Cambridge should end exclusionary zoning this City Council term
Beneath a facade of inclusivity and progressivism lies an ugly truth: Cambridge is not open to everyone. Hidden in the technical details of Cambridge’s zoning ordinance is a system designed to control who lives where by limiting the type of housing that can be built, particularly multifamily apartments, such as the triple-decker. This system is referred to as “exclusionary zoning,” and its roots are in segregation. We see its manifestation today in a housing crisis that prices more people out every year. At A Better Cambridge, a pro-housing advocacy group dedicated to making Cambridge a more inclusive, affordable city, we believe the time to change this system is now.
Ending exclusionary zoning is an equity issue, a family issue, a climate issue and, of course, a housing affordability issue.
Cambridge’s zoning was designed to segregate. In the late 1920s and 1930s, federal redlining maps marked West Cambridge as “still desirable” while describing the eastern half of the city as “definitely declining” or “hazardous” due to its Black and immigrant populations. After court decisions and federal laws invalidated explicit racial discrimination, in the words of Matthew Desmond in “Poverty, by America,” “we went from banning certain kinds of people from our communities to banning the kinds of housing in which those people lived – namely, apartment buildings designed for multiple families – achieving the same ends.” Shut out of decades of gains in real estate values, by 2015, the median U.S.-born Black household in the Boston Metropolitan Area held just $8 in net assets compared with $247,500 for white households. Many Boston municipalities went so far as to explicitly use age restrictions to avoid higher school costs from apartment-dwelling families; others discouraged housing for children more indirectly through the special permitting process.
This exclusionary legacy persists in Cambridge today: West Cambridge remains our most exclusively zoned area, with large swaths dedicated exclusively to single-family homes. Among all neighborhoods, it has the highest per capita income ($104,000) and the lowest percentage of Black residents (2.7 percent). This segregation by class and race may not reflect the attitudes of most Cambridge residents today, but it happened by design.
The past century of housing restrictions have been devastatingly effective. From 1980 to 2020 (pre-pandemic), Cambridge on net added about 45,000 jobs but built only around 12,600 homes. Without legal and political barriers, an increase in demand would spur an increase in supply, but with exclusionary zoning keeping a lid on new housing construction, prices simply soared. The median one-bedroom apartment rented for $2,700 in 2023 and the median condo sold for $825,000 in 2021, prices among the highest in the nation. More and more of our neighbors are being priced out of Cambridge, with more than 22,500 households on Cambridge Housing Authority waitlists for subsidized affordable housing. Families with children bear an especially high burden, with many making the tough decision to move.
As exclusionary zoning pushes people from lower-carbon-emission cities to higher-emission suburbs, it worsens the climate crisis. Suburbs generate more greenhouse gases due to longer commutes, less public transit and larger homes. This impact is often obscured because city emissions data doesn’t account for the commutes of people who work in Cambridge but live farther away due to the zoning-induced housing shortage.
Why act now?
Last November, voters gave the council a clear mandate: Fight the housing crisis. Six of nine councillors, including the mayor, vice mayor and co-chairs of the Housing Committee, were endorsed by A Better Cambridge, but we invite all councillors to heed the call. Last term, the council did admirable work to prioritize subsidized housing for those that need it most by expanding the Affordable Housing Overlay and increasing funding for the Affordable Housing Trust. While maintaining our commitment to subsidized housing, the council should now prioritize ending exclusionary zoning. Cambridge would not be alone; cities such as Spokane, Washington; Arlington, Virginia; Portland, Oregon; and Minneapolis are bidding goodbye to single-family zoning.
Done well, zoning reform has the potential to unlock thousands of new homes. We should aim to promote new multifamily building construction in all residential districts, with the neighborhoods that are currently most exclusive seeing the most change. With the right height and density standards in place, we don’t need to forgo open and green space. On the ABC candidate questionnaire in 2023, nearly every candidate said they would support allowing – at minimum – four-story multifamily housing as of right citywide, and the benefits would be greater with more height. Zoning rules should incentivize new-unit production, including larger units for families, rather than down-conversions from existing multifamily housing to spacious, expensive homes affordable to only the wealthiest households.
What the council should not settle for is a surface-level fix that narrowly “allows” multifamily housing without deeper changes to the dimensional standards that prevent new multifamily construction. Unknown to most Cambridge residents, most of the buildings they live in are out of compliance with current zoning, as much of Cambridge’s housing stock predates the city’s restrictive zoning rules. The council should avoid simply “legalizing what’s there.” Ending exclusionary zoning means building new homes for more people.
