Councillors walked out as Zondervan spoke about developer effect on crafting legislation (update)
City councillor Quinton Zondervan.
Editor’s note: The Monday meeting of the City Council ground to a halt briefly as councillors walked out during councillor Quinton Zondervan’s reading of a letter by resident Michael Turk and his own follow-up comments. The letter, about the role of a developer lobbyist group called Naiop in writing legislation, can be read here. During Zondervan’s comments councillors Alanna Mallon, E. Denise Simmons, Craig Kelley and finally Tim Toomey left the the room. Mayor Marc McGovern called a recess when there were too few councillors present to constitute a quorum; when the meeting resumed, McGovern gave Zondervan 30 seconds to finish his remarks, afterward cutting him off. “I’m trying to get at what the point is here,” McGovern had said. “This isn’t a time for a soapbox on this.”
On Twitter, journalist John Hawkinson – who has been consulted by officials for judgment on Robert’s Rules of Order – said he found the situation “not normal”:
OK, I don't quite understand, the City Council/Mayor McGovern cut off @qzondervan by forcing a lack of quorum while he was speaking about real estate interests effecting city policy.
This is not normal. pic.twitter.com/wL1ak0lV9q
— John Hawkinson (@johnhawkinson) February 12, 2019
Zondervan’s comments:
This letter is regarding the Massachusetts chapter of Naiop, which markets itself as the Commercial Real Estate Development Association of Massachusetts.
This organization’s legislative efforts are a case study in how commercial interests influence our politics in Cambridge. We like to think that we don’t have the kind of influence-mongering here that exists at the federal level – and because we represent a tiny piece of the American pie, we certainly don’t have it at the same level. But within our purview, particularly around real estate development and land use, we continue to see strong pressure from industry and its lobbyists to build, baby, build. What are some of the consequences of this monomaniacal focus on “growth”? There are many, and Naiop Massachusetts’ own remarkable list of legislative “accomplishments” highlights exactly the downsides to this approach of prioritizing economic growth and development over human lives and the environment:
Naiop claims victory for defeating a “radical” (its word) anti-wage theft bill. In other words, even as the real estate industry regularly trots out hardworking union laborers to beg us to approve building projects that create jobs they desperately need, it’s fighting with the other hand to defeat efforts at ensuring contractors and wage laborers are paid a living wage so they can feed their families. They seek to suppress the cost of doing business, even if that means worsening economic inequality and poverty. This is how America does business, and it is high time we acknowledged that many of our big-business practices are socially corrosive and directly contradict the goals we claim to espouse on this council.
Similarly, Naiop claims victory in defeating several environmental and climate change protection bills, because they “could have,” in its opinion, resulted in “needless delays and legal challenges” for development. Naiop also claims to have “lobbied the Board of Building Regulations and Standards against adopting stringent solar standards, stretch energy code standards and electric vehicle readiness mandates.” In other words, we can’t have environmental protections and a climate change response with actual teeth, because that might get in the way of development. And so it is that we end up with massive tree canopy loss in Cambridge, devastating global climate change all over the planet and continued resistance to necessary changes, even here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to respond to these existential, life- and property-threatening disasters, lest we get in the way of any “development” that is directly responsible for these problems in the first place.
We love to rail against our fossil fool-in-chief for refusing to acknowledge the need to end our dependence on fossil fuels, which is the primary driver of climate change, but we ourselves refuse to come to terms with the fact that our growth-above-all, profits-over-people approach is part and parcel of the same self-destruction humans are inflicting on our civilization.
And it gets worse! Institutions such as Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are proud members of Naiop, and the head of Mitimco, Steve Marsh, is the former head of Naiop Massachusetts. These institutions of higher learning are our community partners, who should be, and in many cases are helping us and leading the way on responding to climate change and environmental destruction. And yet, at the same time, we give them a free pass for their support of lobbyists such as Naiop.
I’m hoping that shining some light on these connections will help my colleagues and the public better understand what we’re up against when we try to take action on climate change, inequality and housing.
