Changes to Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Overlay zoning are moving forward without further adjustments suggested Monday, in large part because city staff wouldn’t have time to assess their impact before the zoning petition expires Oct. 29.
The zoning is meant to make it easier to build affordable housing citywide and was passed three years ago with a clause for a check-in at the five-year mark. Backers of the changes say the city can’t wait.
The amendments that have been debated since November 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. It also changes open space requirements.
What was proposed Monday by councillor Patty Nolan and co-sponsored by Paul Toner questioned the approach taken on height – proposing an alternative such as a formula “instead of an across-the-board allowance” – and open space formulas and seeking a “workforce housing” or middle-income-earner priority. But it asked for a report back next week.
“There is no way we could turn it around,” Iram Farooq, assistant city manager for community development, told councillors during their first meeting back from a summer break. “The last time we did modeling for the original AHO, it took us almost six months. It won’t take us six months now, because we have some of those models that we can work from – but it would certainly not be something that we could turn around ahead of the expiration of this petition.”
Councillors and residents would likely demand time to absorb and debate new language, and the council doesn’t meet either Sept. 25, for the Yom Kippur holiday, or for Indigenous Peoples Day on Oct. 9.
Last-minute changes to zoning are hardly unknown in Cambridge. Councillor Marc McGovern, in recommending the current zoning go to its second reading on the way to enactment, said there was already a small change being worked on by the Community Development Department: language for all-affordable-housing projects that overlap zoning lines from a residential district into a commercial district. A senior-housing project on Blanchard Road is in that situation now, McGovern said Tuesday by phone.
The second reading can be held on or after Oct. 16, putting passage on either that or the next council meeting date of Oct. 23.
Debating amendments
There was little support heard for Nolan’s proposed changes Monday.
“When I think of housing in Cambridge, I think of it as a state of emergency. There are so many folks, and we don’t have to go far to hear about how much housing we need and how many people are leaving the city because they just can’t hold on,” councillor E. Denise Simmons said. “The average wait [for an affordable unit] is two years, and two years is forever for a lot of people. I do not want to take the chance to have this petition expire.”
The proposal still doesn’t make sense in some ways, Nolan said, because different parts of the city should be treated differently in terms of height. She questioned the numerical goal of affordable homes to be built as just “pulled out just from one member” of the Envision Cambridge master planning process that took place from 2016 to 2018, and said that Envision’s data dashboard showed that “for housing, all the goals are actually being met or on target.”
“All the measures of housing production, according to the Envision dashboard, are met. There is one goal that is not met, which is for middle-income residents,” Nolan said.
Dashboard disagreement
It led to the sharpest response of the night, as councillor Burhan Azeem objected to Nolan’s reading of the dashboard. “First is that it says that we are meeting our affordable-housing targets – it does not say that, it says ‘improving,’’ Azeem said. Extrapolating the numbers of built affordable homes suggests Cambridge will miss its target, he said.
To Nolan’s wish to see middle-income housing included based on Envision data, “it does say we are falling behind,” Azeem said, but defines middle-income housing as between 50 percent and 100 percent of local average median income, “which is included in the current AHO.”
Aside from Azeem, councillors explained their opposition in muted tones, with appreciation for the attempt, and Nolan let go of her suggestions with regret.
“I appreciate my colleagues’ understanding that we’re coming from a place of wanting to get to ‘yes,’ of wanting to understand how we can support it,” Nolan said. The request to Community Development wasn’t intended to be intensive, but “well, what’s your best guess,” and the deadline should have been put at a week before expiration, she said.
The night’s votes
The amendments proposed Monday by Nolan and Toner failed 6-3, with councillor Dennis Carlone joining them in the minority. Those opposed were Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and vice mayor Alanna Mallon and councillors Azeem, McGovern, Simmons and councillor Quinton Zondervan.
Moving the AHO was passed 6-3 again, with the same members in favor and against.
With a lack of funding being the main reason affordable housing isn’t getting built, Nolan said, “I really feel like it would be better for us to take a little more time to get this right.”
A stronger
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“ because different parts of the city should be treated differently in terms of height.”
Why? Seriously, why should West Cambridge have lower heights just because historically they’ve failed to contribute significantly to our housing stock?
Is there any change that Nolan and Toner won’t say “no” to? Cities evolve. They always have. They need to. The world changes.
Families need housing.
Seems to this voter that the four “smoky back room” originators of this proposal, and now their two additional supporters, planned to rush it through from the get-go because they’re afraid that the upcoming election will establish a Council that will develop a more reasonable, but equally or more effective approach, to building what we need. One has to tip the hat at their McConnell-like maneuvering, though.
Excellent James. It does seem to be taking a page from the R- play book in deflect, redirect and ram though. The sponsors want to aggrandize themselves with a legacy that will no doubt create problems that will continue to need “amendments”. This councils’ definition of amendment is to change enough to either double or reverse previous decisions making the original intention almost moot. Other plans for more housing have been presented, some with more units and less height. But no. The lobby wants it fast without data or imagination or consideration of other residents. Their legacy will not make more housing, but more problems and a precedent opening the door to market rate building and not middle income or people who really need it. needing a salary of $60-80K is not affordable. This Council ignores process which is the basis of a fair and good government. VOTE THEM ALL OUT!
@ pete
Well said.
It would be nice to vote all of them out. However, after the first week in November, we’ll be writing that, unfortunately, so many of them will have been re-elected.
Until we get rid of nine at large councillors, things will remain the same.
But there is hope. I understand that the next charter revision committee is getting set to meet, after the current one finishes up its business in the next few months. The first meeting is set for January 15th… 2064.
Most Cambridge residents and voters support taking serious steps to address our housing crisis. I don’t understand why this fact is so hard for some to accept. This policy order was a see-through attempt to thwart that goal. The proposal for CDD to turn around a report on completely refashioning the AHO amendments in one week was not a serious one—from the same faction claiming we are otherwise moving too fast.
Similarly, no credible alternative has ever been offered to increase production of affordable housing to meet the needs of the 22,500 households on the AH waitlist, including around 4,500 households with a local preference. We know the low height and density approach suggested by Councillor Carlone won’t work because it’s no different from what applies now in many parts of the City, where six-story AHO buildings are permitted but the homebuilders have not been able to build any.
We have had a year filled with countless public meetings on the 100% Affordable Housing Overlay amendments. 2/3 of the Council support them. I look forward to their passage and thank the six Councillors who voted to move the amendments forward.
@HelloCambridge +100
Delay, delay, delay is the NIMBY strategy. People need housing. It is selfish and callous to deny it.