In the black box theater inside Chinatown’s Josiah Quincy School last month, hundreds of people reached into their little gift bags and pulled out small bottles of soap. As Dr. Heang Leung Rubin led the room in a collective wish, her voice was gentle: “Close your eyes and imagine — what could Chinatown look like in ten years?”
Kids, young families, seniors, city officials and others all held their wishes in silence. Then, as bubbles filled the room, they caught the light, scattering tiny rainbows across the theater’s black walls. It was a cozy Saturday afternoon and the Phillips Square Community Open House brought people together over food, performance, and shared ideas. The ongoing proposed rezoning of the neighborhood, however, felt like an elephant in the room at the open house. In the community, it certainly has sparked divided visions and different imaginations of what Chinatown could become. Under the current proposed zoning changes, height increases in the mixed-use (MU-10) and residential (R-1) zones could drastically alter the neighborhood’s character. Some saw opportunity with the heights, while others have already voiced worries about access to light, dark shadows, and stronger wind-tunnel effects, with building heights in these zones rising to 350 feet.
Beyond reshaping the neighborhood and further blurring Chinatown’s boundaries with Downtown and the South End, abrupt height increases — without meaningful context — could lead to more real estate speculation, and potentially displace more.
Imagine a developer acquires a plot of land in the residential zone (R-1), near Hudson St., next to the rowhouses. After rezoning, they can now build 15 floors of luxury housing instead of 8. Since each additional floor means more units to sell, the developer’s income is directly tied to building height. This hypothetical new property generates more revenue, but none of it benefits the neighbors. Instead, with higher potential income, the developer may be willing to pay more for the land as long as they are making enough profit. This drives up land values.
Land in Chinatown is already expensive and scarce. Our fictional developer plans to build higher by providing the required “affordable” units, likely subsidized by the city. To offset construction costs and maintain a profitable income, the rest of the building consists of high-end market-rate housing at a much higher price, overlooking the row houses on the other side of Hudson St. With demand for luxury towers in Downtown Boston growing over the past decade, real estate speculation is almost inevitable.
This has happened to other high-end towers in Downtown. Like in 2016, when a Chinese investor purchased 16 units in the Millennium Tower on Franklin St. Similarly, in Back Bay, the One Dalton Tower has drawn wealthy part-time residents locally and internationally.
In that sense, little of the benefit will actually make its way back to the community, even with the proposed affordable housing overlay requirements. As land prices go up, it becomes even more challenging for non-profit developers to build affordable housing projects. Without prioritizing people over profit, the question will always be “who will be able to live in Chinatown?” and not “what do people need to stay here?”
The relationship between building height, land value, density and wealth is complex and calls for more careful considerations. The late Tunney Lee, a longtime friend of Chinatown and a visionary planner, foresaw this issue years ago while working on the Density Atlas: “Height in itself is not density. A tall building is not necessarily dense. It may cover only a small portion of the site, or it may have very few residents.”
In response to community groups’ planned affordability rally on March 18, the City of Boston postponed its rezoning update to take more time and reconsider some of the requirements. This delay offers a chance to better respond to Chinatown’s context and the different voices.
The community has already voiced a range of different opinions on new height limits. Some propose keeping it between 150 feet to 200 feet with the affordable housing overlay, others suggest a 80-feet cap, while some want the two sub-districts to go even higher. The question remains: How can rezoning create stability and deeper affordability, rather than fueling more speculation?
Increasing height alone does not guarantee affordability, and density alone does not ensure inclusivity. We have seen the power of community organizing before. Residents and activists in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury successfully pushed the city to take deeper affordability seriously and respond to context through extensive model studies for Plan JP/Rox. The affordable housing overlay is an important pilot that could bring promising changes, not just to Chinatown, but to other Boston neighborhoods as well. It is important to get it right.
Chen is a graduate student at MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Chen’s part is at: sampan.org/2025/boston/zoning-plan-to-boost-afford able-units-will-still-price-out-many/
