A proposed change to Affordable Housing Overlay zoning has proven to be one of the most divisive items taken up by Cambridge’s Planning Board, chair Mary Flynn said Tuesday.
With four members absent, the board voted to continue the discussion to Aug. 29 when they might return to take part.
The changes were last before the City Council’s Ordinance Committee on Thursday, ending with a 6-3 vote to recommend the AHO changes when they came back to the council. The Planning Board’s recommendation will also be taken into account; it may be settled by the time the council meets again in September.
Flynn, though, said that as a housing crisis worsens and height is seen as a response, she worried that the AHO is “going to create more and more conflicts between existing and new” structures, a conflict that will be taken up by residents.
“What I don’t want to see is any more of this divide that seems to be building in the city over affordable housing in terms of what it should look like and how we permit it,” Flynn said, noting that more than 125 comments came in about the zoning change to be discussed that night. “Since I’ve been on the board, that’s the most by tenfold in the number of comments that we’ve received.”
Amendments to 2020 version
The changes allow for taller buildings with 100 percent affordable housing than the original zoning passed in 2020. Buildings in designated “AHO corridors” and in residential areas zoned for heights of 40 to 65 feet will now be able to build up to nine stories. In areas allowing heights over 65 feet, affordable-housing developers can build up to 12 stories. Zones near Central, Harvard and Porter squares could get buildings up to 15 stories.
The proposed amendment eliminates setbacks – the distance between the building and adjoining property lines – on all sides of buildings except for projects under four stories. Additionally, developers could build taller buildings without increasing density in exchange for increasing open space.
Passed in 2020, the AHO has six projects in the pipeline that will add 616 affordable units to the city, according to a yearly AHO report released Monday and cited the next day by city councillor Marc McGovern in presenting to the Planning Board. Affordable-housing developers are still largely unsuccessful in acquiring land, McGovern said.
Councillor Burhan Azeem, another presenter, pointed to a failed 2072 Massachusetts Ave. project near Porter Square as an example. It was rejected partially for being too tall, he said, and under new guidelines would have been legal.
Ordinance Committee concerns
According to councillor Quinton Zondervan, increasing the density of affordable-housing developments will help their builders win out over market-rate projects by reducing the cost of land per unit.
The affordable-housing waitlist in Cambridge stands at more than 21,000, with around 6,500 of those being residents or workers within Cambridge.
During their Ordinance Committee hearing, councillor Paul Toner pointed to issues such as the increased heights allowed around the corridors – major, transit-connected streets in the city – and said more thought should be put into which streets were selected, but was otherwise in favor of the amendment.
Councillor Dennis Carlone remained against, saying the proposed changes in height would affect Cambridge severely while acknowledging that the amendment would likely go forward.
The six members in favor, however, focused mostly on the stark need for affordable housing, saying increasing the stock now would decrease impacts in the future. Those were Azeem, McGovern and Zondervan with Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, vice mayor Alanna Mallon and councillor E. Denise Simmons. Opposed were Carlone, Toner and councillor Patty Nolan.
Public comment at extremes
Public comment to the committee and board fell largely to extremes: firm support for the AHO, and staunch opposition.
“This proposal is about what kind of city we want to be and what kind of citizens and neighbors we want to be. Do we want a diverse and just city? Do we want to be caring and compassionate, looking beyond our own individual needs to a larger view?” Esther Hanig said during a July 31 Ordinance Committee hearing used entirely for public comment. Others echoed her statement, highlighting the many people in need of affordable housing.
Those opposed pointed out problems in current affordable units, such as the lack of funding for repairs, while still others pointed out that high buildings would be difficult to blend in areas such as Harvard Square – made worse by a lack of oversight from the Planning Board, which acts only as advisers for AHO projects. Councillors and the Planning Board noted that the current proposed text of the amendment retains the board’s ability to provide feedback.
Opponent Amy Waltz said: “The impact of this zoning change is grossly understated as an amendment to the overlay, when in reality, it is a major upzoning that will affect the entire city, having potential for tenfold of the original overlay’s impact.” Another accused the four members of the board of being absent for political reasons; the board members who were present pushed back strongly.
Planning Board questions
Board deliberations mostly clarified issues such as advisory reviews and addressed the AHO corridors, which vice chair Catherine Preston Connolly said may cover too much developable land in Cambridge.
The board also discussed who would qualify as residents under the overlay, using the example of a teacher making a middle-class salary but who cannot afford to live in Cambridge. Incomes covered under the overlay include diverse groups depending on their situation, city councillors told them.
After discussion that leaned toward recommending enactment by the City Council, the board decided to continue the discussion to Aug. 29 to hear input from the four absent members.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
If we allow “don’t want to see any more of this divide” to become the hoop that zoning changes must jump through, we’re simply granting conservative supporters of the status quo a giant thumb to place on their side of the scale. Reluctance to amend our exclusionary zoning laws is already doing far more to divide Cambridge, by wealth and race, than allowing more homes in taller buildings has or will.
It’s important to remember that the same people who opposed these amendments also opposed the original AHO. Don’t let the CCC scrubbing their website of their oppositional blog posts fool you, they have never supported the AHO.
