The city council voted 5-2 Tuesday night to cap new construction in Foundry Row at 12 stories, ending weeks of debate over the district's next wave of development with a compromise that also allows taller towers in exchange for additional affordable units.
The ordinance, which caps new Foundry Row construction at 12 stories, followed weeks of debate that pitted biotech employers seeking room to expand against tenant advocates warning that unchecked towers would accelerate displacement. The final version passed 5-2, with council members Aisha Muhammad, Terrence Boudreaux, Gary Petrowski, Denise Okafor and Council President Walter Kowalczyk voting in favor, and council members Patricia Yoon and Luis Bettencourt voting against.
Bettencourt’s vote surprised some observers given that he represents Foundry Row itself. He said he ultimately concluded a flat cap was too blunt an instrument for a district where site conditions vary block to block. “I heard from residents worried about towers looming over their blocks, and I heard from employers worried about losing out on lab space they need to keep growing,” Bettencourt said. “I don’t think a single number captures both of those realities as well as a case-by-case process would have.”
An exception process survives
The ordinance that passed does include a narrower version of the flexibility Bettencourt sought: developers can seek council approval for towers up to 18 stories on sites within two blocks of the city’s new rapid-bus corridor, provided at least 20 percent of residential units in the project are set aside as income-restricted, a higher threshold than the citywide standard.
Council Member Aisha Muhammad, who pushed for the affordability tie-in during the earlier debate, called the exception process a meaningful check rather than a loophole. “If a developer wants to go above 12 stories, they’re going to pay for that privilege in affordable units, not just get it for free because they asked nicely,” Muhammad said. “That’s a very different Foundry Row than the one we were on track to get with no rules at all.”
Twelve stories with an exception process is not the clean line we asked for, and I want to be honest about that with the families I represent. But it is a real limit with a real cost attached to breaking it, and six months ago we had neither. I’ll take this and keep pushing for more.
Denise Okonkwo-Marsh, Lead Organizer, Lowertown Tenant Alliance
Mixed reaction from developers and biotech
Aaron Kessler, spokesman for Millrace Development Partners, said the company was still reviewing whether its proposed second Foundry Row project would qualify for the transit-corridor exception. “We would have preferred a true case-by-case review everywhere in the district, not just within two blocks of a bus line,” Kessler said. “But this is workable, and we intend to find out quickly whether our site qualifies.”
Elena Marchetti, chief executive of Kestrel Biologics, said her company’s current expansion plans fit within the 12-story limit regardless of the outcome, but she welcomed the exception process for future growth. “We’re grateful the council built in some flexibility,” Marchetti said. “This city has been good to us, and I want to make sure it can keep being good to the next company that needs to grow here too.”
Council Member Patricia Yoon, who joined Bettencourt in opposition, said her concern was less about the height limit itself and more about what she called an inconsistent standard between downtown and Foundry Row. “We’re telling one district it can go taller near a bus stop and telling my downtown business owners something different entirely,” Yoon said. “I want economic development rules in this city to feel like one coherent policy, not a patchwork built district by district.”
Planning Director Renee Castillo said her department would begin reviewing pending development applications against the new rules immediately, and any project that has not yet received site plan approval will be subject to the 12-story limit or the transit-corridor exception process going forward. Kowalczyk said he considered the vote a template the council could revisit if either side’s predictions, about job growth or displacement, proved more accurate than the other’s over the next several years. “We didn’t write this in stone,” he said. “We wrote it as our best judgment for right now.”
Boudreaux, whose Lowertown district borders Foundry Row and has absorbed some of its overflow development pressure, said he saw the vote as a rare moment where the council chose a firm limit over an open-ended promise to keep talking. “I’ve sat through a lot of debates in this chamber that ended with a study or a task force instead of an actual number,” Boudreaux said. “Tonight we got a number. I’ll take it, and I’ll be watching closely to see how many projects end up going through that exception process instead of respecting the twelve stories.”