Boston Zoning Board Advances Dorchester Tower, Jamaica Plain Density Fight Heads to City Hall

The Boston Zoning Board of Appeal approved a 14-story, 187-unit apartment tower on Dorchester Avenue near Savin Hill Station on Tuesday, pushing through a project that community activists had tried to table for the third time since 2024. The vote was 4-2, with dissenting members citing inadequate affordable set-asides in a corridor already strained by displacement pressure.

The decision landed in the same week that a rival fight over Jamaica Plain density reached a public hearing at City Hall on Congress Street, where residents packed a second-floor conference room Wednesday evening to contest a proposed 340-unit mixed-income development at the corner of Washington Street and McBride Street. With the city's rental vacancy rate sitting below 3 percent and median one-bedroom rents in JP running roughly $2,800 a month according to a June 2026 Boston Planning Department report, both fights reflect the same pressure — there simply is not enough housing, and every site that can add units is now contested ground.

Dorchester Avenue Decision Sets a Template

The Savin Hill approval matters beyond its 187 units because it signals how the Wu administration intends to use the city's updated zoning code, which was revised in January 2026 to allow as-of-right mid-rise construction along MBTA rapid transit corridors. The Dorchester Avenue site sits 400 feet from the Red Line, squarely within the new transit-oriented overlay district. Opponents had argued the developer, a partnership operating as Harbor Point Residential Group, had offered only 15 percent affordable units — 28 apartments — against a community ask of 20 percent. The board approved the project anyway, a sign that the administration is willing to absorb political heat to move numbers.

The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, which has pushed for deeper affordability requirements across several Dorchester projects, said after the vote that it intends to file a request for reconsideration within the 20-day appeal window. If that fails, the group has not ruled out a Suffolk County Superior Court challenge, a route that could delay ground-breaking well into 2027.

Separately, the Boston Housing Authority announced Thursday that 64 new income-restricted units at the Whittier Choice Neighborhood project in Roxbury are on track for certificate of occupancy by September 2026, one of the few large affordable developments to hit a milestone on schedule this year. The Whittier project, a HUD-funded redevelopment of a former public housing campus on Shawmut Avenue, has been a rare bright spot against a broader pipeline where nearly 40 percent of permitted projects citywide have faced cost-driven delays, per the Planning Department's Q2 2026 tracking dashboard.

Jamaica Plain Hearing Exposes the Same Fault Lines

Wednesday's Washington Street hearing drew more than 150 residents, a turnout that reflects how the Jamaica Plain neighborhood association and several local clergy groups have mobilized since the developer, Urbanica Partners, filed its Article 80 large project application in March. Supporters of the project carried signs reading "Homes Not Hostility" along the sidewalk outside City Hall before the hearing opened at 6 p.m.

The 340-unit proposal includes 68 income-restricted apartments, hitting the 20 percent threshold that critics of the Dorchester project had demanded — yet opposition persists, centered this time on building height, parking ratios, and the pace of tree canopy removal on the McBride Street frontage. The Boston Transportation Department confirmed at the hearing that a parking utilization study for that segment of the 39 bus corridor is due by August 15, a document that could either neutralize or amplify traffic objections.

The Planning Department will hold a second community meeting on the Jamaica Plain project in late July, with a final Article 80 determination expected no earlier than October. For the Dorchester tower, Harbor Point Residential Group said it plans to file for a building permit within 60 days, putting potential construction start at late 2026 — provided the Interfaith Organization's appeal does not succeed. Anyone tracking either project can find real-time updates through the Boston Planning Department's online project portal, where both files are publicly accessible.