Kendall Square upzoning passes with deal boosting affordability, homeownership
A rendering of Boston Properties’ proposed residential building at Broadway and Galileo Galilei Way in Kendall Square. (Image: Boston Properties)
The addition of 1 million square feet of development and 560 units of housing to Kendall Square came Monday with a last-minute deal between the City Council and developer to make 20 percent of the new housing units available for ownership, rather than rental.
The sponsors of the MXD zoning petition, the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority and developer Boston Properties, agreed last week to increase the amount of subsidized housing in the zoning. On Dec. 16, the authority voted to require that 20 percent of floor area be devoted to low- and moderate-income affordable housing, and 5 percent middle-income, a concession pushed for by city councillor Marc McGovern. Previously the numbers were 15 and 3 percent; elsewhere in the city the accounting is by unit, not by floor area, and approximately 11.5 percent is required for low and moderate-income housing, with no middle-income requirement.
Attorney James Rafferty and Boston Properties Senior Vice President Michael Cantalupa discuss a last-minute homeownership requirement with CRA Executive Director Tom Evans and Boston Properties’ Benjamin Lavery. (Photo: John Hawkinson)
During debate Monday, Mayor David Maher asked Boston Properties for a homeownership pledge, resulting in a signed letter of commitment about two hours later. Company representatives and city and CRA staff worked outside the council chamber to produce the agreement. The council accepted it and adopted the zoning by a vote of 7-2.
Councillors Craig Kelley and Tim Toomey were the no votes, with Kelley expressing skepticism the commitment would “lead to any kind of community down the line.”
Toomey said he felt not enough consideration was being given to the “overwhelming” amount of square footage coming to Kendall Square with the addition of development coming from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and potential for change at the 14-acre Volpe site across from Boston Properties land.
“Recently 50,000 square feet of development [in Central Square] was treated like the end of the world, and now 1 million square feet is to be dropped on Kendall Square and everything is fine and dandy,” said Toomey, calling the development rights a “gift” to Boston Properties.
The zoning was adopted over the objection of neighborhood groups such as the East Cambridge Planning Team, which opposed the increase in zoning out of shared concern for the combined impacts of the already-passed MIT upzoning and the upcoming Volpe zoning. The citizens group also felt it did not have sufficient time to comment on the process, though the Redevelopment Authority noted it had been the subject of 40 public meetings.
With 560 units of housing, the percentages break down to about 112 units of low- and moderate-income housing and 28 units of middle-income housing, though the requirement is for square footage, so smaller units may be combined to allow for more family housing. Similarly, about 112 of the 560 will be available for ownership rather than rental, though again the actual measurement is in square footage.
Too bad Tim didn’t notice this stuff when he voted to give BP 300,000 square feet for a new Broad Institute building for about $3/s.f. and a promise to do things they were already obligated to do, nor when he voted to let them use the 50,000 square feet they apparently didn’t need for the Broad after all for Google, with a bonus of obliterating a huge part of the Kendall Square roof garden and privatizing a chunk of what was left. Welcome aboard.
Imagine the concessions they might have gotten if they waited until we had a completed Master Plan! And imagine how much quicker we would have gotten our Master Plan if the city knew all this money was being held up. Now, since you’re doing all this imagining, imagine what we could do for our poor and homeless with the $50 million in fees the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority will receive from this agreement. Also, if you have any additional imaginative powers left, imagine the mess in traffic and transit overload we’ve just agreed to.
Mayor Mahar’s request for a homeowners pledge, can’t be considered as fair dealing or justice, based on the statement that 40 public hearing.
Article #1.(Planners resist early action housing plan, post long-missing study showing C2 flaw), By Marc Levy on Wedsnesday 23, 2015.
Peace Be Unto You,
According to federal, state, and local plans to end homelessness and the necessity and urgency to do so, any plans to provide poverty housing, should be applied immediately. Adding a strategic poverty housing element to master planning is of the utmost importance and urgency. It’s madness to state that a comprehensive housing plan shouldn’t be added in the first year. This is nebulous.
This type of thinking is a prescription for disaster, on a direct course of collision with federal, state, and local laws. The future and livelihood of our most vulnerable population of citizens is at stake.
OBTAIN CERTIFIED JUSTICE OR ELSE IN THE JUDICIAL COURT SYSTEM, BY CHECKING OUT THE FOLLOWING LINK: https://HowToWinInCourt.com/?refercode=RH0006
Yours In Peace,
Mr. Hasson Rashid,
Cambridge, MA.
Peace Be Unto You,
I must make a correction here, the response intended for this article was posted in another place, the correct response is a follows:
HRASHID Tuesday, December 29, 2015 at 10:50 am
Article# 2.(Kendall Square upzoning passes with deal boosting affordability, homeownership), By John Hawkinson on Wednesday, December 23, 2015.
Peace Be Unto You,
Principles of Fair Dealing Denied!
Equality of opportunity is a basic human need, therefore equality of opportunity is a human right. Mayor Mahar’s request for a homeowners pledge, can’t be considered as fair dealing or justice, based on the statement that 40 public hearings were held on the topic. This is anti-social and criminal. It is a serious violation of the principals of fair dealing.
I’m not surprised at all when the Mayor, members of the city council, other city officials engage themselves in wronging the most vulnerable segments of our municipal populations, again and again, with last minuets back room type decisions, deals, and fixes.
It’s been known for quite awhile that a strong element of sell out exist at city hall. The fix at Kendall Square has been in the works and ongoing for quite some time now. The perpetrators don’t know or want to know that they are being discriminatory towards the homeless, and especially homeless Black Americans, and other homeless minority members, by excluding them from participating in poverty housing opportunities, in the Kendall Square area and district.
The imbalances of inequity and injustice, abounds in the city hall’s affairs and dealings in the Kendall Square area and district. Therefore, homeless equity opportunities, denied, disallows homeless human beings the principle of justification of his or her’s existence.
OBTAIN CERTIFIED JUSTICE OR ELSE IN THE JUDICIAL COURT SYSTEM, BY CHECKING OUT THE FOLLOWING LINK:https://HowToWinInCourt.com/?refercode=RH0006
Yours In Peace,
Mr. Hasson J. Rashid
Cambridge, MA