All neighborhoods could get multifamily homes and see ‘down conversions’ discouraged in laws
Cambridge city councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler. (Photo: Julia Levine)
A study of making it harder to do a “down conversion” – making fewer homes out of more homes – survived a Cambridge City Council vote easily Monday despite staff suggesting it was less welcome than one looking to build multifamily housing citywide.
The council has had a relentless focus on housing issues this term, and some members said they felt even more energized by learning recently that they had allies not just in Gov. Maura Healey, but in President Joe Biden. When several councillors trekked to Washington, D.C., for a March 11-13 conference of the National League of Cities, Biden delivered a keynote speech that ended with him saying “build, build, build.”
“If we have a major housing crisis on which everyone agrees from the president to the governor to our senators, that means everyone is going to have to do their part,” said councillor Burhan Azeem, author of the more-welcome companion order. “It’s important that we build and have housing for lower-income residents and for everyone in every single neighborhood.”
It could mean changes to enclaves of larger single-family homes such as parts of West Cambridge by ending exclusionary zoning laws that limit what can be built where, including through zoning specifics such as lot sizes and floor-area ratios.
That’s where Azeem’s order intersects with the more controversial order of the night, written by councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler. (Numbers alone don’t tell the story: Azeem’s order passed 8-1, with Paul Toner opposed; Sobrinho-Wheeler’s order passed 7-2, with Toner and Joan Pickett opposed.)
In addition to asking staff to study whether the council could write zoning that would disincentivize the loss of affordable multifamily housing through down conversions, Sobrinho-Wheeler’s order wondered if a special permit could be required for one. That would mean a trip to a board to plead the case for a down conversion instead of one being allowed by right.
Doubting degree of change
Both orders first appeared before the council March 18, but were put on hold for one regular meeting by Pickett, using her “charter right,” so they could be looked at before a vote by Iram Farooq, assistant city manager for community development. Farooq had been on vacation until Monday.
“I suspect that charter right item two is going to be one of the top priorities” when councillors talk in committee, Farooq said. She was “less certain” about the one by Sobrinho-Wheeler “in terms of level of effort versus the impact it would yield.”
City Manager Yi-An Huang also questioned the return on investment in terms of time spent on research by Community Development and legal staff.
“This isn’t something that we really looked at before. It could take a lot of research,” Huang said. “My guess, with a lot of humility, I don’t know that there is going to be a ton of down conversions each year even if we did the research and figured this out. I don’t think that making downzoning more difficult is going to really solve the housing crisis – it will only keep things from getting very slightly changed.”
It was a belief shared by councillor Pickett. But it’s at odds with the memory of another councillor and the experience of at least one local builder.
“The most popular” construction
When the issues were raised a week earlier, councillor Patty Nolan imagined telling someone who buys a triple-decker they’re not allowed to replace it with a single-family home, which is now “happening around the city,” Nolan said. “We’ve gotten a report from the city that there were several hundred housing units lost as a result of various conversions of this type.”
Builder Patrick Barrett commented in January that “the most popular” construction now is down conversions of two-family homes into singles. “We are losing units, not gaining,” Barrett said. “We need to change zoning dramatically to shift that trajectory.”
The objections by Toner were sympathetic to the staff position – he noted that Community Development was working on studies of Alewife, Cambridge Street, Central Square, North Cambridge and parking – and unhappy about what he saw as interfering with a belief that “people who own a property should be able to do with it what they will.” The typically mild response from Sobrinho-Wheeler was that his order asked only if the disincentives were possible, and then would only give the owners of property “one extra step” to down-convert. (Though that’s an oversimplification, Cambridge has a steady flow of developers, business owners and homeowners seeking variances and special permits of various sorts from the Planning Board and Board of Zoning Appeal.)
“It’s not a ban,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.