The mid-rise buildings permitted under the new AHO will only help, they will have no significant negative impact on current residents apart from offending the aesthetic preferences of a few local curmudgeons.
So no setbacks and open space requirements for the zondertowers. They can build on every inch of land and right up to the neighbors property line and build it high.
How is that fair and good planning for the city? All because we have 10K plus raising their hand who want to live in Cambridge?
“He who tries to please all will please none”
@EastCamb
Everybody agrees that housing prices are out of control and need to be addressed. I, for one, would support eliminating single-family zoning to allow for more smaller multi-unit buildings. Something tells me the AHO opponents wouldn’t like that either…
Oh the humanity, oh woe is me, what will I do now that my neighbors won’t have a legally required front yard that invariably is filled with weeds, rats, and a decrepit rusted fence?
How will I go on living in a city where much of its urban character is defined by triple deckers and midrise apartments with no setbacks?
Why should my neighbors have extra space in their living rooms or kitchens when instead we can require them by law to have a front yard because I have a fetish for the resplendent nature that is the average front yard in Cambridge?
The AHO isn’t a housing strategy this the resurrection of the cambridge residents alliance call for 100% housing or nothing. I’m glad it’s helped bring a couple hundred new units online but it fails to address the real issue. We need comprehensive zoning reform ten years ago.
East Cambridge: I think most everyone would support legislation to end exclusive SFH and TFH zoning in the city. Indeed there were, as I recall, at least three different citizen petitions on that, but none have been moved forward. One of the many problems with this AHO policy is that it will removes green spaces and trees (set backs) creating even more devastating heat island impacts particularly in denser areas. Also I learned that the city is saying that the main reason for the new AHO amendment is because this bankrupt City Council voted to remove parking minimums. This was the main thing that allowed affordable housing developers to compete with market rate ones. Multimodal – too bad see scrubbed their website because I found some of the things there interesting. I think all the blogs are still up though. Have you seen specific blogs on their blogs tab that have gone missing? Curious what they are.
The AHO is one of the most divisive pieces of legislation the city has ever written. It has polarized voters into two extreme camps. If someone is for affordable housing it must mean they want skyscrapers and if someone wants human-scaled affordable housing it must mean they want to run low income folks out of town.
Extremism and “my way or the highway” politics in America is nothing new, but in the People’s Republic it sure feels out of place. We can thank the city for that.
The vitriol serves no one and is proof positive that the current version of the AHO and its proposed amended version is not ready for prime time.
On August 29, the saga continues, with a “take 2” meeting of the planning board. That the board stumbled and was unable to close out the matter (due to 4 members electing to sit out the meeting – wow – talk about shirking one’s duties) is a clear indication: the AHO needs serious revising.
I urge anyone reading this to attend the board’s meeting on Aug 29 and listen to the voices endorsing and opposing the AHO, then draw the inevitable conclusion: until a more moderate, reasonable city-wide building plan is written, the people will be divided, and that’s the opposite of united.
Thank you!
Federico Muchnik
Candidate for City Council – for change
Note that some of the “AHO corridors” are actually very narrow streets and not suited to tall buildings. For example, Concord Ave. near Tobin School is the same width as the side streets (I measured it). Factors like this should be taken into consideration in setting building height and setbacks. Just because in this case it is called an Avenue and is an arterial link does not make it appropriate for zero setbacks and tall buildings. Please take factors like this into consideration in the final plans and language.
This report states that “Public comment to the committee and board fell largely to extremes: firm support for the AHO, and staunch opposition.” But unfortunately, it did not include few, including myself, neutral comments asking for more process and fact-based amendments.
To begin with, the City needs to establish % of total current housing units that are affordable. Then it must establish goal of % of affordable housing units (AHUs) we want to achieve and the timeline to achieve the goal. State requirement is 10%. Is 20%, 25% or 75% enough? In 5 years, 10 years? It is a vicious cycle – the more AHUs we build, the more people from all over the state will want to live in Cambridge.
After that, City has to look at how well the original AHO Zoning Ordinance (AHO#1) is working. Is AHO#1 generating AHUs at the rate sufficient to meet the City’s goal? If not, City has to analyze why not and then craft amendments so achieve the desired goal.
The crafters of the AHO zoning amendments, be it the original Councillors who submitted the Policy Order to amend AHO#1 or the CDD Zoning experts, must prove that the proposed amendments are consistent with City’s long-term vision and goals; will not have undue negative impacts; and will prevent developers misusing “as of right” clause of the AHO ZO.
They can do this by showing case studies of potential developments at various corridors and squares subject to the amendment.
Councillor Azeem missed two critical points when he “pointed to a failed 2072 Massachusetts Ave. project near Porter Square as an example. It was rejected partially for being too tall, he said, and under new guidelines would have been legal.” First, he neglected to consider all the ignored State required steps under Chapter 40B that the City turned blind eye to and even violate state requirements themselves.
Second, the developers didn’t wait for the AHO#1 but opted to go the State Chater 40B route that they have used before. Again, the City was the willing partner in helping the developers acquire the site and design the project without any community involvement as required by Chapter 40B.