Change will be slow. It takes time to build housing, and construction costs are at an all-time high – all the more reason to act now. Cambridge has a historical opportunity to confront its exclusionary housing legacy and tackle the housing crisis. Let’s seize it.
Dan Phillips, on behalf of A Better Cambridge
The writer is a co-chair of the group A Better Cambridge, which advocates for housing.
Any specifics from ABC or is this a repeat of missing middle zoning? I’d love to see an example of a west cambridge parcel that currently pencils going to or adding a triple decker.
Some of the roots (and resutls) of the policy may be racist, but there are better ways to increase housing and diversity than removing all regulations, rather, carefully considered regulations neighborhood by neighborhood that considers transportation (traffic, bike lanes and T access) park and green space access, schools, workplaces, and existing density that should be considered. Moreover, new builds should have strong incentives or mandates for sustainability.
Just a blanket deregulation of all building codes is not a great idea.
@q99–
This letter does not advocate *any* changes to our building code, nor anything like “removing all regulations” from our zoning code.
We already have decades of neighborhood by neighborhood rules and requirements — like the ones you’ve listed here — that have led to a large deficit in our housing supply and produced soaring rents and home prices. You want a “better way to increase housing and diversity” than reducing some of those restrictions, but there’s no way to produce the necessary large numbers of additional lower-priced units with our present limits on multi-family buildings still in place.
Unless Cambridge reduces the legal choke-holds on our housing supply, our city will continue on its present path toward becoming a profitable refuge for the very wealthy, and an unwelcoming, inaccessible place for most everyone else.
There are so many Pinocchio’s in this article Mr Phillips must need a straw to drink his coffee.
We ALL know the cost of housing is too high in Cambridge, but this groups incessant moralizing, arrogant claims and ineffective policies aren’t constructive.
If you have counterpoints or other ideas, why don’t you give a few examples and have a discussion?
Changing the zoning structure for Western Cambridge will not produce a lot of change if there is not a lot of persons currently in existing housing there selling their properties for development into multi-family buildings. There is nothing to change the current property status in that part of the city if no one has the money and will and access to said properties. So right now this looks like a bunch of “for the future” changes or its something being pushed on behind the scenes by a specific developer who thinks they can get some adjacent properties to sell and that they can build big… but its also highly probable that such a developer is more likely to build Luxury property rather than any thing that will help minority and lower income people. It looks like this is ripe for a developer to scam the city into thinking its doing good while gentrification is slipped in as has happened in other parts of the state and the country.
Its like all the effort to raise building heights that was being pushed on the council last year in our mixed neighborhoods to building 10+ story buildings where many folks are living in triple deckers right now… but that there were apparently hedge fund money guys behind the scenes that wanted this to build luxury condos (rather than affordable housing) when you looked into things to pad out their real estate portfolios.
Whenever there is a developer involved I want a follow the money investigation done regarding zoning changes or big property deals that are not being done or coming to light to the public.
Whenever changes are pushed for I want to know the ultimate question “Who Benefits?” and “What is affordable and for Who?” Our local newspapers don’t seem to have reporters capable of acting as a warning system on these things and our politicians seem reluctant to ask these questions at zoning discussions and hearings.
When we have foreign “investors” buying up and sitting on properties for a decade or more waiting to buy up more of a neighborhood or for property values to change in their favor, we cannot trust that somewhere there is such motivating the push for change in the city.
If the city wants change, then the city needs to move on vacant properties that have sat untouched for years and get some affordable housing put where they are. Eminent domain purchase of long vacant buildings could help some of our housing deficiencies.
I think a lot of people are focusing on the West Cambridge example given in the article and ignoring the broader problem here. Even in our most well-served neighborhoods like Central Square and East Cambridge suffer from these regulations that do not reflect the reality of Cambridge’s housing stock.
In East Cambridge, you’d be hard pressed to find a single example of a residential building that is completely compliant with the zoning for that parcel. My building, for example, could not be built today because it sits on a 1500 sq ft lot, and 5000 sq ft is the minimum. Ignoring lot size, if the building abided by the setbacks in the zoning code, it would be reduced from a modest 3-story 2-unit home into something smaller than a shipping container.
Just last fall, there was an apartment fire on Gore Street. That 6-unit building could not be built today if it had been an empty lot, because it is not compliant with lot size, setbacks, density, and several other fairly arbitrary measures.
