Affordable Housing Overlay changes split board, leading to plan for notes but no recommendation
Development is ongoing at 116 Norfolk St. in The Port neighborhood in Cambridge under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning. (Photo: Marc Levy)
A controversial update to Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Overlay zoning goes to the City Council with no recommendation from the Planning Board after a Tuesday hearing, the board’s second on the proposal.
Members agreed to provide only comments on the proposed changes, noting concerns such as whether changed guidelines would cast neighborhoods in shadow from taller buildings and questioning whether the council should wait for the original AHO’s built-in five-year review.
This discussion came after the board decided to delay a decision during a first hearing Aug. 8 due to four of the nine members being absent. The Tuesday meeting included an additional hour of public comment.
The amendment would increase the possible height of buildings with 100 percent affordable units. While the current AHO allows for buildings up to around 80 feet, the new version would cap buildings in areas near Harvard, Central and Porter squares at 15 stories, with major corridors in the city allowing buildings of up to 12 stories and mainly residential areas allowing for nine stories. The amendment would also eliminate setback requirements.
While the council’s own Ordinance Committee recommended the changes Aug. 1 in a 6-3 vote, the Planning Board showed reservations given the breadth of public comment and the political divide between residents. As in previous meetings about the new AHO, public comments largely fell in extremes of for and against.
Margaret Moran, deputy director of development at the Cambridge Housing Authority, spoke during the meeting to note that 6,500 people and families who work in Cambridge are on a waitlist for affordable housing and CHA can process only 300 applicants a year. “So it would take 20 years to house everyone with a local preference. And that’s not counting the rest of the folks on the waiting list,” which number more than 21,000, she said
Helen Walker, a Cambridge resident and architect, opposed the amendment for its impact on open space resulting from a lack of setbacks. In particular, she said, eliminating setbacks would greatly raise the heat index in the city. “Development standards must mitigate urban heat island effect to protect residents from major increases in summer temperatures. Heat mitigation strategies should benefit the entire city,” Walker said.
Though most board members said they were in favor of increasing the affordable-housing stock in the city, chair Mary Flynn found present members split half and half on whether to provide a recommendation on this specific approach.
Member Tom Sieniewicz noted that the Envision Cambridge master planning process proposed adding 3,200 affordable units by 2030. To reach that number, the amendment would be a necessity, he said.
Lou Bacci, another member, argued that potential shadow impacts of the taller buildings made him wary of the amendments. City councillor Marc McGovern – one of the major sponsors of the changes – shot back that to build more affordable housing, some sacrifices would need to be made.
The board’s vice chair, Catherine Preston Connolly, said she would prefer to see through the five-year review procedure built into the original AHO. “I would have a difficult time recommending an adoption of changes to the Affordable Housing Overlay at this time because we have not yet gotten to five years,” she said. “We should probably get the study going now.”
With the board split, Sieniewicz advocated to make notes on the policy to the City Council, believing this route would be most effective for its members. Flynn agreed, and the board unanimously decided to make no recommendation.
Tom Sieneiewicz gave an elegant and moving statement and recommendation, and I commend it to all Cambridge residents. I appreciated his quote from Cathy Higgins’ public comment, “Displacement of our neighbors and our friends is a bigger threat than changes to our skyline.”
I was also heartened by the open-minded and thoughtful approach taken by the new members, Adam Buchanan Westbrook and Diego Macias.
Lou Bacci, on the other hand, is out of step with Cambridge in terms of urbanism and lacks the temperament to serve on a community board. On the prior hearing, he lashed out viciously at the applicants, who seek to rent parking to MIT. The rental proposal would prevent building an unnecessary and potentially traffic-inducing parking garage in Kendall.
arguments against the AHO 2.0 were equally as eloquent concerning process and lack of recognizing that not all tall buildings are appropriate for everywhere. I commend the chair for her even-handed consideration with a continuance. And it doesn’t surprise me that the (probably) hand-picked newbies are pro-development. Time will tell with their future deliberations. Even today’s Boston (globe) consideration of new building plans acknowledged different areas for different impact. Cambridge has no plan. Just a potential blanket as-of-right removal of guardrails.
The original AHO had a 5 yr review as part of its agreement. But not one year later, the sponsors of the massive re-zoning were re-writing the ordinance. This is not honoring the process and makes councilors look untrustworthy. The upzoning was in retaliation of 2072 Mass Ave being rejected as written. It was NOT an AHO building but rather a 40B building under a different umbrella, it had one elevator for a nine-story building on a busy corner and was asking for between 12-15 variances. It was excessive and unsafe. That’s not to say something else could go there.
