Addicted to growth? Development status quo is candidates’ addiction we must worry about
In a recent op-ed, vice mayor Jan Devereux took aim at the pro-housing slate of City Council candidates endorsed by the A Better Cambridge Action Fund, claiming that addressing our housing crisis by building homes reflects an “addiction to growth.” Although she isn’t running for reelection, her preferred strategy – reject all reforms, resist any zoning changes, offer no solutions and pray the city will somehow stay the way it is – is unfortunately shared by many of the candidates hoping to join City Council in her place. The problem with this fundamentally conservative strategy is it seeks to maintain a decadeslong status quo that has failed us. And if we don’t change course, it will continue to fail us.
Since the downzonings of the 1970s and 1980s, Cambridge has, as a matter of policy, made it essentially illegal to build any significant amount of housing without a negotiated special permit. (Today, two-thirds of buildings in Cambridge are denser than allowed under current zoning rules.) This has severely crippled our housing stock’s ability to keep pace with the booming Greater Boston job market. Since 2013, the region has added a quarter-million jobs, 25,000 of which were in Cambridge, but Cambridge only added 3,000 housing units. Cambridge is creating only about half as many homes per capita as Boston, which itself trails almost every major city in the United States. It’s little wonder that we’ve seen waves of displacement, as all these new workers bid up the rents and prices of existing homes. And it’s obvious what’s required: more housing.
The vice mayor argues against this solution, claiming that more residential development would require even more commercial growth, which would further increase the demand for more housing. She goes so far as to say that proposals to zone for more housing – even affordable housing! – should be resisted, on the grounds that they will “pave the way” for commercial upzonings. But this is framing a choice the city has made as if it were a law of nature. While it is true that developers of large mixed-use projects in East Cambridge and Alewife often insist on including commercial land uses for the sake of their balance sheets, by allowing for modest residential growth everywhere else in the city we can reduce our dependence on these megaprojects and go into negotiations with a stronger footing. And while the city manager has claimed repeatedly that Cambridge must build additional commercial property to avoid a “dramatic” increase in tax bills, a closer look at the numbers reveals that this is simply fear-mongering; we have room for many thousands more residential units without any risk of tax consequences. We have the power to undo our housing shortage, if only we have the courage to act.
Listening to many of the candidates for City Council this election season, it’s not clear we will have that courage. Some claim that Cambridge is “full,” despite the long stretches of Massachusetts Avenue with far too many one-story buildings, despite the practically suburban density of West Cambridge (a mere six housing units per acre). Some cry that building more housing will disrupt the “neighborhood character” of Cambridge, as if the character of a neighborhood’s buildings were more important than the character of its inhabitants, as if the sight of a four-story building next to a three-story building were more concerning than the inability of middle-income earners to move here. Some note, correctly, that “building alone will not ensure housing stability,” but use it as an excuse not to build at all rather than as a call to strengthen tenant protections. These are the kinds of things people say when they are addicted to the status quo.
By contrast, the pro-housing platform offers a way forward. It calls for allowing triple-deckers in all parts of the city, because excluding this traditional, affordable style of housing from certain neighborhoods is inequitable. It calls for passing the Affordable Housing Overlay, which would offer density bonuses to 100 percent affordable housing projects, because the fact that Just-A-Start (a nonprofit affordable housing developer) has not been able to acquire a new site in seven years is unsustainable. It calls for stronger tenant protections, such as a new condo conversion ordinance and establishing an Office of Housing Stability, because we must help longtime members of our community stay here alongside newcomers; leaving vulnerable tenants at the mercy of exploitative landlords and building tear-downs is inequitable. It calls for an end to the requirement that new residential units include parking spaces, because wasting precious land to deepen our dependency on cars is unsustainable. More broadly, it calls for more funding for the Affordable Housing Trust, and it calls for allowing more density near transit hubs. In short, it calls for meaningful reform to address our housing crisis, rather than empty words and criticisms.
Devereux, and those running with her message, seem to believe that if we stop building here, Cambridge’s housing crisis will go away. But we don’t live in a bubble. The entire Boston area is booming, not just because of commercial development in Cambridge, but because of job growth throughout the region. Freezing Cambridge’s housing stock would be fine for those who are secure in their housing – homeowners and the wealthy – but demand would continue to rise, and displacement would continue unchecked for everybody else. If we want the rewards of our “boomtown” status to go to everyone, we can’t bury our heads in the sand. We must make more room for more people in the places where people want to live.
I’m proud to support nine pro-housing candidates – Burhan Azeem, Alanna Mallon, Marc McGovern, Risa Mednick, Adriane Musgrave, Sumbul Siddiqui, E. Denise Simmons, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and Tim Toomey – who know this can be done.
Allan Sadun, Pleasant Place
Allan Sadun is a renter in Cambridgeport and a member of the communications team at the all-volunteer A Better Cambridge Action Fund.
Once again this supposed advocacy group grossly misrepresents a consideration that is at the heart of what is being discussed and debated.
Devereux merely attempted to explain the system under which the city operates, she never made claim against housing.
This rebuttal is the perfect example of the myopic view she warned about in her original op ed, and the disreputable tactics of this group.
Thanks to the efforts of this retiring councilor even more AH will be added without imposing a flawed zoning change to the entire city. Since the affordable housing overlay was tabled in September almost 200 more AH units have been proposed through Inclusionary zoning, and even Just A Start, the reference falsely made in the article.