What this means is that it is easier to build something that stands out than it is to build something that fits in with the character of the neighborhood. Take 154 Thorndike Street as an example of this. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood because of the setbacks and size restrictions on it, and as a result it’s a single family home that sold for ~$1.7m.
When homes are being built that don’t look completely out of place and house fewer families for more money, they either take years to get through the permitting process, or they just don’t get built at all. 231-235 Third Street is another great example of this. It has been years since those buildings have been occupied, and it has been held up in city hearings about whether the existing buildings can be demolished and if the variances needed to build the proposed 19-unit building. This is a good project that will house 19 families in Cambridge that otherwise wouldn’t be able to live here, yet it’s been delayed for years because of our over-zealous zoning that doesn’t achieve the goals people purport that it seeks.
Somerville just legalized triple deckers city-wide. We shouldn’t have to play catch-up with them, we should be a leader in the region. If the economics don’t work out to build in West Cambridge, so be it, but it shouldn’t get de jure special treatment under the zoning code.
There’s a mountain of evidence showing that building new apartments reduces rents.
https://furmancenter.org/thestoop/entry/supply-skepticism-revisited-research-supply-affordability
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/housing-abudance-near-transit/
Some Cambridge homeowners opposed to change just refuse to listen.
West Cambridge currently has mansion zoning, not only single family zoning. It has huge lots and home sizes with large setbacks. It is the lowest density neighborhood in the city and it is closer to the T and key bus routes than several neighborhoods with significantly higher density. It has by far the most capacity for increased density.
I actually agree with q99 that blanket deregulation isn’t great and that carefully considered regulations neighborhood by neighborhood is a good idea. However I take a completely different take away. West Cambridge has been the beneficiary of an unjust system, they should bear the brunt of addressing it. The fact that they have been able to remain an exclusive wealthy enclave within the city is all the more reason they should be prevented from doing so any longer.
That being said, following Somerville’s lead and allowing triple decekers at minimum city-wide is a great idea. Cambridge is a city, single family zoning is completely out of place here. Triple deckers already are in every neighborhood It should be legal to build more in every neighborhood.
@Cambridgejoe: “Changing the zoning structure for Western Cambridge will not produce a lot of change if there is not a lot of persons currently in existing housing there selling their properties for development into multi-family buildings.” This is true but misses the point. literally no one will do that now because it is illegal to do so even if they wanted to as multi-family residences are blocked by zoning. You are right that changing the zoning doesn’t compel people to sell or build, but it does allow it to be a possibility which it isn’t now.
“while gentrification is slipped in as has happened in other parts of the state and the country.” It is literally impossible to gentrify West Cambridge. as the article states “Among all neighborhoods, it has the highest per capita income ($104,000) and the lowest percentage of Black residents (2.7 percent).” Almost everyone there owns homes and land. They are the Gentry. Allowing more people to live there has no risk of gentrification, even if it is only for other rich people, because there won’t be displacement pressure on the existing wealthy residents, and if more rich people concentrated there in higher density it might reduce gentrification pressures elsewhere.
“Whenever changes are pushed for I want to know the ultimate question ‘Who Benefits?'” this is a good idea but it is also a good idea to ask the same question of the status quo, and the efforts to perpetuate it. The mansion residents in West Cambridge receive massive monetary benefits through artificial scarcity imposed by existing zoning. Unfortunately because of the way private property works they also will receive monetary benefit from the up zoning they oppose, but hey at least we could get more housing out of it.
Relaxing zoning laws leads to more affordable housing.
There are many examples of this from all around the country.
People need housing. Opposing that is amoral and selfish. And lack of affordable housing harms the local economy.
Data and the truth is out there. You just have to listen to it.
More three deckers are indeed a great idea, especially when not ugly and cheaply built. More ten story buildings everywhere and anywhere is not a great idea, especially when developers hide behind social justice reasons to make massive profits at the expense of city character and failing infrastructure.
@q99 Oh, please. No one – repeat no one – is talking about 10-story buildings “everywhere and anywhere”. It’s about smart growth, especially near public transit.
These accusations of “massive profits” by developers are fiction. It is just another smoke screen used by NIMBYs to prevent any development.
People need housing. Our local economy needs workers. That is more important than your subjective feelings about “city character”.
Relaxing zoning laws have been used in other places to increase affordable housing. Of course, it will work here too. It already has.
