CommunityScale leads comprehensive rezoning projects that modernize a community’s entire zoning code. These projects address outdated regulations, improve code legibility, ensure compliance with current enabling legislation, and align zoning with adopted plans and community goals. The process typically includes a complete rewrite of use definitions, dimensional standards, administrative procedures, and design requirements, often accompanied by zoning map amendments.

CommunityScale works with legal partners to ensure defensible zoning language and manages community engagement throughout the adoption process. As communities face evolving state requirements like the Affordable Homes Act and MBTA Communities mandates, comprehensive rezoning provides an opportunity to integrate new requirements into a coherent, modern code rather than layering overlays onto an outdated framework. Each rewrite is informed by housing supply analysis and fiscal impact considerations to ensure the new code supports the community’s growth and affordability goals.

Projects featuring comprehensive rezoning:

• Lynn, MA: comprehensive zoning rewrite (adopted unanimously)
• Melrose, MA: zoning recodification
• Lowell, MA: citywide comprehensive rezoning
• Everett, MA: complete recodification

Related reading:

• Nesting zoning use definitions into functional groups
• The Affordable Homes Act and planning in Massachusetts communities
• Thoughts on how Everett became a housing boomtown in the Boston area