Citizens Rally Against Mayor Wu’s Downtown Boston Skyscraper Proposal

A coalition of Boston residents and community groups is strongly opposing Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's proposal to permit skyscrapers up to 700 feet tall in the historic downtown area of Boston.

The Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association joined other members of the coalition in authoring a letter sent on Thursday, Sept. 11, to Wu, ahead of a vote the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) Board was set to review this week on proposed zoning regulations.

“PLAN: Downtown was meant to reimagine the heart of Boston,” the coalition wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Boston Herald. “Instead, your proposed plan reveals a striking lack of creativity, perspective, and vision, and will not work. … Boston would be better off without this destructive plan.”

The BPDA board is set to vote on Thursday, Sept. 18, on the downtown zoning plan.

The historic area of downtown Boston, noted in the letter, involves the residential Ladder Blocks and Park Plaza neighborhoods to the west of Washington Street and adjacent to Boston Common. Skyscrapers erected there would present potential issues with the state's shadow law, the coalition said. Enacted in 1990, this law restricts the creation of new shadows on the Boston Common and Public Garden at certain times of the day, according to a coalition statement shared with the Boston Herald.

City officials, including Planning Chief Kairos Shen, have defended the plan. He told the Herald in a statement that the city has responded to all the concerns raised by the coalition since beginning meetings with its members in January. 

“This plan is a balance between the many different concerns that we have heard throughout this planning process and the drafting of the zoning process, and we think we've arrived at a really good plan that addresses the key issues that the downtown faces,” Shen said to the Herald. “We're very comfortable with where the current proposal is, and we think it will be great for the city to adopt this.”

Shen added that the regulations established in the proposed zoning plan would permit for towering that would align with height limits created by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the state's shadow law.