‘Missing middle’ zoning asks up to three stories (but don’t expect classic triple-decker in the mix)
A zoning petition drawing signatures Thursday looks to create “missing middle” housing described as “up to three stories of multifamily housing such as townhouses and three-deckers,” but that does not mean the city can look forward to seeing more of the classic “triple-deckers” that make up much of the local housing stock.
The Cambridge Missing Middle Housing petition from A Better Cambridge and the Sunrise Boston youth movement would change off-street parking minimums, pointing to residents’ alternatives to owning a car. As described in a Thursday mailing, it would also increase the maximum allowed floor area ratio – the ratio of livable space to lot area – to 1.25, so a three-story building would cover up to just over 40 percent of a lot. It mentions a ban on building apartment, as well, though recent passage of a citywide affordable housing overlay could change the math on that.
“Apartment bans and other downzoning mechanisms in Cambridge codified in the 1920s are part of a legacy of exclusionary housing policy,” ABC co-chair Becca Schofield said. “We need more housing, particularly less expensive multifamily housing, to prevent displacement of existing residents.”
The filing is expected Jan. 28, according to the groups.
The groups’ efforts come with the blessing of city councillor Marc McGovern, who was included in their press release saying: “Townhouses and three-deckers made Cambridge affordable for generations of Cantabrigians, and it’s past time to allow them in every neighborhood.”
There is also general support from councillor Dennis Carlone, an architect and planner who runs the council’s Ordinance Committee with McGovern. But the details matter, Carlone said.
“In principle, I agree. But how do you do it? What are all the particulars?” Carlone said. “You build the city and you try to knit it together. And you build in a way that you’re respecting the context and enhancing what’s there.”
Don’t expect classic triple-deckers
The groups point to other cities that have adopted changes such as they propose, including a Minneapolis plan from 2019 that allowed triplexes by right and say that, though it “represents a substantial change from current zoning,” the change will not transform the city’s housing stock radically. “Over two-thirds of residential buildings in Cambridge don’t conform to current zoning,” ABC co-chair Allan Sadun said. “This reform just makes it legal to build more of what we already have today.”
But not exactly what we have: The classic triple-decker was embraced by Cambridge and Somerville’s middle class because it allowed owners on relatively small lots to build wealth, living on one floor while renting out two others. But it was outlawed in the 1920s because its standard form of construction was a fire hazard.
“If you think about the stairways [in old triple-deckers], it’s like a flue. And if you think of new multifamily housing, the stairs are separated” with fire doors or other mechanisms, Carlone said.
The classic triple-decker’s “balloon construction” got an examination in 2018 after two fires in Worcester highlighted the dangers for that city’s stock of nearly 5,000 of the homes. “There’s some inherent construction issues that change the fire direction and hazard in those buildings,” state fire marshal Peter Ostroskey told Worcester Magazine.
Building precedent
The Thursday press release from A Better Cambridge and Sunrise Boston pointed to the Envision Cambridge planning process as recommending action to “adjust zoning in residential districts to be more compatible with prevailing patterns of development.” And it cited an order by councillor Patty Nolan looking to eliminate single family zoning as “an unnecessary artifact of historically exclusionary housing practices.”
But like Carlone, Nolan said the details of the new zoning petition need to be talked through.
“I’m really glad that ABC is building on the work of many people from the past couple years who raised these issues. We must include affordability and environmental considerations into any proposal,” Nolan said, noting that her own proposal – approved unanimously Dec. 14 – is due for closer examination in mid-February at a joint meeting of the Neighborhood & Long Term Planning and Housing committees. It puts a general conversation ahead of specific zoning proposals, unlike the petition Thursday.
“What I really don’t want to do is go through another period of time when the community is divided by specific language in a proposal instead of being united in understanding what the broad goals are,” Nolan said.
An information session is planned for 6 p.m. Jan. 28 on the Zoom teleconferencing platorm.
The link for the information session can be found on the campaign’s website (https://www.cambridgemmh.org/), and it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAlf–rqz4uHNW1BWTJmlKbI_YqNPmSLaLt
State building code requirements, to my understanding, require staircases to be designed slightly differently, but triple-deckers can still look largely like triple-deckers. Visit https://www.masscec.com/triple-decker-design-challenge to see some modern triple decker retrofit designs.
Once again more misinformation from the “build baby build” crowd.
Not an exclusionary tactic, but as stated in this very article:
” it was outlawed in the 1920s because its standard form of construction was a fire hazard.”
Additionally, initiatives like this should be resisted unless it stops the transfer of wealth from the public sector to private companies.
Unless there is a path to ownership and equity we are treating a symptom and not the ailment.
Again from this article:
“The classic triple-decker was embraced by Cambridge and Somerville’s middle class because it allowed owners on relatively small lots to build wealth, living on one floor while renting out two others.”
But hey, if y’all really want to be equitable, go into Avon Hill and re-distribute some of that wealth.
Alewife and East Cambridge have had enough misguided development….
If the thought and research put into the zoning petition itself are of the same quality as the preamble, we shouldn’t waste any time dumping all of it and then starting from scratch to do it right. As it stands, it’s just one more invitation to build more cramped housing that will still be grossly overpriced, because there is nothing I saw that paid any attention to affordability. Check out prices in Charlestown, where title examiners like me joke you can put a four-family on an 800 s.f. lot, if you think this isn’t a recipe for more gentrification and displacement.
If the past four years (or, really, the past forty years) haven’t taught us that just saying something doesn’t make it so, then we deserve what we get. More trickle-down housing will not make Cambridge more affordable to people who don’t have six-figure incomes. We’ve built thousands of apartments in the past few years, and it’s still too expensive for normal people to live here. We keep building millions more square feet of commercial buildings, which just increase the housing squeeze, but the city administration would rather have the taxes and lament the resulting displacement loudly and ineffectually than actually do anything real about it. This petition is just more of the same and will make real estate developers even more money, which might be the point.
Agreeing with Councilor Carlone, the devil is in the details at HOW to legislate MORE zoning changes without specific guidelines. Two things caught my eye: any reference to design review was removed from it’s base document, and height (40Ft for 3- stories) is measured to the “cornice” which means that another story can be tacked on because of dropped eves and cornice. measurement is not from the roofline but a detail that can fluctuate with design. How will this work with AHO, 40B, inclusionary? BTW- the Harding House guest house in Mid-cambridge is/ was for sale with 14 rooms and a good size parking lot. Can the city buy this and turn it into group affordable housing with 3 family units in part of the parking lot? These are the kind of properties the city should be trying to acquire. it has the money.
Here to agree with Sam Noubert and Heather Hoffman. There was another post here from a citizen activist I wanted to engage but it’s been removed, as has the post countering Angstrom’s with important information. I’m sorry the Sunrise movement, with which I belong as an ally, has teamed up with ABC. They’re very young and perhaps naive. What we need in Cambridge is *affordable housing*, created by non-profit developers concerned with the needs, rights and comfort of tenants–tenants who can build equity. That vanished post reminded us that “after intense lobbying by the real estate industry, Gov. Baker vetoed “The Tenant Right to Purchase (TOPA) Provision,” [which] would have given tenants a right of first refusal to purchase for-sale rental and multi-family properties throughout the state, with some limited exceptions.” We have not only city councillors in the pockets of the real estate industry but a Republican governor. Tough challenges. But let’s keep the real goal in mind.