There are also several inconsistencies and conflicts with other policies including environmental issues which are social justice issues. Cambridge has NO survey or models to illustrate potential problems in plans. This has always been an issue when policies are emotionally passed first before implementation examined. Many of our problems are due to knee-jerk solutions which create more problems. AH developers asked for a bit taller possibilities which might have been gotten through variances or permits until certain details in zoning can be tweaked. But a total city re-write without a plan is inappropriate and irresponsible.
Neighborhood Conservation Districts are next to fall because these same councilors see them as deterrents from more building. Not necessarily. It is usually non-binding oversight. 1627 Mass Ave (Lesley) is working with both housing groups and historical commission to create more housing with preservation working together. This All or nothing- my way or the highway has got to go for the greater good of the city. I would rather see 3 5-story buildings than one 15 story in a bottleneck of a small square. Much of the problem in housing is man-made and we actually agree on more than we disagree on. But this issue continues to be divisive lead by this band of councilors and their posse.
As for Lou Bacci- he was pushing for clarification about areas reserved for certain users in a parking garage. He has been well aware that loop holes have been taken advantage of and developers are usually 3 steps ahead of board members when it comes to agenda. I applaud him for pushing for accountability.
Our Envision Cambridge housing goals were set in 2018, so it has been five years since then, plenty of time to assess if we are on pace to meet our Envision goal of 3,175 new affordable homes by 2030 before it is too late to do anything.
Unfortunately, we are not close to our goal. We have several hundred new affordable homes via IZ. The AHO has helped put several hundred new affordable homes into the pipeline, but none of those homes are ready yet. It is quite clear already that we are not going to meet our goal without making changes, and the experts here—the Affordable Housing Trust, affordable housing non-profits HRI and Just-A-Start, and the Cambridge Housing Authority—have stated repeatedly that this change will allow them to acquire more parcels and build more affordable homes.
Moreover, the AHO would have passed two years sooner but for opposition by the same NIMBYs who now say we should keep desperate Cambridge families waiting for housing while we endlessly study what is plain as day.
Housing delayed is housing denied. We have a housing crisis, with 6,500 households with a local preference waiting up to 20 years for affordable homes. Families in dire need must come before aesthetic preferences.
You can push firmly for information without the angry and petulant attitude Lou Bacci exhibited. It was quite unbecoming. No one else on the Planning Board ever acts like that, and the Chair had to interject multiple times throughout the hearing. Applauding that behavior is similarly disappointing.
Opponents of the ordinance are fond of kettle logic it seems. “I would rather see 3 5-story buildings than one 15 story in a bottleneck of a small square” is directly in conflict with “oppos[ing] the amendment for its impact on open space resulting from a lack of setbacks.”
The same amount of housing takes up a lot less space if it is laid out vertically rather than horizontally. Something tells me that you don’t actually want to see the same amount of housing in a different form though.
“Our Envision Cambridge housing goals were set in 2018, so it has been five years since then, plenty of time to assess if we are on pace to meet our Envision goal of 3,175 new affordable homes by 2030 before it is too late to do anything.”
The envision goal was for 12,500 units which includes market rate housing. Any “plan” or zoning scheme that doesn’t include a market rate component is not a solution.
Cherry picking Envision which was never really ratified is not helpful. it is trotted out when convenient and ignored most of the time. It also talks about setbacks and green space and preservation awareness. At the time, AHO 1 said it would produce 140 units a year. That was never enough even then. Scale of buildings is a factor in quality of life. And design is paramount at contributing to context, but people seem to forget about that. people deserve to live in a nice place. that should not be mutually exclusive. The fear factor is not helpful, especially when everything will take time anyway. I would like to see a revisal of the financial process to make it easier to determine a reliable plan. We keep piling on when the basic process itself is flawed.
As for Bacci’s behavior, I could comment the same thing about disrespect and intimidation by sitting councilors.
I cannot take seriously anyone who makes comments without using their full name- first and last. Cambridge Day should require this.
That’s funny NeilRohr. I actually can’t take seriously anyone who is surprised that people comment on the internet with anonymized usernames
I’m not surprised but I’m opposed to it. For example, I am almost always in disagreement with the comments of Patrick Barrett, who I often find to be mean spirited, but I do respect that he puts his name to his comments.
Dear HelloCambridge, I wanted to set the record straight that the quote that Tom Sieneiewicz repeated in his very powerful remarks in support of the AHO amendments “Displacement of our neighbors and our friends is a bigger threat than changes to our skyline”, are the eloquent words of city council candidate Joe McGuirk. I was so moved by his testimony at an Ordinance Committee meeting that I repeated his words (and I did attribute them to him…) in my public comments. As a long-time renter himself, Joe has a great vision for being a voice for those struggling to stay in Cambridge.