How to turn a flawed AHO2 into a net positive for Cambridge
The three-year-old Affordable Housing Overlay zoning got a boost in height Monday to 12 stories along Cambridge’s main corridors and 15 stories in Central, Harvard and Porter squares. Many expect the impact of this to be limited.
How do we create better outcomes for a flawed ordinance?
First, we must preserve our squares and corridors to the standards and characters that our neighborhoods desire. We can build with the support of our communities by appealing to neighborhoods with more trees and open spaces that can only improve the quality of life of our new residents. Building even taller buildings at the easier-to-build places will reduce the cost of the new units more than forcing them on our squares and some stretches of our corridors.
Secondly, we should include commercial builders, allowing mixed-use buildings that include a good portion for market rates. We have a limited capacity to build, and Cambridge is not known for producing large quantities of housing units quickly. If we are limited to nonprofit builders, we will not fulfill the promise of the AHO or the Envision Cambridge planning process.
Lastly, we need to address the broader issues facing our city. Gentrification is already happening, though incomplete. Our teachers, scientists, researchers, police, medical staff and young college graduates all need housing. Many of them are forced to leave Cambridge and live elsewhere. Reducing the percentage of affordable-housing units to less than 25 percent of a build, coupled with increasing the threshold to apply for housing assistance, can help them to live and work here and mix with our low-income population, which in turn will generate more jobs and opportunities for our low-income population, ultimately contributing to the eradication of poverty in our city.
The AHO amendments, however well intended, were created with little operational experience or impact analysis and essentially no implementation planning. The new council should work together to turn it into a net positive for our city.
Hao Wang, candidate for Cambridge City Council
The non-profit affordable homebuilders and Cambridge Housing Authority have many decades of operational experience, and the participated in designing the amendments and many meetings discuss them. Indeed, the amendments were designed to iterate on their experience with the process and implementations to date.
Maybe you should go meet with them before you make further incorrect assertions about the 100% Affordable Housing Overlay.
😊 Qwerty, I never said CHA and nonprofits are inexperienced. I came from East Cambridge and know good work nonprofits such as Just a Start has done.
You misread my letter. I only said the amendments to AHO, a law making process, seemed a lack of experience. In the face of significant neighborhood opposition, the AHO2 passed with a belief that in order to house more people the city had to sacrifice its open space, setback, parking, and civic engagement.
BTW, I respect your right to remain anonymous, I have the right not to respond to anonymous comments that are too quick to jump to a judgement or bias.
There was also substantial support in this city for the amendments. Or do you just not think those opinions are valid?
You mention parking. In Cambridge the average cost per spot is ~50-60k. In some cases it has been over 100k/spot. The NYTimes recently published that the average annual car ownership costs are over $12,000/yr.
The fact that you are simultaneously defending open space and parking, by far the greatest destroyer of open space in the US, really makes me and should make voters question your intellectual consistency. There is nothing that has cratered this beauty city more than asphalt wastelands, most of which sit empty most of the time.
@cambridgeresident opinions that support AHO2 are valid. Affordable housing problem needs to be solved, but not at the expense of other residents in the city. I welcome you to contribute to its ultimate solution that is inclusive.
That you seem to sincerely believe that there is a solution to the housing crisis that doesn’t involve any expense to anyone in a city of 100k+ people tells me that you are way too naive to be entrusted with running anything. Or, that you are establishing an impossible condition to meet as to intentionally preclude any solution. Also disqualifying.
Dan Sprague
22 Cottage Park Ave
Cambridge MA
Further, the lack of action has had and continues to have enormous expense on existing residents of this city who are priced out and are forced to leave their friends and family, or barely treading water.
I guess that expense on our residents doesn’t matter? Preventing 10 minutes of shade on multi-million dollar homes in West Cambridge is truly the horrible expense being imposed in this debate.
Yikes.
Dan Sprague
22 Cottage Park Ave
Cambridge MA
Dan,
Thank you for your genuine concerns. I want our middle class and essential workforce to stay, and I like that badly.
I may be naive, but I do not believe AHO2 will bring the outcome you expect. We need productive zoning reform, neighborhood preservation, and a bold building plan to deliver anywhere near 3175 all-purpose new housing units.
I invite you to see how I try; help me when you see fit.
Hao Wang for Cambridge
https://haoforcambridge.com
@Hao Wang
You say we should, “preserve our squares,” and build where it’s easy to build instead. Are squares not exactly where we should be building? There are already tall buildings there and great access to transit. Where else would you have us build, Alewife? Alewife? Yes, lets concentrate all the poor people in a flood plane. Good plan. (That’s sarcasm).
The AHO isn’t limited to non-profit developers. Anyone can build an AHO qualified property. At least one for-profit developer has.
