About Upzone Update

Upzone Update is a project by zoning expert Amy Dain and the staff of Boston Indicators.

Never in the history of zoning have so many Massachusetts municipalities upzoned for multi-family housing as are planning to this coming spring. Why the rush of zoning activism? The state is requiring more than 100 municipalities to upzone a modest portion of their land this year, to allow needed housing. Many towns will take it up at their annual spring town meeting; and some at special town meetings later. City councils meet throughout the year and may take it up at any time.

It is a lot to keep track of, so we will keep track of it for you (with your help!). We’ll do this in two ways:

A biweekly newsletter which will include analysis of zoning reform, links to relevant articles and reports, and a calendar of events, local hearings, and scheduled votes, with as many links as we can find.
The Tracker portions of this website, which will organize information from the newsletters into interactive maps, tables, and lists.

With so much happening across 177 separate cities and towns, we need your help at crowd sourcing information; if you have updates, events, and links you would like to share, please send them to us at upzoneupdate@bostonindicators.org. Thank you!