Harbor Plan Design Consultant Sought

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) has advertised a request for proposal for a planning and design consultant to develop the Downtown Municipal Harbor Plan to codify into zoning and the use and development guidelines for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway District, according to a North End/Waterfront Resident’ Zoning Licensing and Construction Committee report issued to its membership.

The Greenway District according to the BRA includes: The North End, Government Center, the Market District, Town Cove, the Wharf District, the Financial District, Dewey Square, the Leather District and Chinatown.

The apparent guidelines encourages residential, hotel and mixed use development with active ground-floor and street scape designs and ground floor retail programming, all with the goal of animating park edges to continue new populations to the Greenway and Downtown, the ZLC Committee report indicated.

A draft of the Downtown Municipal Harbor Plan, these guidelines are expected to be shaped into the appropriate zoning mechanism that will govern development along the Greenway corridor and the Downtown Waterfront District the report claims.

Among other decisions according to the report, the Municipal Harbor Plan is expected to establish (or amend) open space requirements and allowed building heights.

“The new zoning that will come from this planning process will have an effect on the development among the Waterfront and the Greenway long into the future,” ZLC co-chair David Kubiak expressed in the report.

“It is imperative that the North End/Waterfront community be well represented during this planning process,” Kubiak noted.

The planning process is expected to be guided by a Municipal Harbor Plan Advisory Committee.

“The makeup of this committee is representing the interests of the North End/Waterfront community is unclear at this time,” Kubiak said.