BPDA - Article 80 Community Engagement

The Boston Planning and Development Agency has tasked the consulting team of Archipelago Strategies Group, Rivera Consulting, Inc., and The Lazu Group with assessing the existing impact and processes of community engagement within Article 80 of the Boston zoning code.

Critical to this modernization is the assessment of the formal and informal community engagement strategies and tactics that have come to define Article 80, the regulatory process that guides all real estate development reviews in the city of Boston.

Our work is guided by a mixed-method research approach that combines literature review, collateral review, internal stakeholder engagement, high-level external stakeholder engagement, and broad-based resident data collection. These approaches capture the current attitudes and understandings of the impact resident participation has upon Article 80, with an eye towards modernizing and updating tactics for capturing community insight and evaluating the role community has upon development.