Development drives pro-housing platform, but it leaves Cambridge addicted to growth
In Cambridge we talk a good bit about addressing issues from multiple perspectives and seeing challenges through different “lenses,” and yet it seems that this election cycle the only lens some people would have us look through is the Housing Lens.
Unquestionably, housing affordability is one of the greatest challenges facing every metro area, but the solution is not as simple as the slate of nine prospective city councillors running as the “housing candidates” would have us believe.
Nor are these nine the only candidates who prioritize housing affordability. The “pro-housing” platform supports more development of all types; other groups support systemic changes, recognizing that housing unaffordability is a symptom of larger problems and a product of our addicted-to-growth model.
Under the current system more housing production comes with a significant string attached: It cannot happen without an even greater amount of commercial growth.
Developers of large mixed-use projects, those lining up before the council seeking major upzonings and donating to some of the pro-development candidates, insist that they must build more lab and office space to afford to build housing – and some even seek to upzone without providing any. The city administration supports this bargain because growing the commercial tax base is essential to keeping residential property taxes in check by shifting the tax burden onto the commercial sector. And under Proposition 2.5, new development is what enables the city to increase its tax levy and expand services without hitting the levy limit. The fixation on new development ignores the need for a paradigm shift in housing policy and municipal finance. Without such changes, we are destined to experience more of the same.
More commercial growth in Cambridge fuels the demand for housing here and across the region, but many other communities aren’t doing their part. The result is that we are struggling to even tread water in the housing sector while drowning in the chronically undermitigated impacts of being a bioscience boomtown. Accusations of NIMBYism (for “not in my backyard”) are misplaced when Cambridge is one of four cities that accounted for more than half of all multifamily housing growth in the entire state between 2013 and 2017. During the same period, millions of square feet of new commercial growth were permitted, overwhelming residential neighborhoods, especially those in East Cambridge, deepening income inequality, gentrification and displacement. The extractive pro-development playbook that the city has been following has turned Cambridge into a cash cow for real estate investors, jeopardizing the city’s soul and social fabric in the process.
The pro-development model will continue to inflate land values, virtually guaranteeing the continued displacement of our most vulnerable residents, middle-income families and small businesses. This approach, which the city has followed for the past several decades, has demonstrably failed to make housing affordable, and yet the “pro-housing” platform prescribes even more development as the cure for our ills.
With a pro-development majority on the council, developers are emboldened to seek major upzonings through “contract zoning” in which the council is presented with a cherry-picked list of community benefits and deals are sweetened with offers of affordable housing. Upzonings raise land values, not only for the rezoned parcels but for the surrounding area, and the community benefits never add up to enough to offset the full impact.
Relying almost exclusively on new development to supply public benefits leaves us beholden to developers and has not produced significant enough additions of community facilities, such as more parks, a new fire station, a larger Public Works yard, an additional elementary school and branch library, a new senior center or an early childhood center – all of which have been identified as high priorities to accommodate the growth we’ve already permitted.
In addition, major employers are expanding their workforces in Kendall Square without doing enough to mitigate the demands for more workforce housing, better transit and public services they help create. The educational institutions have not done enough to house their grad students and postdocs in affiliate housing that’s affordable to them, and as a result they occupy several thousand units of the city’s existing housing inventory, or have to look for housing outside the city.
It is one thing to aspire to be a city that welcomes all, and indisputably we must do more to maintain Cambridge’s inclusivity and diversity. But it is another to confront the harsh reality that a densely built coastal community of just 4,500 acres cannot build enough housing to satisfy the elastic regional demand. If we build it they will come, but building alone will not ensure housing stability or limit the relentless rent hikes that drive out so many Cambridge residents and small businesses. Meanwhile we have people living here already whose needs and preferences are being ignored and discounted in the full-court press to create more density citywide.
