What is the plan for Cambridge?
Major changes are happening in Cambridge. The city established an Affordable Housing Overlay, allowed taller buildings, is installing 25 miles of separated bike lanes (likely eliminating hundreds of parking spaces), is creating dedicated bus lanes and more. These are major changes whose long-term consequences should be discussed.
It is in the interest of residents, indeed of anyone who works here or visits Cambridge, for the city manager and City Council to explain what they want Cambridge to be like in the future. Similarly, greater clarity is needed about regional plans affecting Cambridge.
Already Cambridge is considered among the top five densest U.S. cities having a population of more than 100,000; more than 16,000 people live here per square mile. The Boston area is also in the top five for mean travel time to work. Moreover, Cambridge is already a leader in the region in the percentage of its housing that is categorized as affordable. Where are we headed? Will density and commuting time increase still more? Will the amount of open space per resident decline? Will temperatures rise as the city becomes denser?
When separated bike and bus lanes were installed on upper Massachusetts Avenue, the city seemed unprepared for the negative reactions of dozens of affected businesses, neighbors and drivers and had to adjust quickly its plan. Similarly, recent changes on Garden Street meant that some people could hardly get out of their driveways on the side streets. City officials expressed surprise at the 100 to 150 people who showed up to air their concerns Nov. 9. Is the council being realistic in its expectations? Actually, what are the expectations?
A long-range plan and vision are needed for Cambridge. The 2019 Envision Cambridge report was a wish list that identified dozens of recommendations and options, some of them contradictory. Appropriately, however, the first core value identified report was “livability.” Can’t the city manager and the City Council define the target for Cambridge’s population in the year 2030 or 2035? Even if the population grows larger than in more than 75 years, as appears to be the council’s intent, that is unlikely to reduce housing demand or prices. How will local transportation and other infrastructure accommodate so many people in a livable city? What will Cambridge look and be like?
Cambridge is one of dozens of communities that make up Greater Boston. Addressing the region’s housing shortage, high real estate prices and its distressing commuting statistics requires regional solutions. Can’t city officials do more to explain how they are expanding regional efforts to address these problems?
Trust in government is vital. If the city wants to earn the trust of those affected by the major changes under way, officials should explain the long-term plan. Repeatedly surprising people (city staff included) is not the way to do that. It is time to create a less ambiguous long-range vision for Cambridge’s population, its skyline, transportation system, parks and other infrastructure.
Andy Zucker, Winslow Street
Andy is Making Sense. And I want to know who on the city council has taken developer money for their campaigns or have day jobs that are in some way connected to the developers that are building in the city.
It should be made public record if a member of the council works for a developer or realty company in any way, directly or as a consultant or receiving financial support in their campaign for office. The People of the City have a right to know who is working for whose interest. Anyone who is on the council and will receive any personal profit from development, property sales etc. should be required to recuse themselves from arguments, participation or voting on issues of development.
We need to hold the Council members to a higher standard of behavior and to codify that into rules of conduct.
Andy, thanks for your even-tempered and earnest letter. I think that Cambridge is very fortunate to have a city manager form of government: it seems to check or at least slow down the worst impulses of the council. I agree wholeheartedly that the city would be well served by a long-range plan and vision, including an envisioned population size. As it stands, many of the council’s ideas sound non-objectionable when considered as standalone propositions, but they are folly when considered as part of a workable city.
Explode biotech construction in Kendall and alewife
Remove automobile transportation from 4 lanes to 2 lanes to get to these thousands of jobs
Install bike lanes over any other concern (seniors, families, small businesses etc)
Get as many weed and banks to fill up all the commercial vacancies
“Level up” schools and remove advanced math, science etc driving large unenrollment of students to other towns and or private schools.
Talk about affordable housing
Isn’t this the plan.
I don’t think the people who elected our government are either surprised or concerned about the direction the city is headed.
The fact that the Boston area has long mean travel times to work is an argument for more dense housing in Cambridge, not less. Those long travel times are suburban commuters and are due to sprawl. Most Cambridge residents do not commute by car to work. Living in a smaller home with shared walls near public transit is much more environmentally friendly than living in a large single-family suburban home and driving everywhere.
Candidates opposed to bike lanes and density keep losing elections, yet residents opposed to bike lanes and density never seem to be able to see past their entitlement to grapple with that fact.