Let me close with housing, because it’s affirmed to be our highest priority on the council and certainly presents a major challenge to too many residents of our city fighting to stay in their homes. While we go to bat for our tenants at risk, while we honestly and carefully debate housing policy and tenant protections, Naiop at the state level seeks to boost commercial development while fighting any efforts to protect tenants or keep rents from rising. Why? To maximize its profits. The fact is that rich people pay more, and so these industry lobbyists are not interested in keeping rents down and keeping families in their homes; they are interested only in driving profits up and pretending that doing so doesn’t hurt anybody. The reality, of course, is exactly the opposite, and we see that on a daily basis in our offices as people come to us with desperate pleas for help.
In fact, in its list of accomplishments, Naiop includes this:
“Defeated far-reaching zoning legislation that would have added expense and delay to the land development process in Massachusetts – eliminating the Approval Not Required process, reducing the scope of zoning ‘freeze’ protection under current law, authorizing impact fees without limitation and mandating inclusionary zoning without incentives.”
Again, this organization is directly opposing some of the great work being done by the City Council.
It’s high time that we take these matters to heart and take them seriously. We need to double down on our efforts to protect tenants, to create living wage jobs, to protect our environment and to fight back against the insanity of growth at all cost, profits over people and the future be doomed. I urge my colleagues to carefully read Mr. Turk’s letter and to thoroughly understand these connections and influences that may not measure up to what is happening at the federal level, but nonetheless result in severe injustice and despair for too many in our city. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, it is never too late to do the right thing, and that is as true today as ever.
Quinton Zondervan is a city councillor and climate activist.
The editor’s note on this post was updated Feb. 18, 2019, after councillor Craig Kelley complained it was unfair to say Zondervan’s comments “inspired” four councillors to leave the room, causing the loss of quorum; it now says only that four councillors left the room while Zondervan was speaking, causing the loss of quorum.
It’s times like this I get very frustrated with our city council. All city councilors are elected and chosen by the public to be our voices in government. When one is silenced or interrupted. The violators are silencing and rudely interrupting all of us. This occurs behind the scenes as well, on many important issues affecting Cambridge. More then the average Cambridge resident knows.
Funny, ironic thing is. By reacting, walking out on and interrupting Councilor Zondervan reading the letter. It would have just been another forgotten moment of the meeting. Since they reacted so dramatically, the reaction made this a story.
If we’re serious about climate change, one of the best things we can do is build more housing here. People who live in Cambridge create significantly less emissions than the average, due to the availability of public transit and bike infrastructure, as well as the dense concentration of jobs in the area.
Naiop is myopically focused on one thing, and we shouldn’t allow their anti-tenant, anti-worker, profit-at-all-costs mindset to get put into law. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I’m a homeowner in Cambridge in Avon Hill near Porter Square, and I largely support the policy positions of NAIOP. I want developers to build new and modern construction.
Moving from Palo Alto, a 1,000 sq. ft. condo there cost $1.6 million to purchase. This is driven, in my view, by stifling zoning and development restrictions. In the name of protecting a few trees, existing residents would challenge nearly any attempt to bring density to Palo Alto – a city with the population density country club golf course.
Existing residents, particularly in West Cambridge, found their piece of heaven and have adopted a set of policy views to exclude prospective residents. These positions take the name of crime reduction, climate responsiveness, and traffic congestion. But they have the effect of lower density that favors existing residents at the expense of housing opportunity for renters and new residents. I disagree wholly with these positions.
No one should have walked out or truncated this statement.
Quinton is a dear friend but I will never understand why he opposes housing development. He claims to be our green elected official and yet he opposes housing development? It makes no sense. I live 2 blocks from the subway. My husband and I walked to work before we retired and now we walk EVERYWHERE. Our carbon footprint is tiny compared to our friends living in suburbia, driving their Priuses every time they leave their homes. Anyone who believes in a Green New Deal should be doing all in their power to increase new housing development near public transit.
NAIOP is a lobbying group for commercial real estate developers, not housing developers. It originally stood for National Association for Industrial and Office Parks. Here’s what they have to say about themselves:
“NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, is the leading organization for developers, owners and investors of office, industrial, retail and mixed-use real estate. NAIOP comprises 19,000+ members and provides strong advocacy, education and business opportunities through a powerful North American network.
“NAIOP began in 1967 and has retained through all these years its core group of developer members. The association began as a small group of owners and developers of industrial parks in the eastern U.S. who formed the National Association of Industrial Parks (NAIP) to facilitate a forum for the open exchange of information on development. They also had a need for standardized covenants and restrictions, building requirements, and beneficial legislation and taxation. Nine individuals first met on September 12, 1967, in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.
