Cambridge’s affordable housing funding agency has put off accepting a Planning Board report that criticizes the design of Walden Square II, an expansion of the 240-unit Walden Square Apartments development near Danehy Park. The unexpected move by the Affordable Housing Trust on Aug. 1 delays confirmation of a $18.8 million city loan commitment to the project.
The proponent of the $80.3 million project, for-profit WinnDevelopment, wants to add two buildings housing 95 families to the development. The developer has finished the process to get zoning approval under the city’s Affordable Housing Overlay – in fact, the lukewarm Planning Board final report on the design was the last step in the zoning process on July 22.
The Affordable Housing Trust approved the $18.8 million loan to Winn on June 27 but made the loan contingent on reviewing and accepting the Planning Board’s final report on the design, which had not yet been made because the board didn’t meet to discuss the plan until July. It’s common to make trust loans to overlay projects contingent on accepting the Planning Board final report, officials have said.
WinnDevelopment spokesperson Ed Cafasso said Monday “there has been zero delay to the process” from the trust’s decision around accepting the report and the resulting pause in confirming the loan commitment. Cafasso said Winn is already working on improvements to the design in line with Planning Board comments.
Cafasso also said “there’s nothing unusual in both the developer and the trust agreeing to take a bit more time to address planning board guidance.” Contradicting that statement, a memo from the Community Development Department’s housing division indicates that this is the first time the trust has delayed accepting a Planning Board final report under the AHO, though developers of the six previous AHO projects have continued to work to fix “fairly minor” problems cited by the board after the trust accepted final reports.
In the case of Walden Square II, the final board report “notes a need for more review of aspects of Winn’s proposed plan than we have seen in other reports,” the memo said. The staff singled out board concerns about safe “circulation” of cyclists and pedestrians on the site in recommending that the trust “begin to review the attached report but wait to take a vote on accepting the report until staff can bring back an update to the trust on progress made by Winn to address the items noted in the Planning Board’s final report.” Besides citing circulation, the board said more large shade trees were needed instead of smaller ornamental trees that Winn proposed.
Planning Board and trust members have praised the Winn plan for creating many apartments that are two bedrooms and larger, providing much-needed units for families. Both agencies said Winn had made improvements to meet staff concerns, but planners said more work is needed.
Housing division director Christopher Cotter said staff and Winn could finish by September, but senior manager for housing development Cassie Arnaud said it might take until later in the fall. “I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that this is a project that creates many two- and three-bedroom units. We have to keep it moving,” trust member Susan Schlesinger said. City Manager Yi-An Huang, who heads the trust, said waiting to accept the board report “should not delay this much longer, but it gives us time to consider these comments.”
Management issues
The 4-year-old Affordable Housing Overlay zoning ordinance removes most zoning restrictions for 100 percent affordable housing developments and is intended to speed the approval process and reduce uncertainty to make affordable projects more financially viable and help proponents compete with market-rate developers. Developers must meet some general design guidelines, hold community meetings and submit their projects to the Planning Board at an initial session and a final meeting, but the board can’t approve or reject proposals.
WinnDevelopment, a unit of national for-profit housing provider WinnCompanies, withdrew an initial plan for one large new building in 2022 because of critical feedback. Former Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and former vice mayor Alanna Mallon also wrote to the trust in January 2022 urging rejection of the proposal because of management failures at the existing development, including “egregious” pest infestation and an “environment of intimidation” of residents.
Winn has improved its operation, reimbursed three households for “expenses associated with management neglect” and reduced pest problems, Siddiqui said in a letter to the trust in April 2023. Speaking at the trust meeting June 27 when the agency approved the $18.8 million loan contingent on accepting the board report, Siddiqui said she is “supportive of this going forward.” She added: “We still need to keep eyes” on Walden Square.
Opposition campaign
Former council candidate Federico Muchnik, who opposed the AHO, has led a campaign of opposition to the project and has collected more than 1,000 signatures on an online petition to stop it. It’s not clear how many signers live in the existing development, the neighborhood or even in Cambridge. Muchnik, a filmmaker, lives less than a half-mile from the development.
Opponents want planners to consider a design proposed by a local architect that they say would solve the circulation and tree problems.
Cafasso, the Winn spokesperson, said the alternative would require demolishing “existing, fully occupied affordable housing at Walden Square, displacing hundreds of tenants in an already difficult housing market.” New housing wouldn’t have as many large units for families as the Winn plan, he said. Cafasso said Winn staff had “made it clear to the authors” of alternative plans “why they won’t work.”
Muchnik acknowledged that what opponents call the “third design” would demolish two existing buildings at 19 and 20 Walden Square Road. He did not say how many units are in those buildings; city property records don’t list them because Walden Square Road is private.
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“Opponents want planners to consider a design proposed by a local architect that they say would solve the circulation and tree problems.”
This seems like a very generous reading of the opponents’ requests. As recently as a month ago, the petition read, “The solution? Build elsewhere.” Maybe it still does. It just doesn’t seem reasonable to me to object to the site entirely and then at the eleventh hour urge a design overhaul instead.
If they wanted to be partners in improving the project rather than steadfastly opposing it outright, they had literal years to choose that path. They were uninterested in doing so. Re-evaluating a whole new thing now would result in unacceptable delay. Which is, perhaps, the point.
Nearly everything Federico Muchnik has said about this project is exaggerated or false.
His alternative plan involves demolishing existing housing, but we need more, not less. His claims of cost savings are untrue, and there is little or no net gain with the current Winn plan.
This is about wealthy people protecting their property values. They’ve benefited from rising prices and are now pulling up the ladder behind them.