – with increasing expenses for developers, as well as unpredictability.

At the council hearing, Elvira Mora, the Boston organizer for Abundant Housing Massachusetts, argued that the greater density allowed by “upzoning” – altering zoning laws to boost density of housing in neighborhood settings – in Boston could increase opportunities for affordability from multi-family homes long associated with the city’s immigrants.

“Density,” she said, “is what allowed my family, two working-class immigrants from Ecuador with no savings, to be able to plant roots here, and for me today to still continue to live in that fixer-upper triple decker home that cannot be zoned today.”

A rendering shows a proposed new mixed-use building that would rise at 841 Morton St. in Mattapan, a site that is currently occupied by a gas station. A public meeting is planned for Wed., Feb. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. via Zoom to discuss the idea.
Image courtesy Stefanov Architects

In yet another move to ease restrictions, the city has begun a process to scale back the variance requirements for some alterations of existing properties, especially the creation of auxiliary dwelling units (ADUs). Introduced at a virtual meeting on January 15, the “Neighborhood Housing” initiative is initially targeted for areas with what officials call “predominantly large lots,” including parts of Dorchester.

“So the task we have is to find a set of allowances around these zoning districts so that those renovations are doable,” the city’s senior planner for zoning reform, Will Cohen, explained at the meeting, “but also so that the restrictions in zoning still allow each neighborhood to have a level of character and understanding that reflects the neighborhoods that we know.”

Later in the meeting, Cohen also observed that the housing supply needs to catch up with changes in Boston’s demographics, with an overall decrease in household size.

“And so, right now,” he said, “much of the housing crisis isn’t that there isn’t enough sort of literal building here, but that the way the buildings are configured isn’t lining up with the demographics of America in the 2020s. And part of our task as we think about zoning is to create a balance there, where we can allow for new housing to be built to help make up some of that difference, but also to ensure that the existing buildings that we have can be reconfigured in a constructive way, so that the buildings that also define Boston for what it is can be maintained and preserve that character that we all care about so much.”

Some participants in the meeting expressed a desire to expand housing capacity on their property, and even tap more of its value, but one participant was less receptive. “To me, it’s not progress,” he said, “if you can take, say, a two-family or a two-bedroom place, which is something a family could live in, and then split it up into a studio, one or a couple of one-bedrooms, which is not appropriate for a family, you’re not really adding overall the amount of square footage for housing. And, to me, it’s also possibly just inflating the prices.”

According to a 2022 report by the city’s Office of Housing, households with one or two people accounted for 71 percent of Boston’s renters and 65 percent of its homeowners. But people of color made up at least 60 percent of the owner households with at least four persons and at least 72 percent among renters. The report also showed that people of color also had lower average incomes.

At the City Council hearing, advocates repeatedly stressed the need to increase “family-sized” housing. “By increasing the availability of family-size units, we can better support our community members and create more inclusive environments for all,” said Tarshia Green-Williams, the deputy director of the Dorchester-based group, Action for Equity. “However,” she added, “this cannot happen without implementation of strong anti-displacement measures.”

Mike Prokosch, a member of Codman Square United, called for work on Squares + Streets plans to be paused until they included metrics on affordability needs and goals in all four neighborhoods.

“The city’s anti-displacement programs are fragmentary,” he contended. “They take on small pieces of the puzzle, small parts of the population. The new anti-displacement action plan does not cover the whole territory. Each neighborhood needs a comprehensive anti-displacement plan that is specific to that neighborhood, and it needs to be worked out with people from the community, the people most affected.”

District 4 (Mattapan/Dorchester) Councillor Brian Worrell wondered whether the city’s figures on housing need, and how different populations might be affected, were even known to residents at meetings on Squares + Streets.

“Is that need presented to the community, so that they know when they’re having these conversations about the zoning what they’re voting for — and who?” he asked. “Because we know inventory decides who lives here and who gets displaced. Is that given to them?”

