# Boston's office to residential conversion program

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2024-02-22

development, planning, real-estate

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Like many cities these days, Boston has a [program in place](https://www.bostonplans.org/projects/office-to-residential-conversion-program) to incentivize the conversion of office buildings to residential. Here is generally how it works:

*   City to provide an average tax abatement of up to 75% of the fair market assessed residential value for up to 29 years.
    
*   City to fast track the development review process (only 1 community meeting). Zoning would be considered as-of-right.
    
*   Construction must start before October 2025.
    
*   Per the city's inclusionary zoning policies, 17% of all newly created residential suites must be restricted to households making up to 60% of AMI (Area Median Income), and another 3% of the suites must be reserved for voucher holders.
    
*   Projects cannot be ground-up construction. Adaptive re-use only. Though additional height/FAR is a possibility.
    
*   Program is _not_ intended to create micro-units (I'm not sure how firm this restriction is).
    
*   Any ground-floor retail and public uses must be maintained.
    
*   Transaction charge of 2% on any future gross sale of the property.
    

And [here](https://www.universalhub.com/2024/developer-proposes-converting-offices-three) is one example project that is using the program. It is interesting to look at how different cities are approaching this vacancy problem.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/bostons-office-to-residential-conversion-program)*