@Slaw +100 It is funny how people accuse developers of benefitting but they don’t consider how maintaining the status quo benefits current residents at the expense of the more vulnerable people in our community.
Peace Be Unto You
The homeless are the most impacted by exclusionary zoning. Since it is black history month, I add a that a great disportion of our homelessness sector and mosaic are poor black peoples. In a pro-modern society exclusionary zoning is obsolete. We have here in Cambridge an obsolete die hard mentally holding on to exclusionary zoning. What an injustice.
Yours In Peace
Hasson Rashid
Corresponding Secretary Alliance of Cambridge Tenants (ACT)
Cambridge,MA
The city should be ashamed that it continues to have Mansion Zoning when so many of its residents are struggling.
Is Somerville building a lot of new housing? How many triple deckers have sprouted up? I’m all for a much more flexible code but zoning is the “easy” part. Cambridge has a nasty web of regulations, review, study requirements, and article 19 review which includes “cool” factor, PTDMs, and a veritable buffet of other studies often at the discretion of the Communitiy Development Department each one taking about 4-5 months just to settle on the scope of the study let alone implementation. We also have a surveillance ordinace that requires very specific equipment for parking studies which through the pandemic went largely unenforced but now if you’re required to do a PTDM you need to either use the one set of equipment approved by the council in 2018 or have legal review the cut sheets and have the council vote to approve the gear. It’s a parody of itself and I haven’t even mentioned inclusionary zoning yet … also broken and a bottleneck for any project that isn’t a PUD. We definitely need zoning reforms however I’ve never heard ABC or the anonymous enthusiasts who own the CD comment section articulate anything that would result in housing being built. Though I do agree it is Toomey levels of fun to watch the be-monocled of West Cambridge squirm at the thought.
@Slaw your points make good sense, in regards to West Cambridge and I do not oppose changing the zoning there (and I don’t personally have any personal connection or interaction with that part of the city myself so I have no bias to changes there).
@PatrickWBarret is right in regards to the other web of limitations and reviews and hearings etc that the zoning board and system forces into building or re-developing existing housing being just as bad a problem in the City.
I do think the simplistic Somerville (triple deckers everywhere permitted) zoning change is one that could easily be implemented, but whether anyone will take advantage of it only time will tell. I can definitely agree that this one the City Council and Zoning board should get behind moving on in the city ASAP.
Patrick, I agree with you that the 2021 MMH petition wouldn’t have gotten the job done in terms of building lots of housing, and actually that’s why I think it’s maybe a good thing that ABC isn’t articulating specifics here – they’re setting goals and an overall direction: “thousands of new homes”, “at least four stories”, “deeper changes to the dimensional standards”.
Honestly, I think “more ten story buildings everywhere and anywhere” sounds like a great idea. The LBJ apartments in Cambridgeport, Parkside Place in Strawberry Hill, and the Harvard Towers in Mid-Cambridge are all good buildings that house lots of people and don’t disrupt their neighborhoods’ character. The taller the buildings we build, the fewer of them we have to build, which is probably *less* disruptive overall!
But I’d settle for seeing a lot more buildings like you see on Harvard Street, Franklin Street, and Linnaean St – four-to-six story apartment buildings. That’s what a beautiful, walkable, dense neighborhood actually looks like in practice.
I’d remind people who are concerned that there is a big difference between what we *legalize* and what will get *built* – the point of zoning is to set a broad standard for what is maximally allowable, but it’s only some property owners who will take zoning up on the bargain. We have to set a high standard for what is allowed if we want even a medium amount to get built.
“Is Somerville building a lot of new housing?”
Yes, although it could still build more.
“How many triple deckers have sprouted up?”
Not enough. This is a relatively recent change. Somerville had tried to enable more triple deckers but put in some requirements that limited it in practice (It had to be next to or across from existing triple deckers, and had to include an affordable unit). Somerville recognized this wasn’t actually enabling new triple deckers as it limited where they could be build and made it hard to pencil so they got rid of those restrictions and allowed triple deckers city wide. We will need to see how much production this enables but it is clear somerville is trying to boost housing production. Cambridge needs to make similar efforts.
@PatrickWBarrett, you’re right that there are other important barriers to address also. But the zoning map also reinforces the other barriers. So many routine things need special permits or variances, which opens up the door for delays and unpredictability. So fixing zoning would be a useful albeit incomplete step forward.