News & Updates

BPDA releases PLAN: Mattapan transportation and development planning guide for residents and community members

Aug 27, 2021

Today, the Boston Planning & Development Agency’s (BPDA) Planning team released A Guide to PLAN: Mattapan’s Transportation Planning and the Development Review Process.  The full guide is also available in Spanish and Haitian Creole.

Guided by Imagine Boston 2030, PLAN: Mattapan is a City planning initiative that seeks to ensure that the Mattapan community is preserved wisely, equitably enhanced, and grows inclusively. Through these three principles of “preserve, enhance, and grow,” the BPDA’s planning team is working with the community to create a comprehensive vision for Mattapan that ensures the creation of a more equitable neighborhood by guiding future growth and investment.

Through the PLAN: Mattapan process, community members shared that it was difficult to understand their role and ability to influence the Article 80 process related to transportation improvements and mitigation, as well as other City and state transportation projects. This guide is part of a larger BPDA initiative to build a more inclusive planning process and ensure plans and their implementations reflect the perspectives of a diverse group of stakeholders. It seeks to explain and illustrate government processes and equip residents, workers, and small business owners of Mattapan with planning concepts so they are able to better navigate and participate in these initiatives.

The guide provides information on transportation planning, specifically why planning is happening now and how City priorities influence the process. It also highlights elements of street design that address underlying issues like safety, accessibility, and reliability that residents have raised throughout the PLAN: Mattapan process. The guide includes solutions from the Boston Transportation Department's  Street Safety Toolkit, which directly address many of the underlying issues that have been shared through PLAN: Mattapan. The guide also includes an overview of the Article 80 Development review process, including how community members can get involved.

With the community’s help, PLAN: Mattapan will produce a neighborhood plan with specific recommendations that will guide future transportation projects and development proposals. As PLAN: Mattapan begins drafting preliminary recommendations, this guide will serve as a helpful tool as the community joins conversations around transportation goals, infrastructure, and access. 

The BPDA is leading an unprecedented number of planning studies alongside Boston’s communities, each guided by Imagine Boston 2030, the first city-wide master plan in 50 years aimed at guiding growth. There are neighborhood planning studies moving forward in Charlestown, Downtown, Dorchester’s Glover’s Corner, Mattapan, Newmarket and East Boston, and the Western Ave Corridor and planning guidelines have been passed for PLAN: JP/Rox, PLAN: South Boston Dorchester Avenue, and PLAN: Nubian Square. The Allston-Brighton Mobility Study was recently approved and the South Boston Seaport Strategic Transit Plan is in the process of identifying specific mobility recommendations.

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