City officials have called a timeout in the Fenway’s zoning update, granting a few more weeks for them to consider what has evolved into a debate over whether the neighborhood will prioritize lucrative new business or its existing residents.

The Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) has delayed what would have been the second public meeting in the Fenway’s zoning update process, apparently to give planners more time to consider what they heard from residents at a February 13 meeting organized by City Councilor Kenzie Bok.

The process up to this point has been consistently assailed by civic groups and residents for its short timeline. It’s offered just a handful of meetings in contrast to the intensive work done two decades ago to first develop the neighborhood zoning code.

Planners framed the postponement as a concession to community demands for more time and discussion.

“Staff wanted additional time to digest what they heard from the community following the in-person meeting with Councilor Bok, so preemptively postponed the Thursday meeting,” said Brittany Comak, the BPDA’s assistant director of communications.

The second meeting is now scheduled for March 8.

That left Councilor Bok’s meeting as the sole public space to discuss the update until then. Bok echoed the BPDA’s perspective in her opening statements, as well as emphasizing the individual focus of in-person meetings.

“From my perspective the delay is actually a good thing, since I’ve heard consistently from you all that when you’re talking about planning and how to think about development, that last thing you want to feel is rushed,” she said.

The tenor of the in-person forum was notably distinct from that of the zoom meetings that preceded it, with a wider variety of issues brought up in addition to the standard skepticism now of updating zoning at all.

Residents spoke of fears that the Fenway was being consumed by businesses that outbid vital neighborhood staples with no regard for the community’s health. Corner stores and pharmacies have disappeared, priced out by lab space and offices.

The Fenway still lacks robust childcare, a public library, dedicated schools, and other services that might entice the few young families that can afford Boston’s increasing rents. Councilor Bok has suggested that a zoning rewrite could help fund some of those additions, though the structure of city government means the neighborhood can’t build them unilaterally.

“I can neither promise people that the city will freeze all development, nor am I ok with a status quo where every project is treated like it’s the first one to arrive and is disrupting the zoning article,” said Bok. “We need to find a middle way through where the community voice is codified and actually reflected in the development we see.”

Aside from individual issues, the fundamental question of zoning update’s necessity remains. Several residents who spoke up still objected to the idea that existing zoning should be changed to fit the ubiquitous exceptions made for individual projects instead of simply enforced more strongly.

“We had a super robust process to create our zoning article. This neighborhood gave up height, gave up density, because we were supposed to get so many things like housing,” said Marie Fukuda, a Fenway resident and board member of the Fenway Civic Association. “There’s a really warranted skepticism that we’re being pushed through a rapid discussion without due conversation about why those things weren’t delivered and how they would be through any zoning update.”