Zoning Commission Approves Downtown Skyline Districts
October 22, 2025
Earlier today, the City of Boston Zoning Commission voted unanimously to approve zoning amendments to create new Skyline Districts that implement zoning recommendations from PLAN: Downtown to modernize land uses, incentivize preservation and adaptive reuse, and enable more growth, housing, and businesses Downtown. Mayor Wu is expected to sign the zoning into law in the coming weeks.
Tom Nally, Senior Advisor at A Better City, offered the following testimony:
Good morning. My name is Thomas Nally and I am a planner and architect by training and a Senior Advisor at A Better City. A Better City represents a multi-sector group of nearly 130 business leaders united around a common vision: to create a more vibrant, competitive, sustainable, and equitable city and region for all. Our mission is to engage the Greater Boston business community and civic institutions in developing solutions and influencing policy through research and collaboration on transportation, climate, and land use issues.
We share the City’s goal of creating a thriving Downtown, and we have been engaged in the PLAN: Downtown initiative since 2018. A Better City appreciates the urgency to advance this zoning, as well as the overall objective to prioritize residential and mixed-use development, and to strengthen historic preservation. The proposed changes are poised to enable the transit-oriented density needed to put our city on the path toward equitable growth and vibrancy. Additionally, the amendments critically strengthen protections for preserving Downtown’s historic character, providing new design guidelines for enhancing development near historic assets.
While A Better City remains concerned about several aspects of the proposed changes—namely the conditional use provisions for certain office, hotel, and lab projects—we cannot afford to delay these important zoning reforms any longer. We encourage the Zoning Commission to adopt the proposed amendments, and we look forward to working with the City as they implement these changes and move on to address other critically needed zoning updates across the city.
Please reach out to Tom Nally with any questions or feedback.
