By Michael Coughlin Jr.
On Wednesday, August 9, the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) held another Waterfront and Evolving Industrial Areas meeting, releasing draft recommendations that focus on the McClellan Highway Economic Development Area and the Upper Chelsea Creek Waterfront and, the Saratoga Street Economic Development Area and the Belle Isle Marsh Waterfront.
“Formed initially to service the needs of regional industry and infrastructure — East Boston’s waterfront faces significant physical challenges,” said Kristina Ricco, a Senior Planner with the BPDA.
Some of these challenges East Boston’s waterfront faces, which Ricco outlined, include degraded ecological conditions, coastal and inland flooding vulnerability, limited publicly-accessible open space and public access to the waterfront as well as inadequate public rights-of-way and sufficient transit access.
“Planning for the future of these areas prioritizes increasing public access to the waterfront, implementing resilient infrastructure, and supporting essential economic activity,” said Ricco.
Before getting into the draft recommendations for the two focus areas mentioned earlier, Ricco explained that the recommendations fall into two categories.
The first category is land use and built form, which focuses on supporting essential economic activity to create opportunities for employment-focused development, limiting the proliferation of low-intensity uses like self-storage and logistic centers, transitioning building scale appropriately, and encouraging the adaptive reuse of existing structures.
The second category is transportation and public realm, which focuses on advancing coastal resilience infrastructure, increasing open space and public access to the waterfront, reconfiguring waterfront transportation networks while expanding transit options, and evaluating equitable connections to opportunity.
Moreover, before getting into the recommendations, Ricco made a critical acknowledgment, detailing that planning in the waterfront is more complex due to the state also having jurisdiction.
“There’s a kind of regulatory lasagna that gets made on the waterfront, which includes municipal layers like zoning and state layers like Chapter 91 — which protects public access — and designated port areas — or DPAs — which protect water-dependent industrial uses,” said Ricco.
“Just like a lasagna, the layer that ends up on top really matters — for much of East Boston’s waterfront, that’s state-level DPA designations. DPAs heavily restrict allowed uses and prohibit publicly accessible open space,” she added.
The McClellan Highway Economic Development Area and the Upper Chelsea Creek Waterfront, bounded by the Chelsea Street Bridge and the border of Revere, was the first area to have its draft recommendations presented.
“Today, much of the area remains underleveraged and includes several acres of low-intensity uses like self-storage and lots and lots of surface parking,” said Ricco.
Further, the area is governed by two zoning subdistricts. One is the McClellan Highway Economic Development Area, a zoning subdistrict promoting economic growth “appropriate to the area.”
Moreover, the subdistrict is bounded by properties on both sides of Addison Street to Boardman Street and from Route 1A to Brandywyne Village and Noyes Playground.
There are a few proposed recommendations for this subdistrict which include adjusting its boundary to remove property across Addison Street — returning it to a residential subdistrict, and relaxing the allowed uses in the remaining area of the subdistrict following the adjustment.
Ricco mentioned that the subdistrict’s existing regulations make it so general office space, education, community, and other uses are either conditional or forbidden.
“These uses and others directly contribute to the essential economic activity and should be allowed by right,” said Ricco.
Other recommendations for this area include increasing the allowed height and density for planned development areas and studying opportunities for and the potential impact of residential growth in the subdistrict.
There were also recommendations for the Upper Chelsea Creek Waterfront Manufacturing subdistrict, which is designed to protect the working waterfront. The Chelsea Creek DPA also governs this area.
However, the DPA boundary was reconfigured in 2022 and removed around 23 acres of land between Addison Street and Boardman Street, stretching up to the creek’s shoreline. Due to this change, the 23-acre area is only subject to Chapter 91 and zoning.
This subdistrict’s only land use recommendation is to relax the allowed uses to support essential economic activity. However, at this point, there are no recommendations to study the area for residential use.
The BPDA also suggests constructing a 2,800-foot-long landscaped berm and a publicly-accessible shared-use path within a disused rail right-of-way adjacent to the Chelsea Creek waterfront.
In conjunction with the previous recommendation, the BPDA is suggesting that the city, state, Chelsea, and private landowners work together to “Join family-friendly paths between the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway, the Chelsea Greenway, and the envisioned Chelsea Creek waterfront,” said Nick Schmidt, a Senior Transportation Planner at the BPDA.
Schmidt also explained that realizing the recommendation of joining the family-friendly paths includes changes to the Chelsea Street Bridge. One change highlighted is bringing the path on a portion of the bridge.
Furthermore, several transportation recommendations were made for the area, including adding a new frequent bus service that would connect East Boston, Revere, Chelsea, and more.
There are also recommendations to redesign McClellan Highway into McClellan Boulevard. “McClellan Boulevard is the city’s vision to slow speeds, expand transit access and facilitate access to the waterfront,” said Schmidt.
During the presentation, Schmidt walked through proposed changes to McClellan Highway at specific points, where the aforementioned rail right-of-way meets the highway at Addison Street and the area where they diverge.
These proposed changes included more crosswalks, green infrastructure, a dedicated transitway, and more. The BPDA also proposes introducing a new local street network in the area.
The meeting then moved on to the Saratoga Street Economic Development Area, which goes from Saratoga Street near the Winthrop town line to Bennington Street, extends up Walley Street, and the Bennington Street corridor to the Suffolk Downs development area.
“The sub-area primarily comprises MBTA-owned property, including the Orient Heights MBTA station, surface parking lots, and rail yards, but also includes a limited amount of low-scale commercial uses along Saratoga Street and residential uses along Walley Street,” said Ricco.
A familiar recommendation is also being made for this area, which includes relaxing the allowed uses within the subdistrict to support essential economic activity. However, residential uses would also be included as part of the relaxation.
Additionally, the BPDA suggests extending and connecting the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway to the proposed Winthrop Greenway within the area of Orient Heights station.
“PLAN: East Boston envisions this area as the nexus of the shared-use path network,” said Schmidt.
If you want to learn more about these recommendations, with graphics included, the recorded presentation and the PowerPoint are available at https://www.bostonplans.org/planning/planning-initiatives/plan-east-boston.