“Reflecting changes in membership, NAIP became NAIOP (National Association for Industrial and Office Parks) in 1976. In 2009 NAIOP dropped the words behind its acronym, which no longer reflected its current membership composition. Over the years, NAIOP has attracted members who are committed to excellence, entrepreneurial in spirit, and want to reach new heights in building excellence.
“NAIOP is a leading commercial real estate industry provider of unparalleled networking opportunities, educational programs, research on trends and innovations and strong legislative representation.”
Not a unit of housing anywhere in that, as far as I can see. I agree with Manny Lusardi that the walkout turned this into a story when it would have been a blip otherwise.
At some point, I’d love to see the apologists for build, baby, build, without limit, recognize that commercial development pays our bills but also creates the pressure on housing that is driving the middle class out of Our Fair City. As things currently stand, city government is never going to prioritize housing, especially affordable housing, over the commercial development that pays the bills, and that suits NAIOP just fine. I’d also like to see people acknowledge that caring about trees and the environment might possibly just be caring about trees and the environment. I try most of the time not to put words in other people’s mouths, and I’d like others to return the favor.
The councillors walked out because Quinton was exposing the dirty secret of Cambridge politics–too many people on City Council feel more beholden to developers’ campaign donations than they do to voters. Councillors typically raise $70,000 or more, in the hope of getting just a couple of thousand votes (yes, it only takes a couple of thousand votes to be a Councillor in a city of 100,000 people). Check out the donations from developers, construction companies, out-of-towners, Dunkin Donuts franchisees, people with no jobs who magically have $1,000 to donate. You’ll be shocked: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/electioncommission/campaignandpoliticalfinance/campaignfinancereportscitycouncil
Interesting how so many people are defending NAIOP. As to the Palo Alto problem mentioned. Cambridge and Palo Alto have the same problems. Too many high tech companies paying college graduates six figure salaries plus signing bonuses right out of college. Competition from these people cause high housing prices and affordable housing shortages. In the early 1980’s you could rent a 2-bedroom apartment in East Cambridge for around $250/month. Now its around $3,000 a month for a two bed and 3 beds with parking are $5,000 and up. What has changed?
As for the trees being in the way of economic development and jobs, we got the same augments against clean water up until the 1960’s, where companies in East Cambridge were allowed to dump industrial waste and raw sewerage into the Charles River. One elderly person told me how in the 1950’s he knew what color a paint company was making that day. The top of the river turned that color!
The attraction of Cambridge has an embarrassment of riches.
How awful that Cambridge has all these great higb paying jobs! Best oppose the housing supply to drive rents up and exclude the new money people!
Makes sense?
Thank you Quinton for speaking the truth. There are many that support you.
“They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”
We don’t have to cut down all the trees for housing and cars. We can have all of them.
I think it’s important to remind folks. Councilor Zondervan was reading a letter from a constituent. Not giving a speech.
As I said in my first comment above. This only became a story when councilor’s walked out. I wonder how many “truth” fighters would have commented or gotten their britches tied up in knots if not for the drama!
Despite comments otherwise, there is no question that development mania has taken over the city with Boston moving west into Cambridge for some years, and Cambridge is one of 15 most desired cities in country to live, with weak environmental and building codes. Many who live here are not of that ilk. Present mayor in past has been the largest recipient of real estate campaign support, and now I hear others at present. We all know to recognize our large donors, and in the city it means favoritism and permitting. City’s 3 year Envisioning project has unfortunately been delayed, and the hundreds on the Committees over those years have been side-lined until June 2019, which will bring forth many more special permits at Alewife, exempted from the new private property moratorium if it indeed passes. Everyone has forgotten about climate change, and allowing green light to developers for their whims is no surprise to some of us. Not best for the City of Cambridge. The city is being drastically changed without enough citizen recognition and respect. And folks feel it down to their bones. We are also misusing Roberts Rules to fit the appetites of city officials who see our city in a very different light.
Bring Rossi back- He tried to keep Cambridge, Cambridge at least with tough stance to Chamber of Commerce vision of progress.
Thanks to Zondervan who has demonstrated – by back turning of Councilors (leaving room) to have gone against the development tide. Many are humbly grateful. He and more like him will be elected next time round, I predict. Climate Change is no small matter.