City officials detailed multiple outreach efforts for community engagement on Squares + Streets, from virtual and in-person meetings to smaller encounters, with translation into several languages, including a Dorchester meeting in Vietnamese. But Salima Vo, the Vietnamese organizer for the Asian American Resource Workshop, told councillors that residents who might seem uninterested in zoning reforms need more than a literal translation of specialized terminology that’s not fully understood by an interpreter.

“It’s not that we’re not interested in coming to these meetings, but when someone’s hurt and they’re afraid to speak up, they don’t know how to speak up for themselves,” she said. “And we just want to like be more — not more included, but to have a better understanding of what Squares + Streets is.”

Though the proposed zoning reforms only apply directly to individual parcels, activists repeatedly tried to couple the regulatory overhaul process with their housing agenda. They argued that the point of being engaged with overhauling regulations was to advance an agenda, even if it were to be carried out in ways beyond piecemeal changes in zoning.

District 8 (Back Bay, Fenway, Mission Hill) Councillor Sharon Durkan ventured that residents might be less interested in discussing a regulatory framework than a particular tangible change in their neighborhood.

“I think it’s clear, at least from the neighborhoods I represent,” said Durkan, “that more people will come to a meeting about a curb cut than an Article 80 project. And that’s just interest level and I think that we have to admit that we can’t force neighbors and community members to have interest in things they don’t have interest in.”

Durkan’s comment also met with a rebuttal from Marlon Solomon, the president and CEO of the Hyde Park-based Afrimerican Culture Initiative. “I found that to be quite offensive because the bottom line is that people are trying, everybody’s interested in lower rents and trying to know whether they’re going to be in their neighborhood,” he said. “They don’t have the time. And it shows a disconnect that how far the people that are solving this problem are from the people who are directly impacted by this displacement.”

According to a study by Pew Charitable Trusts, zoning reforms in Minneapolis similar to measures advanced in other US cities boosted housing production in the years 2017-2022. The study reported a greater increase in buildings with at least twenty units, with only a “modest impact” on “duplex” and “triplex” buildings. Over the same period, compared with the rest of Minnesota, Minneapolis had a much smaller increase in average rent, along with a 12 percent drop in homelessness.

In an October, 2024 study, the Urban Land Institute concluded that “the upzoning of densely built-out neighborhoods does not increase supply because the potential profit from individual projects does not justify the additional costs of small buildings on in-fill sites.”

In its March, 2023 Urban Studies journal, the institute found “no statistically significant evidence that these reforms lead to an increase in affordable rental units within three to nine years of reform passage. We do find that such reforms are associated with an increase in units affordable for above-middle-income households, and that effects on units affordable to those with extremely low incomes and very low incomes are positive but with large standard errors,” likely due to the small data sample.

In March of 2024, the institute also noted, “Because more affordable land tends to be the fastest to get redeveloped, upzoning often concentrates neighborhood change in historically marginalized communities.”

Unlike Wu’s modernization of Article 80, the Squares + Streets and “Neighborhood Housing” initiatives would apply to smaller projects, usually on privately owned property, with less opportunity for the city or the surrounding community to affect the outcome. The difference was noted by Aimee Chambers, the Planning Department’s planning + zoning director, who told councillors that goals for affordable housing and family-sized units are being pursued through process for larger projects or on publicly owned land. She also detailed citywide policies, such as the Inclusionary Development Program, with affordability commitments increased under Wu, along with a requirement in large projects for more units with at least two bedrooms.

“We have a lot more flexibility as an entity when we’re talking about publicly owned land than when we’re talking about privately owned land,” said Chambers. “And I think that’s a really important distinction to make in some of these conversations, because we don’t necessarily have end-all be-all say on everything that happens on privately owned land, unless a developer needs funding from us.”

In one instance, the day after the council hearing, Samuels & Associates, the developer of “DotBlock” on private land near Dorchester’s Glover’s Corner, announced that the next phase of its build-out would have 84 units of “affordable” housing, thanks to a funding commitment from the city. One of 12 “transformative” projects supported by the city, the five-story “Hancock” building would be a revision of the original plan for 98 units. According to the release, “The reduction in unit count from the original number of units is attributable to larger units that are more suitable for families.”