We already get 20% inclusionary housing from standard developments, so why would we lower the AHO percentage to 25%?
What you’ve proposed would reduce the locations where housing can be built and reduce the amount of it that’s affordable. This would make it harder to live in Cambridge, not easier. I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.
@cjfman
You have a reasonable voice. Thank you. I am leaning towards not responding to anonymous comments mired with political hits or zealous social media trolls.
Affordable housing and housing affordability are two different concepts. My take on affordable housing is a housing assistance program for low-income populations. Housing affordability means more broadly for our middle class and essential workers who could not be qualified for affordable housing. Yet, the burden of the cost of living is pushing them away from Cambridge. AHUs are for affordable housing.
I want to reduce the AHU percentage, not the AHO percentage, to lower than 20%. In a healthy city, the low-income population should be a much lower percentage. Therefore, I put more weight on our effort to eradicate absolute or COL-adjusted poverty than on guaranteeing a high housing percentage for AHUs.
As for where to build even taller buildings, please read my op-ed on September 18th here:
https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/09/18/what-were-missing-from-envision-cambridge/
I prefer building taller buildings in easier-to-build places such as City-owned lands or anywhere our residents consent to. Again, civic engagement is the key.
I thought about these a lot but still need to solve it. I recommend you work with me to contribute ideas. We should not discard civic engagement and ignore neighborhoods’ input, no matter how glorious the cause seems.
You are welcome to email me privately for more information. My email is [email protected].
Hao Wang for Cambridge
https://haoforcambridge.com
@Hao Wang
My identity is no secret, I’m Charles Franklin. If you google search “cjfman” the first four hits are to my github and website.
Neither I nor any reasonable person is advocating for ignoring neighborhood input. We just don’t think new construction should be held hostage by the whims of the minority. A single person can launch a lawsuit and shutdown a project that requires a variance.
Your article from September compares building 15 story buildings in Central Square to dropping the tallest building in the world, which is patently absurd. It also calls for multiple Handcock Tower buildings (60 stories) in Alewife. Alewife already has a terrible traffic and congestion problem, and as I said before it’s in a flood plane. It’s not the wisest building location. You know what’s near Alewife that could be readily developed though? That damn golf course, the same one your mailer says you want to maintain.
Building on city owned land is held to the same zoning standards as properties right next to it, so it’s not easier to build there at all if the zoning doesn’t change.
I’m more than willing to work with people who I think are serious about progressing housing justice, even if we don’t initially agree on how. I can’t take someone who’s campaigning on protecting the golf course seriously. I don’t have time for that.
And to be clear. I’m not anti-golf. It’s that we’re a 7 square-mile city with a population of 118 thousand and sky rocketing rents. We really shouldn’t be prioritizing a 9-hole golf course with limited use for half the year over solving our housing crisis.
If you believe what you said, Charles Franklin, work on zoning reform, improve transportation, and create something tangible. Don’t rob golfers of their facility to suit yourself. The golf course is in a flood plane, too. Please learn how to speak the language of inclusion before accusing others of not helping you. Thank you. Hao
Other uses of FP golf course could see daily use numbers higher than its current annual use. Urban golf courses are objectively a poor use of land.
@Hao Wang,
I’ve created two city wide zoning plans, one for affordable housing and one for market rate, the latter of which I submitted as a formal zoning petition. I spent countless hours on both. I met with the CDD and individual councilors multiple times for development of both of them. I’ve given presentations before both the Planning Board and City Council.
I’m not robbing golfers of anything. There are plenty of golf courses in Greater Boston, but not enough housing. The golf course land is literally owned by the city. You said build where it’s easy to build. Build on city property. Then all of the sudden you’re not for it because it might upset someone. Land is limited. We’re mostly out of it, so most of what we can do is build up. You don’t want that either.
You and the other members of the “No Coalition” all say you’re for affordable housing, but then never suggest a concrete solution, just good sounding concepts that don’t hold water when investigated. Want me to take you seriously, write your own petition. Here’s mine https://charlesfranklin.net/restore-cambridge-housing-petition/
@Charles Franklin, I respect your work. You certainly got my ears. I will take many of your thoughts under advisement. If I am elected, regardless of whether we agree or disagree, you have a listener in me on the council.
We can still preserve the City’s golf course and characters while increasing our housing stock – we can debate each other and learn. My solution is more than zoning. We need to alleviate the demand by better transportation and less poverty. We need to increase the supply by building more ADUs, a measured zoning reform, and fewer buildings but taller for open spaces and trees. Let us protect our middle class and essential workers. Otherwise, we will have a city with much weaker fabric.
Let us stay in touch.
Hao Wang for Cambridge
https://haoforcambridge.com