The city’s plans for affordable housing too often leave out middle-income and working families. These families are being displaced, but are told they have other options – outside the city. Yet some self-proclaimed YIMBYs (for “yes, in my backyard”) suggest that those seeking a more balanced and sustainable rate of growth distributed across the metro region, supported by better transit and adequate open space, are actually advocating for more suburban sprawl. It is an absurd reductionism typical of the campaign season. In pursuing a densification strategy, we risk growing into a city that could become as unlivable as it is unaffordable. Is that the future the “pro-housing” platform envisions?
Those who have been paying attention to City Council issues this term know that some are framing this election as a referendum on the Affordable Housing Overlay zoning petition, which was tabled for having failed to secure six “yes” votes. The pro-development platform, whose candidates supported the overlay as it was drafted, seeks to elect at least six overlay supporters so as to reintroduce and pass the zoning next term. Make no mistake, this platform’s strategy is not principally about creating a few more more subsidized units; the overlay will set a precedent to pave the way for more market-driven upzonings in every neighborhood citywide. If removing regulatory checks and balances on one set of developers is allowed by the overlay, the next step will be to relax zoning and remove design review for more market-rate development all across the city.
The debate over the overlay was as divisive as any since rent control, and unnecessarily so. Every member of the current council supports more affordable housing. But four of us listened to many in the community who felt the overlay was misconceived and should have been more responsive to legitimate concerns about scale, open space, net zero readiness and design review. We also asked why so much time, energy and political capital were expended on an untested proposal that would be limited by public subsidies and whose effectiveness would diminish with rising market values. Attempts at a nuanced debate were shut down with a peremptory approach that said “either you’re pro-overlay, or you’re against residents of affordable housing.” More reductionism.
I hope voters this Nov. 5 will think holistically and choose candidates who see issues through a broader lens, one that recognizes that housing affordability is only one of the complex systemic crises we face, along with income inequality, climate change, public transit, open space, community facilities and government transparency. Most of all, I hope voters will elect leaders who can resist the impulse to frame issues in ways that set neighbors against each other every biennial election season.
Jan Devereux is vice mayor of Cambridge. She is not seeking reelection.
I am a young professional in Cambridge with no personal vested interest in property development. I support dramatic upcoming to continue having great paying jobs in Cambridge and new housing units that my peers and I can buy. Framing this as a city council bought by big developers sounds nefarious but hasn’t been my experience. I live in Cambridge, work a white collar job in Cambridge, yet have donated to 3 city council candidates.
My experience living in San Francisco greatly shaped my perspective. I saw my generation essentially locked out of San Francisco by an older generation of homeowners who blocked new housing supply to serve their quality of life and self interest. In contrast, Seattle has made major upcoming reforms supporting higher density.
Cambridge median age is 30 but the median voter is 56. It’s time the young are given a voice.
I thank Vice-Mayor Devereux for her thoughtfulness and her service to our City, but as one former Councillor to another soon-to-be, I must respectfully disagree. The A Better Cambridge Action Fund pro-housing candidates whom I support simply want to slightly *relax* oppressive government zoning restrictions that for decades have walled off whole areas of our city from most affordable housing. These restrictions are the modern legacy of historic racist “redlining.” Instead, we want more people of all incomes to share in our “boomtown” success. Some of us have also been working hard at the state level to mitigate even worse restrictions in surrounding suburbs, as she rightly points out — though Cambridge is far from doing even its fair share to meet regional housing needs.
The debate over the affordable housing overlay was divisive because a modest proposal for building a small number of 100% affordable apartments was opposed by a minority of the council. Five of nine councilors voted yes, but a super majority was needed. Instead of voting in favor of this modest proposal, four councilors voted no in order to create a needless controversy where there could have been unity moving forward. Opposition councilors supported “poison pill” amendments that would have destroyed the effort to build affordable units where such units have been blocked for decades.