We have lots of plans we just have historically ignored them. Just go to CDDs website there is a treasure trove of data and planning; all anyone would need to plan for the next 150 years. The issue is once a planning study is finished either a group of super citizens or the council itself backs away or opposes them so we wait another 5-10 years plan and pay for a new study. Wash rinse repeat.
Dear Cambridge Day, this does not directly relate to the letter above. Can you please run an article about the proposed changes to the AHO? Not one focused on council procedural issues (although that can be a helpful part of it), but one that really focuses on what the current rules are, what the data says about how effective that has or has not been, and what is now being proposed. This is an important topic that deserves attention.
Luckily, Cambridge already has a plan: http://envision.cambridgema.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/201906_EnvisionCambridge-Final-Report.pdf. Like it or not, more density, bike lanes, affordable housing, and the like are very much a part of the plan. Saying that city officials are merely “surprising people” is disingenuous.
Also, while the Envision Cambridge plan doesn’t specify a “target population,” it does create a goal for 12,500 more housing units to be built in the city between 2018 and 2030. Using the 2020 Census’s average household size number for Cambridge, that implies a population of about 152,000 in 2030. Personally, I think that’s overly ambitious, but I also think that the region’s environmental quality, economy, and “livability” would all be better if more people move to already-dense communities like Cambridge rather than, say, Littleton or Hopkinton.
The author lives in the wealthiest, least dense part of Cambridge. He can have his voice in city council elections. I have a very different policy perspective and in my view Cambridge is far too slow in building new housing that young professionals like me are desperate for. Its great that people got their beautiful single family home 40 years ago. But my peers are looking at $1 million for 1100 sqft condos. I too am voting with what I see.
Here’s a summary of the AHO revisions:
1. more height along “AHO corridors” – specifically, up to 13 stories of affordable housing by-right along listed streets, including Mass Ave, Mem Drive, Cambridge St, Mt. Auburn St, and others. This would allow proposals like 2072 Mass Ave to succeed, and would ensure that every neighborhood of the city has sites where affordable housing can be built at sufficient scale to be financially viable.
2. significantly more height in “AHO squares” – specifically, up to 25 stories of affordable housing by-right in portions of Central, Harvard, Porter, and the “Webster Square” auto-shop area north of Cambridge St near the Union Square T. This would allow significantly more transit-oriented affordable housing like the Manning Apartments.
3. greater flexibility to encourage more open space. AHO developments that provide more-than-required open space would be allowed to take their sacrificed building bulk and put it into increased height. This would have allowed more housing for the formerly homeless to be built at 116 Norfolk St, and would have improved the site plan of Jefferson Park.
@taguscove
You said: “I have a very different policy perspective and in my view Cambridge is far too slow in building new housing that young professionals like me are desperate for.”
Cambridge is far too slow in building…
Cambridge doesn’t build housing for young professionals. Private builders do. They build apartments where their ROE is adequate. Perhaps, some of them feel that the threat of a return of rent control puts the. brakes on planned projects.
You said:”But my peers are looking at $1 million for 1100 sqft condos. I too am voting with what I see.”
What are you voting for? What are you seeing? For the city to build you, as a young professional, housing. Why should it do that. It is wrong for you to say that you want to live here, but can’t afford to do so, and thus someone (or the city) should build something for you. When I was a young professional, I wanted to live many places, but couldn’t because I didn’t have the money. So… I lived where I could afford it.
Thank you for many temperate comments, and especially to Andrew Mikula who pointed out that Envision Cambridge has a target for building 12,500 new housing units by 2030, which he calculates could result in a population for Cambridge over 150,000. If that happens, there would be about 30% more Cambridge residents in 2030 than at present — a big increase (more than 30,000 new residents).
If I could, I like to move to NYC. But as an entitled, old fool who doesn’t know a thing about housing market and economy, I can’t afford a 10-mil condo either. I don’t understand why there isn’t someone who will built a 1000sf condo in the city that cost 400K just for me. It is so unfair! You mean I have to move to the suburb?
Cute strawman. Zoning and building restrictions is the core issue. It drives up housing prices through red tape and de facto excludes the poor and middle class.
Watermark, born out of new spot zoning, sounds like a good place to start out for the class warriors with $4000/m for a 1BR.