Affordable Housing Overlay changes go too far, Carlone says, vowing to show counterproposal
Dennis Carlone speaks at a May 15, 2021, meeting in Neighborhood 9 of opponents to affordable projects in Walden Square and near Porter Square. (Photo: Marc Levy)
City Councillor Dennis Carlone unleashed a scathing criticism of proposed amendments to the Affordable Housing Overlay at a Wednesday hearing of the Housing Committee continued from last month.
Under the amendments for AHO buildings – in which all units are affordable – buildings of up to 25 stories would be allowed in some of the city’s squares; along major corridors, what were up to six-story buildings in the current zoning could be nine stories, and what were up to seven-story buildings could go as high as 13. In squares and corridors designated by the overlay, floor-area ratios will be eliminated, allowing for denser development. In terms of the rules for open space, side and front setbacks will be eliminated entirely, like in business districts, and rear setbacks too unless the height of the building is less than four stories, in which case setbacks are set at 15 feet.
“I have serious concerns about the most dramatic change in zoning in my history at the city,” said Carlone as he summarized what he said would be a presentation at a March 22 meeting of the Neighborhood & Long Term Planning committee, which he chairs.
He had concerns “socially, economically, communally and even from a safety point of view,” he said. “It’s just odd zoning and defies all history and learning from the 1950s and ’60s.”
He planned to cite studies March 22 about housing for families that he claims “show that family housing wants to be low to the ground, not up in the air,” he said, and asked that councillors supporting the changes – Burhan Azeem, Marc McGovern and Quinton Zondervan – present studies that support their amendments and drawings of what the city may look like if they are implemented. Carlone said he will bring his own drawings.
The new AHO would allow for floor-area ratios – floor area divided by total land – that will be 10 times greater in corridors and 20 times greater in squares, he said.
Floor-area ratio requirements will be eliminated in areas deemed to be squares or corridors under the amendments to the AHO.
Taller if saving open space
Carlone claimed that “no one asked for 120 to 240 feet” of height on buildings, referring to affordable-housing developers involved in advising on the legislation.
During the meeting, a possible change to the amendments was discussed that would allow for taller buildings if open space was preserved or increased.
Though the language was not introduced, Zondervan summarized the rule: If a project is going to preserve existing open space that is 5 percent or more of the total lot area, or is going to expand the amount of open space 5 percent or more beyond what is required under the ordinance, “they can build the building as tall as they want in order to accomplish that,” he said. “However, they cannot exceed the density.”
Shrinking a housing waitlist
During the meeting, proponents spoke of why they think the amendments are needed.
“If we are talking about zoning for the future, the future of Cambridge is looking more and more like low- and moderate-income people are not going to be able to stay here, and that people have to leave, taking with it a lot of Cambridge’s diversity which we all say we love,” McGovern said. “We have to have zoning to meet that need and try to stop that from happening.”
There are 7,000 Cambridge households on the waitlist for affordable-housing here, McGovern said. (Cambridge Housing Authority executive director Michael Johnston put the number of waitlisted people who work or live in the city or are veterans at 5,000 in July 2021.)
“Unless we are more aggressive in allowing for more height in our buildings, we’re not going to get there,” McGovern said. “We just don’t have space” to shrink the waitlist by building four- and five-story buildings.
Later in the meeting, Carlone offered an alternative to Cambridge’s affordable-housing issue: increasing a land transfer fee and using eminent domain powers to buy one-story buildings, replacing them with taller mixed-use buildings where affordable and market-rate housing could not be differentiated.
“That’s planning, that’s urban design and that would not be fought against at all,” he said.
I’m all for the city using eminent domain to buy up one story buildings and constructing 6-7 story buildings in their place.
I am forced to question the intentions of the councilor who can not understand why parking minimums are a bad idea in 2023 — let alone ever. Tall buildings = bad but cars polluting our air, running over our citizens, and preventing buses from working well = good?
Implement this plan. I like it. But I don’t trust his intentions in the slightest.
This is one more area in Cambridge where CDD has fallen down and we simply have not had viable planning. 25 story affordable housing developments are the failed model of the 1950s federal policy, not what is considered good practice today. Councillor Carlone is correct that design and planning make all the difference. Hooray that Justastart bought the Peter Valentine house. But the city itself should be buying more properties for housing, and then move into the 21st century and create our own housing and sell units to lower income residents who can then build equity. Plus smaller affordable housing structures (max 30 units) is far better. A correction: we have 3,000-3500 Cambridge City residents on the affordable housing list. Not everyone who works in Cambridge (or once lived here will be able to do so), but fortunately more and more people are telecommuting. If we build our own housing, on our own city property for those who actually live here, we can easily take care of this need! We also need to push our commercial developments and universities to create housing (and transportation) in the area for their students, affiliates, and employees. And as more offices become vacant – address the ways that they might be used viably for housing and other needs.
