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Residents and councilors press pause, stronger outreach for Squares & Streets rezoning in Roslindale
Summary
Councilors and residents urged the planning department to slow the Squares & Streets rezoning process in Roslindale, citing disproportionate participation by white residents, insufficient outreach to non-English speakers and requests for a pause until an anti-displacement audit is completed.
Several councilors and multiple residents testified on March 25 that the planning department’s Squares & Streets rezoning work in Roslindale has not achieved representative community engagement and risks displacing longtime residents and small businesses.
Why it matters: Squares & Streets aims to direct growth to neighborhood centers near transit, but councilors and public commenters said the department must ensure engagement is proportionate to neighborhood demographics and that anti-displacement safeguards are in place before zoning changes advance.
Public testimony and petitions. Multiple residents and community organizers asked the committee to pause the Roslindale rezoning pending better, more inclusive outreach. Lori Raven of the Roslindale Coalition told the committee: “Proportion engagement is not measured by event types or number of events held no matter how enthusiastically conducted.” Raven said nearly 200 residents had signed a petition asking the council to hold a hearing examining equity in the planning department’s execution of Squares & Streets, and she said the department had not provided a written response to a four‑page submission the coalition delivered in February.
Councilor Julia Mejía (cosponsor) framed the issue as central to restoring trust: she asked how the department will move beyond “pop ups and surveys” to give residents “veto and approval power” or other binding influence over major development decisions. Chief of Planning Cairo Shen and Deputy Chief Devin Quirk said the department has created a community engagement team with multilingual capacity, is tracking who participates and is piloting new outreach methods (door‑to‑door surveys, Spanish‑language walking tours) to broaden participation. Shen acknowledged that better resourcing is needed to reach working residents who hold multiple jobs and cannot attend day‑time meetings.
Anti-displacement audit and implementation timetable. Shen said the department intends to issue a request for proposals to hire a consultant to conduct a fair‑housing compliance audit and to publish an anti‑displacement action plan; department staff told the committee that budget timing means the audit work would be funded in FY26. Devin Quirk said the department is developing a “displacement disclosure” form to identify on‑site tenants and impacts, and to create a record planners and negotiators can use when setting mitigation or community‑benefit conditions for projects. Quirk said stronger documentation of tenant impacts could make it easier to hold developers accountable when mitigation promises are negotiated.
Calls for a pause and for demographic tracking. Public speakers and several councilors asked the department to delay rezoning votes so neighborhoods facing rapid changes can be surveyed more deeply and participants counted by race, language and tenure status. Multiple speakers said Roslindale public meeting rosters showed an 80% white participation rate in a neighborhood whose population is substantially more diverse, a disparity residents said undermined the legitimacy of the draft rezoning.
Ending: Councilors asked the department to return with concrete plans for proportional outreach, a timeline for the fair‑housing audit and clearer public reporting of who is being reached by the Squares & Streets engagement methods. Several residents said they would continue to press for a formal pause of the Roslindale rezoning until those items are resolved.