Middle-income and workforce homes
In both cases, the focus is not just on affordable housing, which has been addressed through work on citywide “overlay” zoning in recent council terms, but on residents of various income levels. “What we have actually lost is not the very-low-income or the very rich, it’s actually the middle-income and working class,” said Nolan, who called that Cambridge’s “workforce housing question.”
The orders are due for discussion in the Housing Committee – in the case of Sobrinho-Wheeler’s order, whatever answers will come from CDD and the Law Department will go straight there.
A residents’ petition was also referred Monday to the Ordinance Committee and Planning Board. Called the Griffin petition after first signer Khalida Griffin-Sheperd, it calls for the city’s Affordable Housing Trust to, among other things: directly fund vouchers that fill the gap between their income and rent demands; expand its board to 13 from nine by having more members who have experienced their own housing instability or live in affordable housing; and pay each board member a stipend.
Let’s remember that if you want young families to stay in Cambridge long-term, they need larger homes.
Young families start in a two-bedroom condo somewhere. Either they have only one child, getting the second room; or when their second child gets too old, they need to move to the suburbs. We all see this all the time.
Down conversions are part of the solution to let them stay long term.
Limiting down conversions is one important tool (of many) toward facing our housing crisis. Fortunately, San Francisco has had an excellent policy in place since 2010 that we can learn from.
It addresses both the merging of units and the demolition of structures to create fewer (but more expensive) units.
https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2020-06/ZoningRemovalDwellingUnits.pdf
This isn’t something that we really looked at before. It could take a lot of research,” Huang said. “My guess, with a lot of humility, I don’t know that there is going to be a ton of down conversions each year even if we did the research and figured this out. I don’t think that making downzoning more difficult is going to really solve the housing crisis – it will only keep things from getting very slightly changed.” Is bizarre.
How do you know it is uncommon if you haven’t done the research. I see examples of this happening all over Cambridge but especially common in East Cambridge. I don’t think anyone thinks preventing this would solve the housing crisis either but it one tool in the arsenal and importantly would prevent the crisis from getting even worse by preventing reductions in supply when supply is already pinched. Allowing modest upzoning across the city won’t solve the housing crisis in its own either why is only this one held to that standard?
“We’ve gotten a report from the city that there were several hundred housing units lost as a result of various conversions of this type”
that’s pretty significant, that’s enough down conversions to undo the impact of entire apartment buildings being built.
It is telling that Toner thinks “people who own a property should be able to do with it what they will” when it comes to reducing the number of housing units in the city but also he also opposes upzoning in every neighborhood that would allow people to add housing units to their property if they want to, at the same meeting. Something tells me his real concern isn’t property rights. The idea that property owners can do whatever they want with their properties is already not the standard in Cambridge. Why should they be allowed to remove density but not to add it?
“It’s not a ban” it should be.
@RadioFreeMatt, many down-conversions don’t help the family in your example. Here’s a recent example by Inman Square: a 2-family home (total of 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) was sold in 2021 for $1.6 million then rebuilt as a 6 bed/4.5 bath single-family luxury home — and I know the term “luxury” gets thrown around pretty loosely these days, but search for MLS # 73205742 and just look at the photos. Listed for $4.75 million last fall, though the price was recently reduced to $4 million.
It’s incredibly unlikely a young family outgrowing their 2BR condo could (much less would) jump on this, whereas the larger unit in the previous 2-family home actually could’ve been a good fit. This kind of conversion absolutely should not be able to happen by-right.
Cambridge twists itself in knots trying to fine tune housing policy by layering restrictions instead of looking at the underlying cause for the behavior they’re trying to correct. When someone say “San Francisco has has an excellent … ” you know you can stop reading as their housing issues are worse than ours. I’m not certain Jivan’s proposal is legal with regard to single or two family structures but there are also scenarios where the base zoning forces a down conversion. A comprehensive overhaul is what is needed not ideological nitpicking.
Alewife passed last term and Cambridge Street would be done if CDD hadn’t produced a plan that will produce no housing and thus has no Council support.