It is this kind of misuse of affordable housing development statute/Zoning Ordinance that we must guard against.
During a damaging shortage of affordable housing, YCK’s call for a cap on the number of affordable homes hardly seems like the “neutral” position he claims.
He seems unaware that his call for the city to establish affordable housing goals was done years ago, as part of the Envision planning project. We have not made much progress in meeting those goals (see https://www.cambridgema.gov/envision/Housing ).
People who have heard the myth that Envision did not give rise to the Affordable Housing Overlay should note the first three Key Actions at the link above. In particular, the third — “Change zoning to allow more affordable housing to be built along major streets, squares, and in other areas that are well-served by transit” — cited as a way of meeting our community’s core values of “community health & wellbeing, equity & diversity, livability, and sustainability & resilience” — is included in the AHO amendments now being considered by the Council.
I appreciate YCK raising the question of how we can prevent possible “abuse” of the AHO’s provisions. The answer was included in the AHO from the beginning: property owners who choose to apply the AHO must accept permanent deed restrictions on their property that limit the rents and prices that may be charged, specify income limits for purchasers and renters, and involve the city in these and other matters. (See article 11.207.3 in the Zoning Code at https://library.municode.com/ma/cambridge/codes/zoning_ordinance?nodeId=ZONING_ORDINANCE_ART11.000SPRE_11.200INZOINHO )
By design, this does not make the AHO option appealing for the profit-driven developers that AHO opponents like to warn us about. We’ve seen only six proposals in the AHO’s first three years. The alarmist claims that every homeowner would find a tall AHO building next door have been shown to be unfounded. There are far easier ways for the greedy to make money in a city with the high rents and home prices that our prohibitory zoning regime has supported.
Bravo YCK- exactly right. The AHO 2.0 is a retaliatory response for not getting 2072 Mass Ave passed- a non-AHO building which only had one elevator for 9 or 10 floors. How safe is that?
I would also like to thank acting chair Mary Flynn for her thoughtful deliberation and even handedness in asking for a continuance considering 4 members were not present. I suspect the two newbie alternates had to be called in for a quorum. I found it interesting that both new members only identified themselves as renters. What are their qualifications or is that now the litmus test dictated by the new criteria of oversight boards? This sounds like exactly what proponent councilors wanted. The continuance is August 29th. Too bad two of the most experienced, least intimidated members with institutional memory did not have their appointments renewed. They would have been the one asking the deep, thoughtful and responsible questions.
In all fairness, the two newbies did ask good questions so far and supported Chairman Flynn’s request for a continuance, much to the chagrin of the posse of three councilors making their presentation for expanded height, elimination of green, open space and set backs between buildings, as-of-right with no oversight etc. In several cases, why couldn’t Councilor Carlone give his rebuttal in an attempt to educate people on other considerations? This has been stacked from the beginning regardless of valid concerns. This all or nothing, my way or the highway doesn’t allow for fair deliberation. Do we even have the technology for 100% electric dictated by BEUDO?
What was also mentioned was that not all areas like Harvard Sq or the smaller “corridors”are appropriate for 12- and 15 stories. These re-write meetings evidently didn’t include safety services like fire dept. let alone the public– only developers. The other thing mentioned is that the very tool of removing off-street parking was to help Affordable Housing people by giving more area and space. But now it is given to every for-profit as well eliminating that advantage. So much for strategy.
There were details in the AHO#1, something the public agreed with and got used to, that have been taken out of AHO#2. The norfolk street development could have used another floor or two without overshadowing the original historic building. These are the kinds of models we should be pursuing. Why couldn’t they have gotten a permit, Variance or comprehensive variance for this case? The public also sat through presentations for Jefferson Park AH. parts of that project could have gone taller in the back varying the boxes with setbacks and massing. The total teardown is now costing almost $1 mil a unit for hundreds of units. Why can’t houses be purchased by the city for homeownership programs and partnerships?
Finally, the original AHO recognized Neighborhood Conservation Districts and the Historical Commission as vital boards to oversee non-binding designs and suggestions to guard against incongruous buildings. Kendall Sq is marching into surrounding long-term residential areas forcing people out. The AHO 1 respected the CHC’s important function in safeguarding Cambridge Culture and identity.
But no, the same posse Councilors are pushing to amend not only set backs, heights, design, materials, but want to reduce oversight to opinion and suggestions, allowing developers to do what they want anyway, they want to change number of signatures for a citizen petition from the normal 10 to 100, the Council can rescind an NCD anytime without notice, the make up of an NCD board is eliminating any mention of expertise like architect, historian, city planner, lawyer for societal issues, diversity, equity, gender, renter and business owners. They are not qualified. Historic Preservation is a serious certified profession.
I bring this up because the new AHO wants to eliminate any reference to historic oversight making the AHO 2.0 the default for any project and easier for developers. The two policies are intertwined. Protecting material culture and brick and mortar is being usurped by emotion and human circumstances which, while critical, are not based in concrete nuts and bolts legislative plans. This issue is NOT about being against the AHO but HOW it is implemented and what other strategies were studied for a responsible plan. Mary Flynn understands that.