Boston Zoning Board Greenlights 847-Unit Jamaica Plain Complex as City Scrambles to Hit Housing Targets

The Boston Zoning Board of Appeal voted 5-2 Wednesday to approve an 847-unit mixed-income development on a stretch of Washington Street in Jamaica Plain that has sat largely vacant since a fire gutted the former Blessed Sacrament complex in 2016. The project, backed by Trinity Financial and the nonprofit Urban Edge, will set aside 211 units — roughly 25 percent of the total — at rents affordable to households earning at or below 60 percent of the area median income. Construction is targeted to begin in the first quarter of 2027.

The timing matters. Boston is grinding through what city housing officials describe as the worst production shortfall in a decade. Mayor Michelle Wu pledged in her January address to create or preserve 10,000 units of affordable housing by 2030, but the city has permitted fewer than 1,200 affordable units over the past 18 months, according to figures from the Boston Planning Department released in June. With the state's MBTA Communities Act now carrying real legal teeth after the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling last October, municipalities that drag their feet on zoning reform risk losing access to state discretionary funds. Boston, technically compliant, is still under pressure to show momentum.

Dorchester Rezoning Fight Puts Gentrification Fears Front and Center

Even as Jamaica Plain scored a win, a separate zoning battle in Dorchester's Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood consumed three hours of testimony at a Boston City Council hearing Tuesday afternoon in chambers on City Hall Plaza. Residents packed the room to oppose a developer's proposal to rezone a 2.3-acre parcel along Geneva Avenue from industrial to residential — a change that would allow a 320-unit market-rate building with only 48 affordable units, well below the 20 percent threshold the city typically requires under its Inclusionary Development Policy.

The Dorchester Not For Sale coalition, a tenant advocacy group that has been active in the neighborhood since 2019, argued that approving the project under those terms would accelerate displacement along a corridor where median rents have already climbed 34 percent since 2020, from roughly $1,650 to $2,210 for a two-bedroom apartment, according to data the group pulled from the city's annual housing report. Councillor Enrique Pepén, whose District 3 includes the site, told colleagues the proposal as written needs to go back to the developer. No vote was scheduled before the council's July recess, which begins Friday.

The two proceedings, held within 24 hours of each other, illustrate the contradictions baked into Wu's housing push. The administration wants volume — more units, faster approvals, fewer procedural delays — but its political base in neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury is skeptical of market-rate density that arrives without enough income-restricted units attached. That tension has stalled or complicated at least four significant projects citywide since January, according to Boston Planning Department records.

What Comes Next for Both Projects

The Jamaica Plain project now moves to the Boston Planning Department for site plan review, a process that typically takes four to six months. Trinity Financial has signaled it plans to apply for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits through MassHousing in the October 2026 funding round — a competitive pool that the state housing agency typically oversubscribes by a ratio of three to one. If the tax credit application succeeds, ground-breaking could realistically happen by spring 2027. If it misses the October window, the timeline slips by at least a year.

On Geneva Avenue, advocates say they will press the city to invoke its Article 80 large project review process to force a full community benefits agreement before any rezoning vote. That process, which kicks in for projects over 50,000 square feet, has historically added six to nine months to a development timeline but has also produced binding commitments on affordable unit counts and local hiring. Residents in Bowdoin-Geneva have until August 15 to submit written testimony to the Boston Planning Department before a follow-up public hearing, currently penciled in for early September.

For anyone watching the Washington Street corridor in Jamaica Plain, the next signpost is a community design review meeting the Boston Planning Department expects to schedule in September. Details will be posted to the city's online development tracker at bostonplans.org.