Councillors McGovern, Azeem, and Zodervan appear driven by numbers that are meaningless. Whether it’s 7,000 people on the wait list or only 5,000, no city provides housing for every person who works there.
Cambridge has created an economic powerhouse with biotech–bringing thousands of jobs to create life-saving medicines. But it is our success with job creation that makes it impossible to create enough attractive housing for every person who would like to live here. We should accept that basic reality and follow the lead of more thoughtful Councillors such as Mr. Carlone
The notion that cities do not provide adequate housing for their labor market is a modern invention.
Carlone is against a policy that increases housing density and affordability? I’m shocked!
I’m sure he would never present misleading information such as housing construction over 70ft costing 30% more without clarifying that land cost and other fixed costs need to be factored in to calculate the true per unit cost.
I’m fairly skeptical that Cambridge’s housing shortage has anything to do with a lack of planning. What’s the evidence for that?
Plans are… fine but probably the wrong framework to analyze something as complex as a housing market with so many different actors. Probably better to start with basic housing economics and the rules of the road.
Additionally I find that “we need a plan” is often just a way for certain interest groups to just delay what they don’t want to happen
Planning comes in as a key way to address a problem and redress related impacts. When labs are promoted over housing this is what happens. The meme “avoid the critical work of planning because it may add a bit to the timeline” seems to be used these days largely by folks who simply want to let market forces prevail (e.g. allow higher profits, more labs, more luxury housing – things that all bring up housing costs even more). This seems to be largely promoted by the same interest group that also advocates against zoning, historic preservation, trees/green spaces and people with professional experience on key boards. It is clear that if we as a City bought and employed our own city property for housing, or leased it to others for this, not only would property values not rise so steeply, but we could take care of the housing needs of our own residents far more easily. But that takes planning. As to parking minimums so far in the examples I have seen, luxury housing developers are all keeping parking because they can make more profits on their investments and because, as it was explained to me, their clients insist on having on site parking. At the same time, Affordable Housing developers have noted that this Council vote made it MORE difficult for them to acquire properties here because parking is no longer a factor that differentiates the two. In essence we are also promoting a divided city – the wealthy get parking (because they can pay for it), lower income residents in affordable housing units do not.
Suzanne — your argument makes no sense. If market rate developers are still building parking then how has the removal of parking minimums affected the competitiveness of AH developers?
Pretty wild for a Harvard professor to complain about labs ruining the city. You could take pride in living in a city responsible for producing breakthrough medical technologies, including a Covid vaccine and a recent cutting edge treatment for melanoma. Instead you decide to write from your own ivory tower that these other elites are the problem, not you.
Zoning deserves to be argued against. It is an extractionist, racist, and classist framework made legal in a Supreme Court decision that deemed apartment buildings to be a form of pollution.
Cities and towns in the US derive their authority from the state. I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that if Cambridge, Boston, and other immediate metro area cities don’t clean up their zoning laws in the near future, our zoning authority is simply going to be taken away.
Already happening in CA.
I simply don’t share your elitist, exclusivist view of what this city is.
On parking minimums impacting affordable housing developers: AHO were able to acquire property and build for less $$ because they did not need parking, now they are on the same footing as market rate. Rather than resorting to vitriol, speak to AHO developers (I heard this fro them). On zoning – there are 1000s of zoning regulations particularly in a dense historic city such as ours, a majority have little to do with housing. On the latter, we have had several recent zoning petitions submitted that would end exclusively single- and two-family housing districts. I and others wrote one of these; more recently Doug Brown wrote another. Both are excellent. As to labs, I tend to support them, and have opposed any outright ban in our squares, but the city needs to decide if it wants more housing or more labs. We only have a certain amount of space. That is why planning matters. No one has said apartment buildings are a form of pollution; that kind of statement is absurd.
The caption for the photo above is strangely biased and completely false. People are gathering where Winn wanted to build what would have been just a great wall. Residents of Walden Square themselves were disgusted with chronic neglect of maintenance by management. It was so bad, the mayor and the vice mayor, in an unprecedented move, even wrote publicly to the Affordable Housing Trust objecting to any funding of the project as proposed. This had nothing to do with so-called “affordable housing.” Nothing. The project is on hold because everyone objected to it; everyone but, of course, Winn. The proposed project was, quite simply, a piece of crap. (But you can have a look at their website, if you believe that sort of thing, and find things like this: WINN COMPANIES OWNS MORE THAN
125 COMMUNITIES – Evidently, they don’t yet own Cambridge!)
Euclid vs Amber, 1926.
