Introduction of Alewife building proposals previews battle of environment vs. housing
A photo from the Fresh Pond Residents Alliance shows flooding in the Alewife area.
Plenty of debate is due over environmentally sensitive rules for building in the Alewife neighborhood – where flooding is due to be more frequent and hot days more extreme, thanks to a lack of trees – when a citizen zoning petition is heard by the City Council. It began Monday, as councillors and nearly 20 residents weighed in at length despite knowing the only action taking place would be referral to a committee.
In a by-now familiar conflict, many were alarmed by the zoning’s potential to slow the construction of housing or decrease the number of units built when people continue to be squeezed out of the city by a lack of options, especially affordable ones.
“Many of the petition’s environmental recommendations severely undermine other critical city policy goals, such as the creation of much-needed affordable housing,” said Jesse Kanson-Benanov, a leader of the group A Better Cambridge. Still, he said, “much of what is proposed in this petition deserves serious review and discussion by the Planning Board and City Council.”
The petition for “Zoning Amendments for a Flood- and Heat-Resilient Cambridge” would expand the boundaries of what city planners recognize as the floodplain, as well as calling for specific changes in architecture and landscaping, such as raised structures and more room for trees and greenery that can absorb rain and river flooding. It also lowers requirements for parking spaces, allows more height on buildings and encourages “green roofs” with plant life, though Kanson-Benanov saw some rules as at odds with others in the petition, such as allowing a development more height but not more population density.
The petition is “sincere, but nevertheless deeply flawed,” he said, saying his group “looks forward” to discussion in coming months.
Others took a darker view of the petition. Toby Hyde, a Better Cambridge member, called it “a housing moratorium dressed in the language of climate change.”
Shock and support
There was plenty of citizen support expressed for the petition as well, with environmental activists saying action was past due and could be enacted without reducing construction of affordable housing. Social justice was a theme, with Lee Farris of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, a group that often weighs in on housing matters, saying “I don’t want to see housing built that can endanger its residents’ lives” and Charles Franklin warning against a repeat of what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina: “What good is affordable housing that gets washed out to sea?”
Eric Grunebaum, part of an Alewife working group for the Envision Cambridge citywide master plan process, said the citizen zoning petition was necessary because he’d come to question whether the city could be trusted to manage development in the neighborhood. That doubt had passionate support from former councillor Katherine Triantafillou, who said she was “utterly shocked” to move back to Cambridge to see – and would actually want a moratorium on – the “expensive but cheap” development in the area.
When the authors of the petition spoke, they too underlined the environmental crisis facing the city that would be faced by Alewife first and most dramatically.
“We decided that the time for action was not 2030, or 2045 or 2070,” said Doug Brown, naming dates used by city planners as landmarks in onrushing environmental crises, “but today, as buildings constructed now will still be here in 50 years.” He noted that expected displacement of 13 million Americans by sea level rise has already begun in North Cambridge, where 51 families have been relocated from basement apartments because of worries over constant moisture, mildew and other poor living conditions.
Co-author Mike Nakagawa noted how careful his family had been to buy a home outside the Alewife floodplain – only to see the floods come anyway and floodplain borders expanded to include his address.
Council reaction
The petition was welcomed for analysis by councillors including Quinton Zondervan and Dennis Carlone, co-chair of the Ordinance Committee that will hear the petition, and by vice mayor Jan Devereux. While she said she didn’t want to see the city lulled into thinking that marginal improvements in construction rules would keep residents safe from flood and heat, Devereux also noted that many of the petition’s proposals were similar to rules already in place or being considered, and its blunting of development would be limited by it being an overlay district.
Mayor Marc McGovern wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t think it’s a false dichotomy to talk about how this is going to impact housing. Any time you add more requirements, more expense, you impact what’s going to be built,” McGovern said, imagining how many proposals would be buildable when requirements piled up. “You limit what can be built and where, so it absolutely directly impacts development. I’m not saying that’s the intent.”
More Cambridge workers are being forced out to live as far out as Brockton, Framingham, Lawrence and Lowell, he said, underlining the need to build, though “I have no problem with holding developers to high environmental standards.”
This post was updated April 25, 2018, to remove one part of the zoning petition description and broaden how the Cambridge Residents Alliance is described.