Time to stop listening to the housing doomsayers on what is necessary to build more housing in Cambridge.
Mr Sadun and the developer-backed ABC PAC are terrific writers, but they throw bombs when none are deserved, and they gloss over some very import details.
He assails Vice Mayor Devereaux for pointing out correctly that residential and commercial development are linked. Then he almost immediately asserts that Cambridge housing must grow to support Boston’s commercial needs. So apparently he agrees.
He asserts the Vice Mayor would like to see no growth or change, yet he fails to mention that less than a week ago she was quoted in Cambridge Day championing the affordable housing plan for New Street, just a few blocks from her home.
He claims that we need just a bit more height on Mass Ave or an extra story in neighborhoods, yet his favored Councillors seem to support every new development in the city while accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the construction industry. Most recently, several of these Councillors were prepared to let the aforementioned New Street project become primarily storage units instead of the affordable housing that the Vice mayor and others insisted upon.
Virtually all of the opponents of the Affordable Housing Overlay support increasing our housing in sensible ways such as adding height to Mass Ave and other areas where it’s reasonable. Our objection is when certain Councillors appear to have their proposals drafted by the construction industry without regard for livability, analysis, or common sense.
Let’s shelve the rhetoric and the developers’ cash, and let’s create more housing without selling our city to the highest bidder.
Before we start talking about condominium conversion laws and rent control measures, could we get some really hard data about how much displacement actually occurs. There was supposed to be a “housing emergency” when rent control was passed in 1970, but I don’t think there ever was. Condominium conversion and rent controls just make housing shortages worse. People speak with great sweeping emotion and I never hear any data. I am really tired of every election cycle that makes the same old argument about housing and growth. If we created 25,000 jobs and build 3,000 units, this is a problem. Rent control and condo conversion laws do not address the problem, but they do scapegoat property owners who are in the business of providing housing to others. If we demonize the ‘evil developer’ then who cares about them, right? Of course, these laws affect many owners who aren’t developers in a very negative way.
Thank you Sally. Let us see some data about displacements and please define displacements. I want to live in the new One Dalton in back bay so that I can be closer to work. After five months, I am unable to pay the rent and I being told I have to move out. Am I considered displaced? Or do I actually move to a place where I can actually support myself and pay my rent comfortably- to a simple 3 decker in north cambridge which is now a 40 minutes commute to work?
I completely agree with arguments of rent control. It does not address the problem of housing shortage, and makes rental that much more difficult. The harder you make it for the landlord to move you out, the harder he/she will make it for you to move in.
Aside from being a mis-reading of my op-ed and a gross distortion of my views, this author displays a naivete of how politically captive to FIRE (Finance Insurance Real Estate) all metro areas have become and the consequences. I suggest he and those who ascribe to the simplistic and destined-to-fail supply & demand thinking read “Capital City” by Samuel Stein, which is summarized here: https://www.publicbooks.org/cities-run-by-real-estate/?fbclid=IwAR3AMR97t7SBXxQmSA8C_ZTCPG1SNhoUBiR_kh_sQPGfR2MR0axxXuKa_Y4
I agree with most if not all of the commenters’ points, and even some the author’s, including the obsolescence of both single-family zoning and minimum parking requirements.
But regarding Mr. Sadun’s claims that we have only built 3000 housing units since 2013? That is a clear misrepresentation of the reality on the ground. In truth, a close analysis shows that we have built or permitted at least 9294 units since 2010. In addition, the City’s Development Log currently list 1.5 million square feet of residential space under construction, with another 5.1 million square feet already approved. So, yes, we are building. Can we do more? Sure. But maybe instead of gift wrapping a developer giveaway cleverly disguised as a housing solution, why don’t we try any/all of the following?
• Require more university housing (Harvard, MIT, and Lesley current have a 6000-student housing deficit, just in Cambridge alone)
• Require middle-income and family housing in new development
• Create a neighborhood housing trust to preserve existing NOAH units (this is much cheaper than building new units)
• Allow incremental density increases across the entire City, both for homeowners and 100% affordable developers. Steps toward this goal include:
•Lowering minimum lot sizes in current single-family zones
•Incrementally increasing FAR limits (but don’t eliminate them)- increasing Res B FAR to just 0.6 would clean up the fact that 48% of all properties in West Cambridge are non-conforming and require variances for simple updates. It would also unlock 1 million square feet of new development potential in existing neighborhoods, and that potential would be shared equitably across all properties rather than create a pattern of side-by-side injustice.
•Reducing or eliminating parking requirements
•Liberalizing rules for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
•At the same time, preserve open space requirements and require all housing to be climate resilient. We will need it for future climate responses.
• Solve the vacancy issue, most likely through a vacancy tax or a real estate transfer fee on flipping.
• Issue a housing bond to better fund housing creation. In just the past 3 years, Portland, Austin, and San Francisco have all raised in excess of $250 million, with San Francisco dedicating 25% of the proceeds for middle-income projects up to 175% of AMI. Cambridge has an unused bonding capacity of more than $1 billion. What good is a triple A rating if not to fix basic problems like housing?
• Utilize existing land holdings to keep land costs down (but we also need to figure out why we are building affordable housing at such high construction costs).
Instead of bashing Councilor Devereux for doing her job, I’d suggest instead that the author get to work on pushing the rest of the Council to give up on their failed Overlay gambit and get to work on real housing solutions instead. The people of Cambridge deserve as much.