- What, When, Where, and Why?
- Heights Business District Rezoning, Act One: Flashback to 2018
- So, How Did MAPC Spin the Results?
- Heights Business District Rezoning: Act Two: What Did 1,239 Heights Residents Ask For in Spring of 2025?
- So What Will the Town Propose Next, and What Can Residents Do to be Heard?
What, When, Where, and Why?
Arlington is embarking on plans to redevelop its three main Business Districts: in Arlington Heights, Arlington Center, and East Arlington. This in addition to overseeing all MBTA Act proposals for buildings now allowed to be 4-6 stories high, by right, along stretches of Mass Ave and Broadway, and 3 stories on the side streets off those thoroughfares.
Ostensibly, the aim is to revitalize our business areas, making it more attractive for residents to shop and work in Town. If done carelessly, though, these plans could do nothing to move the needle when it comes to increasing commercial space - and commercial tax revenue as a share of all revenue - in Arlington. In fact, this could simply eke out a "no net loss of business” disguised as victory, and at great cost: higher taxes, more traffic, reduced pedestrian safety, fewer trees and green space, a wall of buildings on our sidewalks, and less sunlight.
The Heights is the first business district up for rezoning, so it is essential that all residents follow the process carefully to ensure the Town zones this three-quarter-mile-long stretch so as to reflect residents’ wishes and the Town’s fiscal needs. (For background information on Arlington's fiscal problems as the thirteenth most densely populated municipality in Massachusetts, with a near total lack of a commercial base to alleviate rising valuations and taxes, see ARFRR’s September blog post, "Stepping Up or Stepping Into the Abyss?").
Prior attempts at rezoning the Heights have, to put it bluntly, been marred by outright state interference. Resident oversight is badly needed to prevent continued interference as planning for the area picks up steam.
In this post, we review how the 2018 process to rezone Arlington Heights was hijacked by the state’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), which had been hired to conduct an economic analysis of the neighborhood. We also illustrate how the Planning Department seems intent upon overriding the latest round of public feedback once more in order to push plans that fail to reflect the public input they have received.
Given pressure from the state to prioritize housing over what Arlington needs to right its ship - commercial tax revenue - the Planning Department and the Arlington Redevelopment Board have been moving to eliminate zoning rules that make Arlington what residents say they want and love - a Town with a touch of urbanity. In turn, they have targeted front and side setbacks that provide breathing space between buildings and people, and redefined rooftops and balconies as “open space.”
The reason they have pushed these changes is clear: Lacking buildable land, they seek to eliminate Arlington’s pockets of gaps and greenery to create buildings large enough to hold a bit of commercial space on the ground floor while prioritizing infrastructure for as many residential units as possible above. (This infrastructure often takes up more than 50% of the ground floor.)
Heights Business District Rezoning, Act One: Flashback to 2018
In 2018, Arlington set up an all-volunteer Arlington Heights Neighborhood Action Plan Implementation Committee while the Town’s Planning Department simultaneously hired a state entity (MAPC) as consultant. They held community forums to ask residents what they would like a consolidated business district in the Heights to look and feel like, with said forums “facilitated” by the state entity.The summary shows that most residents voiced a preference for “village style” architecture of no more than three stories and more open space for community gatherings.
So, How Did MAPC Spin the Results?
In a tone-deaf move, the proposal crafted by MAPC called for heights of up to 5 stories for all parcels in the re-zoned district, further restricted open space by allowing the requirement to be met in part by balconies and rooftops, and provided no thoughts on how adherence to design standards would be enforced.
Additionally, it was suggested Gold’s Gym and surrounding businesses be rezoned from Industrial to Planned Unit Development, allowing buildings up to 65 feet high, despite the recommendation of our existing Design Standards to keep heights along the bike path to 3 and 4 stories, “to discourage excessively large building heights in close proximity to the Bikeway.”
It is worth noting the redevelopment incentivized by this rezoning would displace tenants in the apartments above businesses now. These units tend to rent for lower rates, and currently serve as existing attainable housing. A variety of housing plans for Arlington recommend preserving existing “naturally occurring” affordable housing.
MAPC’s report was entitled, “Arlington Heights Business District Rezoning Recommendations.” The residents’ survey was folded into a longer report, which opined, remarkably, that Arlington Heights could support an astonishing 84 more shops, including 18 more restaurants, 18 more clothing stores, 6 more hardware stores, 7 “other” retail, 3 home furnishing stores, 3 office supply stores, and 3 electronics stores: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/46654/636942124172100000
In order to accomplish these grandiose ambitions while prioritizing mixed use buildings that are largely residential, it called for buildings that would be 3 stories tall “by right,” and 5 stories by Special Permit, instead of the 3 story maximum that residents said they wanted. Furthermore, they called for zero setbacks from the sidewalk, and zero space between buildings, along a three-quarter-mile corridor representing a consolidation of the five business districts in the Heights now.
