Boston skyline

As a neighborhood activist all my life, now in East Boston, I have been following this ongoing story concerning the creation of new districts within Downtown Boston (“Zoning chair to recuse on key vote,” Boston Herald, Oct. 21). The real story here isn’t the recusing of the Zoning Board chair but of the push to rezone the area in question to keep building more high-end housing downtown.

I read of the support of this plan by the Downtown Boston Alliance which represents commercial property owners. I am opposed to the creation of new skyline districts where buildings would be zoned for 500-700 foot towers.

According to supporters of PLAN: Downtown, passage of the proposal “is critical for completing the neighborhood’s needed transformation such that it can align with a new  normal.”

NEW NORMAL. I am not sure a new normal and new zoning codes along with a housing-first agenda bringing a new generation of residents is the answer to saving the sagging Downtown Boston business district or the housing crisis across our neighborhoods where fewer and fewer folks can afford to keep living here.

It surely will only create more un-affordable housing choices. High-rise towers with high-rent housing will only increase the housing crisis for working families to remain here.

The answer to creating more affordable housing options for ordinary working folk will not be created by turning Downtown Crossing, the Financial District and the area around the Boston Common or Public Gardens into new residential neighborhoods.

We want to save our entire city from the constant development of housing that only adds to the decreasing affordable stock. I do not see the Boston Planning & Development Agency or the  Boston Zoning Board or for that matter City Hall itself as a friend to those becoming more and more unable (to afford rent) as the housing market continues to go high-end only.

Not only will the housing crisis continue unabated, but as Tony Ursillo who lives downtown, is quoted as saying, allowing the development of “luxury towers” would also “squeeze out opportunities for small businesses to get created and thrive.”

I am tired of all these PLANS across the city, I want to be able to afford to stay in the city where I was born, have lived and thrived for so long. Words like “transformation” always scare me because of all the unintended consequences that always seem to follow behind all the hype.

What good is there being  the “Safest City in America” if it becomes too un-affordable for most of us to live in?

Sal Giarratani

East Boston