06/22/2026
Planning Department - City of Boston
Chinatown has NEW zoning in their neighborhood.
Boston Business Journal
Chinatown gets new zoning rules after years of talks
The Boston Zoning Commission approved new rules lowering maximum building height to 45 feet in Chinatown's historic row house district.
The zoning divides Chinatown into six subdistricts with different uses, including residential, commercial, and institutional areas.
Community members rejected a 350-foot affordable housing proposal, which was replaced with a 155-foot height allowance subdistrict.
The Boston Zoning Commission has approved new zoning rules for Chinatown that the city says will protect historic buildings and promote small business in the neighborhood.
The new regulations are intended to protect the historic row houses in Chinatown by lowering the maximum height of projects in that part of the district from 80 feet to 45 feet. This district includes the Johnny Court area and between Tyler Street and Hudson Street. Many of the row houses were built in the 19th and 20th centuries and provided modest housing for immigrants.
Regulations in the district that encompasses the row houses also conditionally allow commercial usage on ground floor spaces.
The new zoning divides the neighborhood into six subdistricts: two residential sections, an updated institutional area that includes Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University campus buildings, a community commercial subdistrict, an air rights subdistrict and a “Sky-Low-CT" subdistrict that allows for commercial, residential and civic uses.
The R-10 residential subdistrict is mapped along the southern and eastern portions of the neighborhood, including Hudson Street and between Oak Street and Marginal Road where there are larger apartment buildings.
The community commercial zone is mapped primarily along Tyler Street, Hudson Street, Beach Street and Harrison Avenue. Businesses are allowed to operate on all floors of buildings in this subdistrict, which encompasses Chinatown's main commercial area.
The air rights subdistrict covers parts of the Massachusetts Turnpike and Albany Street. Regulations in the air rights subdistrict are the same as in the neighboring R-10 residential area. The "Sky-Low-CT" subdistrict covers areas near Beach Street, Essex Street, and Washington Street, and allows for residential uses and businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, retail and entertainment venues.
The recently adopted regulations are the result of two years worth of conversations between city officials and Chinatown community members, according to zoning commission officials.
In November 2024, the Planning Department released a draft zoning proposal that was met with criticism from many Chinatown residents and advocates.
Several letters and petitions sent to the city raised concerns over an affordable housing overlay that proposed a height allowance of up to 350 feet. That proposal was scrapped from the adopted zoning regulations and was replaced with a subdistrict that allows for a building height of up to 155 feet.
“After an extensive community process, I believe the resulting Chinatown rezoning will provide better protections for working families and small businesses, particularly in the newly created row house zones and the commercial center of Chinatown,” Angie Liou, the executive director of the Asian Community Development Corporation, said in a statement.