Then a curious thing happened. The MAPC report was abruptly relabeled “Arlington Heights Neighborhood Action Plan” and in one swoop the Planning Department moved to adopt a plan that contradicted a survey of residents, that residents themselves had paid for, with the state as hired hands:
Heights Business District Rezoning, Act Two: What Did 1,239 Heights Residents Say in Spring of 2025?
The MAPC written “Recommendation/Action Plan” gathered dust during the COVID pandemic until the fall of 2024, when the Planning Department moved to re-do the survey in response to feedback at a community re-engagement event. A survey was created, circulated, and the results publicized in March of 2025.
The overwhelming majority of respondents stated that increased business opportunities are the most important priority for the Heights. In fact, the lowest weighted importance was accorded to housing creation in this district, and housing creation here received even lower priority than “Other,” which encompassed a variety of free-form replies. While 76.7% of respondents ranked local business as of the highest importance, only 32.5% of respondents considered mixed use development as "very important" for the town.
Residents have seen how mixed use projects in Arlington to date lead to a reduction in the number of commercial tenants, as when 882 Mass Ave lost 75% of its commercial space, and 190-200 Mass Ave is set to lose 51% of commercial space, due to mixed use.
Elsewhere, we see that green space, housing, and more public parking are listed in descending order after businesses, albeit from a list of pre-ordained choices.
Most people indicated they are generally satisfied with the selection of businesses in the Heights, as the Heights has gained beloved mainstays since 2019, including Roasted Granola, the Heights Pub, and Home Taste. The fear that we could lose treasured businesses was palpable at the community reengagement session.
Residents listed pedestrian safety as the most critical issue and asked for additional parking (one of the top two “missing elements” listed, after a post office). Most of all, residents stated that they prize the “small town feel” of the Heights:
They also said that what sets the Heights apart is that it is “quaintly historic, closer to nature, and offers beautiful views”:
So What Will the Town Propose Next, and What Can Residents Do to be Heard?
It seems that 2-story buildings with a multi-floor commercial component would satisfy residents’ desire for buildings that preserve the small town feel the area is known for. We have an opportunity to rezone this area, guided by the expressed wishes of residents, the Town’s most critical needs, and its Design Guidelines. Will our Planning Department respect those wishes, or impose further transformative changes here, as with MBTA Act rezoning and the possibility of a town-wide Affordable Housing Overlay allowing more large apartment complexes in more places?
In their newly proposed map, Planning has moved the boundary of the proposed Business District to the west by one block and removed the Industrial area where Gold’s Gym sits from the zone.
However, they have also added all of the residential parcels that abut parcels on Mass Ave. to this new overlay. Of course, they have yet to say whether they will follow the public’s lead and propose two-story buildings that are mostly commercial. We should be able to prioritize gaps and greenery that provide the Heights with the small town feel residents say they cherish. If the Planning Department aims to push zoning allowing buildings to be closer, with no side or front setbacks, then they will have blatantly disregarded residents’ wishes again.
Watchful oversight of the process, rather than forms of “engagement” that are repeatedly disregarded by the Town, is necessary now more than ever. It is the only way to right the ship and help the Town regain some of the trust that they have lost.
The latest Survey Summary ends with a cryptic statement suggesting that they hope to jettison residents’ wishes and our fiscal needs in favor of the MAPC wish list:
“The Heights Neighborhood Action Plan Implementation Committee will use the community response data provided through the survey to conceptualize a vision of what residents think Arlington Heights could look like in the future. This concept will then be brought back to the public for comment and revision.
After a unified vision has been vetted by the community, the Committee will return to the recommended actions as stated in the Arlington Heights Neighborhood Action Plan (2019) by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council which included recommendations related to zoning, design standards, parking, wayfinding, streetscape improvements, placemaking at the MBTA-owned Arlington Heights Busway, and other local regulations with the goal of identifying how the corridor could reach its full potential to accommodate additional business opportunities and housing units, including mixed-use developments….”
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
See the calendar of in-person and Zoom meetings regarding this large rezoning project here: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/town-governance/boards-and-committees/heights-neighborhood-action-plan-implementation/agendas-minutes Also, please attend and/or write letters to the Planning Department, the SelectBoard, and Town Meeting Members telling them to heed residents’ wishes this time: https://sites.google.com/view/arfrr/calendar-contacts