The way this article is framed perpetuates the narrative that creating housing (and not only units that are affordable, but hundreds of so-called “luxury” units) is the sole concern of our growth planning. So when a set of fairly modest zoning changes are proposed for an overlay district that does not change the base zoning, that are drawn directly out of the city’s own climate change studies, and that seek to ensure that large new developments, whether housing or commercial, don’t exacerbate the anticipated effects of climate change significant flooding and extreme heat, they are framed as “anti-housing.” A “battle” of housing versus the environment may make good copy but it makes poor public policy.
Thanks, Marc. One correction: all Alewife construction already requires a hearing before the Planning Board, as all of Alewife is currently included in either a Planned Unit Development (Discovery Park and Alewife Center), the existing Parkway Overlay District, or one of the existing Alewife Overlay Districts (Triangle, Quadrangle, and Shopping Center). The petition changes none of those requirements.
It’s also interesting that petition opponents have already started championing what they like (more height, less parking), adding in what they love (more density), and tossing out what they hate (everything else). Though it’s alway good to consider revisions in order to reach consensus, this petition was from the start designed as a balanced and comprehensive approach with wins for both sides, not as an extremist position subject to future horse trading. Once one side or the other starts cherry picking only their favorite parts, the petition quickly loses any real power to affect the needed changes. Sadly, it’s that very undercutting, of both process and results, that so-called “smart growth” advocates seem to consistently embrace.
I am a member of A Better Cambridge, but I also admire Jan Devereux’s work and advocacy.
As a Cambridge homeowner, I stand to benefit from a lack of development. For the sake of a diverse socioeconomic community, however, I strongly support increasing building density. I previously lived around Palo Alto where median single family home prices are $3.2 million and 2BR rentals are $4500. It is a city composed with software engineers, executives, and doctors and disproportionately absent of teachers, artists, and blue collar residents.
I fear that Cambridge will head in a similar direction without additional high density development.
Housing shortage is a huge problem, but Alewife flooding is also an issue. I hope these dual issues can be reconciled.
Thank you “Taguscove.” I think the two can — must — be reconciled.
Thanks, Taguscove. Cambridge has always faced hard decisions well, building affordable housing consistently when other towns did not. That’s why we alone have more affordable units than all the suburbs combined. We still need more, and will continue to build more- the petition doesn’t change that. But now we are facing a new hard decision- how to respond to a rapidly changing climate that may undo all we have worked to build. We lost 51 affordable units in December due to safety concerns caused by water damage, and if we fail to future proof new buildings now, we can expect more losses tomorrow. Some estimates are that areas of the floodplain will see damaging floods as frequently as every 5 years. Hard to imagine a low income family being forced to react to such frequent losses.
So that’s exactly what our petition tries to do. It creates new requirements for what is built, but at the same time allows more height and less parking so that the new health and safety requirements don’t reduce overall development potential. At the same time, it’s important to remember that not all new development is residential. In fact, Envision Cambridge proposes 3x more commercial and industrial space in the Quad than residential. Allowing all that commercial development to go forward with more height and less parking, but with greater density instead of new green infrastructure, is the equivalent of environmental Armageddon. And nobody, rich, poor, or otherwise, survives such an outcome. We need action now to ensure that all Cambridge residents have healthy, safe, and affordable housing for the future.
What the area most needs is transportation to match the residential and commercial expansion already made, then add more to keep pace with construction expansion.
Cambridge needs to expand roads and purchase subway train sets for the MBTA, which they should have already done for Kendall and Alewife development. Cambridge puts more and more crushing burden on the MBTA without paying for it – instead spending the extra tax revenue elsewhere. While hurting the MBTA, Cambridge collects more Chapter 90 roadway money for added residential and commercial populations while having added no roadway to support them. The MBTA should get that money because they are moving the new people, not the roads.
The 1979 Alewife Revitalization – Alewife Urban Design Study Phase II noted traffic congestion years before the lane removal on Concord Ave. and perhaps millions of square feet of new development in the 35 years since that report where road capacity has only been removed with the loss of a travel lane and addition of more traffic signals.
More housing is a necessary condition for making Cambridge more affordable for all, but it is not sufficient. Unless new building is accompanied by rules and support systems to enable our teachers, police and other members of the middle class to rent and/or purchase the homes, the buildings will provide only a sliver of relief to those in the middle.