The affordable housing overlay was not a “trojan horse” for massive development, a characterization that unnecessarily divided the community. Those four councilors who voted “no” were the ones who framed the issue in a way that divided the community. Proponents of the effort to build 100% affordable housing where none now exists responded to legitimate concerns, but it became clear that a minority of the council would never move on the effort to create affordable housing citywide.
Thanks, Councillor Devereaux, for your thoughtful insistence that our housing policies be thoughtful.
It’s amazing that in one of the most liberal cities in the world–where virtually everyone is willing to sacrifice something in order to help neighbors in need–the opposition to the Overlay has been so strong. This is due largely to the recognition that the Overlay was not designed to help our neighbors; it was designed to help our developers
The majority of us rent apartments and are exposed to rent increases and gentrification that can force displacement at almost any time. Yet rather than protecting tens of thousands of people with a holistic plan that would work for both lessors and lessees, Mayor McGovern, and Councillors Mallon, Siddiqui, Simmons, and Toomey, forced an agenda that would create only a small number of apartments for those lucky enough to win a lottery. By some estimates there were no new homes created beyond those that would have been built without the Overlay.
But although the pro-Overlay Councillors did not deliver for renters, they did their best to deliver for their campaign donors in the construction industry. They repeatedly denied any amendments thought would have made the Overlay a bit more livable and balanced. So we were left with a situation that was terrible for neighborhood density, terrible for trees, risky for small businesses, and would generally make Cambridge a less livable city.
Let’s elect a group of Councillors who will roll up their sleeves to protect tenants and local businesses while also building sensible new affordable housing for current residents.
Councillor Devereux, thank you, this is spot on. I do feel our city is addicted to growth and that puts us in a very vulnerable position. We need a real comprehensive housing strategy and plan that addresses housing that is affordable for all Cambridge residents, and includes pathways for transitioning people socio economically as their situation and needs change.
Nicola A. Williams
In her superb Cambridge Day essay, Jan Devereux, whose commitment to inclusion and social justice is not to be trifled with, does us the favor of looking behind the sloganeering of a developer backed faction that claims to own the mantle of “affordable housing.” What Jan’s investigation unearths is a collection of incumbent candidates that have not begun their affordable housing journey by demanding solutions for displacement and gentrification. This faction instead drives the welcome wagon for large “boomtown” employers that do the displacing. Jan asks if it is not too much for Cambridge to govern as if its residents and its environment came first. There is a slate of candidates that agree with Jan. They can be found at cccslate.org
Unfortunately, the Vice Mayor’s claim that “every Councillor supports more affordable housing” seems not to be true. The minority of Councillors who have defended existing zoning regulations enacted decades ago to block larger multi-family buildings, especially those who have tried to use the Affordable Housing Overlay proposal to add new obstacles, cannot reasonably claim to “support” more affordable housing. While the Council fails to act, rising housing costs are ensnaring more residents, higher up the income range, in the city’s affordability crunch. Voters are entitled to expect more than hand-wringing and arm-waving from their City Councillors.
I’m likely to vote against councilors whom I’ve supported for years. It’s crazy and I can hardly believe it’s come to this. Why? Well, to start, I am neither for or against the overlay, rather, I am aware that the overlay is a huge change covering the entire city. But, I simply don’t understand the overlay. To this end I really appreciate this informative and clear editorial from Vice Mayor Devereux. What’s missing are more of the same from all sides. Missing is an open and probing debate designed to reach beyond the halls of the Council and the power brokers. Missing are statements of agreement from across the community, something to indicate that the hard work of outreach, communication, and compromise has been done.
We’ll know soon, but my guess is that the overlay will suffer defeat next week, after which, hopefully, there will be a regrouping that will result in a housing proposal with wide support. I am frustrated to be forced into voting against Councilors I’ve always liked. I’d rather vote to rework the proposal, but that’s not an option.
Minneapolis might offer a parallel example. They recently banned single home zoning, also a huge change. The proposal failed at first but did pass with wide support, but only later, after the advocates did the hard work of building community support.