Illustration of a neighborhood main street with brick storefronts, trees and a crosswalk, representing the Cleary Square rezoning in Hyde Park.

BPDA Board to Vote on Cleary Square Rezoning in Hyde Park

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The Cleary Square rezoning plan for Hyde Park is on the agenda for a vote by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) board on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, at 3:30 p.m. at Boston City Hall. According to the posted agenda, board members will be asked to adopt the Cleary Square Squares + Streets Small Area Plan and to petition the Boston Zoning Commission to apply new zoning districts to the neighborhood’s business center.

What the BPDA board is being asked to approve

Two items on the board’s agenda cover Cleary Square. The first asks the board to adopt the small area plan, which the agenda describes as a guide for future development, capital investment in safer street design, improvements to the public realm, and policies meant to support small businesses and increase housing supply and affordability.

The second asks the board to petition the Zoning Commission to amend Zoning Map 12 and Article 69, the Hyde Park neighborhood zoning article, so that Squares + Streets districts, governed by Article 26 and related “base code” articles, would apply within Cleary Square. The request would also remove named neighborhood business subdistricts that the new districts would replace, keep the existing Neighborhood Design Overlay District in force in the newly mapped areas, and revise outdated language. A board vote would not finish the process on its own; the map and text changes would still go to the Zoning Commission for adoption.

The meeting is open to the public in person in Room 900 on the ninth floor of City Hall or by Zoom, and it is televised on Boston City TV and livestreamed on Boston.gov, according to the city’s public notice.

How the Cleary Square zoning map changed

The Planning Department released its first draft plan and zoning map on March 17, 2026. The Hyde Park Bulletin reported that the March draft included many seven-story districts and proposed denser mixed-use zoning on some abutting residential blocks, which drew pushback from residents through public comments and outreach to elected officials. A June 17 revision cut the seven-story S4 districts to six-story S3-6 districts and pulled the proposed zones back from most of those residential sections, the Bulletin reported.

The department posted a third version on Oct. 8, 2026, along with a summary of changes and responses to public comments, according to its Cleary Square project page. A review of the revised map by PRISM Real Estate Group, a Jamaica Plain brokerage, found that the October draft swaps two key designations:

  • River Street parcels near Hyde Park Avenue would move from S3-6, which allows up to six stories, to SC, a shopping and commercial district that allows up to four stories.
  • Hyde Park Avenue between Winthrop and Everett streets would move from SC to S3-6, allowing up to six stories with active ground-floor uses.
  • Blake Estates would be added back to the proposed rezoning map, and the plan’s housing estimate was updated to reflect the Hyde Park Avenue change.

The SC and S3-6 district rules themselves were adopted citywide in December 2025, according to the same review; Thursday’s vote concerns where those districts would be mapped in Cleary Square.

Residents and officials raised timing and traffic concerns

The Cleary Square process began in early 2024 and has run well past its original schedule. The Planning Department had planned to bring the package to the BPDA board in July, with Zoning Commission action in August, the Bulletin reported. At a June 17 meeting at the Hyde Park Municipal Building, District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepén asked for more time. “We have to give the residents time – including our teams – to look at [the updated map and plan],” he said, according to the Bulletin. He also said he wanted the Boston Transportation Department brought into the conversation on traffic.

Traffic at the River Street and Hyde Park Avenue intersection was a major topic at that meeting. Kathleen Onufer, the department’s deputy director of zoning, said the Transportation Department was reviewing signal timing there, and she said neighborhood traffic studies are required as part of the Article 80 review of individual projects, the Bulletin reported. Many attendees booed that answer, the Bulletin reported. Hyde Park Neighborhood Association president Mimi Turchinetz asked the department to postpone the board date until September.

In July, a liaison from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services told the neighborhood association that the package would not go to the board that month, and the July 16 agenda confirmed it, according to the Bulletin. The Planning Department’s project page describes the plan as a vision focused on housing, public space, small businesses, arts and culture, and transportation in Cleary Square. Opponents, as summarized by the Bulletin, have argued that the zoning would allow much taller and denser residential buildings at the expense of the existing commercial footprint, without a matching plan for traffic and services.

Other items on Thursday’s BPDA agenda

The same meeting includes several other spending and development decisions across the city:

  • A $5.15 million construction contract with Unified Contracting for the Little Mystic Channel Harborwalk Extension in Charlestown, plus a 5 percent contingency, for a total of about $5.4 million.
  • A one-time $250,000 Neighborhood Development Fund grant to the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute for its new center on Westville Street in Dorchester, and $67,000 for a market analysis of Nubian Square.
  • Payment-in-lieu-of-taxes demonstration project plans for housing at Allston Yards Building D, 83 Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton, 22-24 Pratt St. in Allston and 1 Mystic Ave. in Charlestown, the same tool covered in our report on Mayor Wu’s use of BPDA powers for housing tax incentives.
  • Development approvals including 145 rental units with 29 income-restricted units at 201-207 Brighton Ave., 23 rentals at 1428 Dorchester Ave. and 24 homeownership units at 201 Hampden St. in Roxbury.

Hyde Park has seen other recent public investment, including the city’s plan for a $16 million modernization of the Fairmount Apartments. The Cleary Square vote is one of several neighborhood planning decisions moving through City Hall this fall, alongside efforts such as the historic district listings for the Exchange District and Green Street.

What happens next

If the board adopts the plan and approves the zoning petition, the proposed map and text amendments would move to the Boston Zoning Commission, which takes up the changes at its own public hearing before they take effect. The Planning Department’s Cleary Square page lists the revised draft plan, zoning map, zoning text amendment and public comments, and questions can be sent to squaresandstreets@boston.gov.

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