Apartment homes were called parasites in the majority decision, followed by a list of BS espoused by anti-housing, anti-people groups today. Sunshine, air circulation, traffic, all apparently more important to the public welfare than roofs over people’s heads. According to the court, that is.
Totally a coincidence though that all these laws and this decision immediately followed Buchanan vs. Warley, 1917. Such a coincidence I say!
If your zoning petitions did not relax or eliminate dimensional standards than they are nothing more than a red herring.
You still haven’t provided any logic that explains your parking minimum argument.
If market rate developers still have to set aside land that could be additional homes and spend money per unit to build parking spaces due to market demand, how does that affect AH developers competitiveness in the market if they don’t have to spend that money and/or set aside that land for parking?
Don’t just espouse what people told you. That isn’t an argument.
It seems pointless to try to correct/answer someone who hides behind a pseudonym to launch attacks. But, for others, I would note that Euclid vs Amber was in Cleveland OHIO and Buchanan vs Warley was in KENTUCKY: neither involved Cambridge MA litigants. On dimensional standards – this also speaks to the means to safeguard green spaces and trees (e.g. issues of environmental and health equity among other things – including heat island impacts from which some of our neighborhoods are already suffering). On parking minimums -it is a question of costs (not some strangely convoluted reframing of”logic.” Please speak with a professional involved in affordable housing who can clarify why this matters . Note too that market rate developers make more money from larger luxury units (or single family homes) with parking than an additional tiny room that might come from a parking spot. And every time we add more luxury housing (or housing size) as infill (or otherwise) we are driving up nearby property values, taxes, and housing costs for other residents and those who might want to move here. This is again why planning is important.
These references to “50s and 60s” planning seem to imply that one 25 story building built on an existing plot in a busy city square or corridor will end up like Pruitt-Igoe. We certainly need to learn from the failures of “urban renewal,” but this just seems like disingenuous weaponizing of stereotypes.
“‘It’s just odd zoning and defies all history and learning from the 1950s and ’60s.’ [Isobel: ahem–it’s the 2020s…]
“He planned to cite studies March 22 about housing for families that he claims ‘show that family housing wants to be low to the ground, not up in the air,’ he said…”
Family housing is not sentient, it doesn’t “want” anything. What sentient families want–and they’ve been very explicit, in their 1000s–is housing. Low to the ground housing will house a few people. City-height housing will house many–and such buildings can also provide their own temperature control and are in other ways much greener. (We’re approaching 40 years of drought, and all the trees in my neighborhood are mutilated, dead at the top, or gone, leaving us ever more susceptible to ever increasing heat and attendant health concerns.)
I share Councilor Cardone’s and Suzanne Blier’s nostalgia for 2-story houses and shady lawns set back from the street. Indeed for them it may not be nostalgia but a living reality–I’m not in their social set, have lived for 29 years in an 800 square foot condo I know myself very lucky to own. But I also know people who need housing, and people who’ve been driven from the city generations of their families lived in. And they do not share our nostalgia.
@ Suzanne — some of us don’t want to be harassed, behavior that CCC is well known for.
Your excuse about pseudonyms means nothing. Those court decisions apply to the entire country, and Cambridge is home to one of the oldest racist and classist residential zoning codes in the country.
Your latter claim has disproven time and time again by large scale statistical studies of this very issue. I am quite certain these “luxury condos” are less expensive and less luxury than your home, but surely they are a problem. My god
The CCC argument that people who work in Cambridge should not be allowed to live here—and given a preference on the affordable housing waitlist—is despicable.
CCC is saying, “You can cook our food, care for our kids, and clean our buildings—and then you need to get out of here.” What disgustingness.
The idea that we will not let anyone build affordable housing, and then as soon as a family gets displaced from Cambridge we will take away their waitlist preference, is also gross and inhumane.
The claim that no one would build taller affordable buildings is simply false. Statements by the proponents of 2072 Mass Ave and existing CHA buildings prove that is a lie.
Two anonymous posters choosing vitriol over facts. Note: I am writing here as an individual not as a member of one or another group I am part of. And neither CCC nor me nor anyone else is suggesting what is stated, that is simple gaslighting. And, no one has said that people could or should be forbidden from living here. If the city were to build on its own land, using its own funds, it could delimit these units for Cambridge residents and some workers. If we get our biotech and info-tech companies to provide (help fund) area housing for its employees, this would be critical too. Also 20% of all our renters are students. Prioritizing student housing on the part of our universities is critical too. But building more units at over $900,000 per unit (far above luxury housing costs) is not getting us where we need to be. The proposed building 2072 Mass ave had only 1 elevator for 8 floors, it was too large for this property. Imagine being a senior or someone with a disability or a young parent with groceries, climbing up 6 stories of stairs when the single elevator is out. Let’s get on board with a viable city plan – one that includes an array of new housing options, and green spaces so children have a place to play.