The Downtown’s zoning update has been simultaneously approved and delayed through a last-minute pivot that deferred its most crucial elements to further meetings in the coming months.

The approval of PLAN: Downtown by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) board on December 14 did not include its most technical and controversial sections, such as raising height limits by hundreds of feet or revamping community mitigation. Those decisions will be staggered in three stages across 2024 despite the skepticism of exhausted civic groups.

The schedule was announced in November and immediately garnered mixed reviews. Residents and civic organizations have been grappling with city planners for five years, and in the time since the announcement sentiment seems to have further hardened against the prospect of months more debate.

“This is not the final product. The most critical details are still under review, including potential height and zoning changes, exception eligibility and the density bonus model,” said Alison Frazee, executive director of the Boston Preservation Alliance. “We’ve been consistently frustrated with the process. Key elements shifted despite significant opposition from the public, and BPDA leadership provided no justification.”

“It’s a major step forward for our neighborhood, but the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) was certainly disappointed with changes late in the process that separated and delayed needed zoning updates,” said BID President Michael Nichols.

“We remain hopeful that those needed changes, especially those that evolve our central business district for office, lab, hotel and residential use, will be reflected later this year.”

Under the guidance of the approved plan, development downtown will focus on housing access and alternative transit. Its vision of the Downtown as a mixed-use community of residents contrasts to its traditional focus on migratory office workers, and aligns with goals set by the Downtown Boston Residents Association (DBNA) and the BID.

Cycling infrastructure and mass transit may be more controversial if they come at the expense of road space for cars. Bike lanes have dominated recent Downtown meetings and even caused some to devolve into unstructured shouting matches.

These nonbinding guidelines will be quickly followed by more definite changes this winter. The first stage of follow-up will focus on updating Downtown zoning’s outdated whitelist of commercial uses. More modern or unusual businesses found themselves with no legal path forward Downtown, leaving the community without experimental venues, axe throwing, escape rooms or even yoga studios.

The fight over height increases will follow in the spring. Bringing actual zoning in line with the de facto limits set by state height guidelines has been a priority since the start, with planners proposing to charge developers for going over current limits instead of just forcing them to get a zoning exception that offers the community nothing.

The third and final step is less definite in both subject and timeline. City planners want to simplify the process of deciding community mitigation for projects but can’t properly do so until the city’s broader reform of Article 80 public review is complete.

BPDA officials have said in the past that the change would arrive summer 2024 at the absolute earliest, with more recent press releases being even less specific.

What exactly the public process will look like for all these stages is another open question, with the BPDA committing to little beyond holding public meetings.

“In the long term, staff will focus on streamlining project mitigation through the ongoing Article 80 modernization process to reduce unpredictable project by project negotiation, and ensure new development supports the longstanding needs of the community,” said a BPDA spokesperson. “The community will have the opportunity to participate in these zoning processes, and meetings will be scheduled throughout 2024.”