A drafted multifamily zoning petition that would allow for six-story building across all residential areas in Cambridge was approved by the City Council on Monday to forward to the Planning Board and Ordinance Committee for public hearings.
After forwarding the petition, the ordinance committee has 65 days to hold the first public hearing, followed by a 90-day period in which the Ordinance Committee and Planning Board can have multiple public hearings. In the meantime, the Community Development Department is planning to host two community meetings in October to explain the zoning proposal and answer questions. Dates for the community meetings have not been set.
The period between until public hearings will also give time for Community Development to conduct analyses on alternative zoning proposals brought to the table by councillors Paul Toner, Patty Nolan and Ayesha Wilson, as well as any additional analysis asked for by the council.
The discussion was nearly postponed again, with four councillors – Patty Nolan, Paul Toner, Cathie Zusy and Mayor E. Denise Simmons – voting to accept Cathie Zusy’s motion to table the conversation. With the five other councillors opposed, the vote to table did not pass.
Zusy, who was sworn in last week, explained that she wanted to refine the petition more and see analysis from Community Development first. Zusy, Toner and Nolan expressed concern that approving the petition to move forward would partially prevent future changes.
“We do have some unanswered questions about how we move forward,” Nolan said. “It would be great to have the answers to some of those questions before we click off the very rigid time frame for sending to ordinance.”
Revision remains possible
Assistant city manager Iram Farooq clarified that “even after the first hearing, the council will have several opportunities to refine the petition, to have a discussion, to hear from the community and also to request further analysis.”
Farooq also offered her opinion that voting to approve the current petition would be “the cleanest way to do it to avoid confusion in the community – to not have multiple, dueling ideas going forward.”
Councillors Marc McGovern and Sumbul Siddiqui said they wanted to move the petition forward, citing best practices and past experience as well as the future flexibility to refine or refile.
“We get ourselves in these situations where we say we need more time,” McGovern said. “And we end up almost in the same place as we were at the beginning. We should get moving on it, and if we have to refile it down the road, we do.”
Seen as against Envision
Even after this clarification of the process, Zusy expressed dissatisfaction with the multifamily zoning proposal itself.
“I think what’s confusing for many of our citizens is that this proposal flies directly in the face of Envision Cambridge’s recommendations,” Zusy said. “Within Envision Cambridge, we talked about protecting our neighborhoods because they had architectural character and focusing on upzoning along the corridors and squares and then in transitional districts.”
Envision Cambridge, developed as Cambridge’s “roadmap to the year 2030” but never formally adopted, explicitly lists allowing “multifamily residential development citywide” as a way to change zoning to enable more housing.
In the end, all councillors but Zusy voted to move the petition forward.
“I certainly will be voting to pass onto ordinance,” Nolan said, seeming to have changed her mind in the course of the discussion. “It’s something I’m on the record for many years working with councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler about starting this process in 2020 and love to see it finished in terms of allowing multifamily as of right across the city.”
A stronger
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Why do Patty Nolan, Paul Toner, Cathie Zusy and Mayor E. Denise Simmons keep standing in the way of safer streets and homes for families?
Oh yeah, it is because a small minority of monied residents pull their strings.
Preserving neighborhood character is a luxury that only the rich can afford. Families need homes. Workers need housing.
Do your jobs and serve the people instead of the interests of your campaign donors.
Nothing suggests that three Councillors suddenly changed their minds after they lost the vote on tabling, they just knew voting against sending to Ordinance was pointless and didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the second vote.
Zusy is a former Republican who apparently does oppose ending exclusionary zoning. She also claimed that all multifamily on Magazine Street has setbacks and more than 30% open space, which is not true.
Huzzah! This is an important step towards addressing the housing crisis.
And a disgraceful start to Councilor Zusy’s term in office. Her comment about the multifamily zoning petition reducing open space due to reduced setback requirements shows that she is not informed on the issues. Open space is public Cathie! If you had read the Envision Cambridge report, you would know that. Do better.
Lets be honest, voting to table this for more study AFTER city staff said “the council will have several opportunities to refine the petition, to have a discussion, to hear from the community and also to request further analysis.” is just a another way to try to kill the measure. Zusy, Nolan, Toner, and Simmons are NIMBYs looking to prevent ANY measure to build more housing. We need to elect better representatives.
Instead of focusing “the rich” is having this or that, we can focus whats happening in between these changes to the environment. The moment you put that hard material on the ground, you actually are increasing the risk of urban heat island effect, flooding, unhealthy human life, lack of green space, lack of access to open and clean air etc. instead of limiting this subject into rich-poor fight, we can think about the future of our city and our next gens. Cambridge has its own characteristics of being unique, low story housing, houses with gardens, wide streets, plenty of open space, walkable, clean in terms of air etc.. why does that bother citizens, I don’t get it! Why would you push this for the sake of developers who are promised to have low cost development in these promised areas- meaning they will get richer while all these green and open spaces will be lost. If you think once you turn these single family houses and/or open spaces into “6 story multi-family homes and the “poor” will be given access to it, you are mistaken! There are many cities built with this ambition that already proved these points. Poor is pushed back to peripheries- further away from the “center” and the resources to get poorer. keep this in mind while you are opposing to protect some good qualities still left in this city!
Why only 6 stories? Why not 20 stories? Also, on the same note, where are there empty spaces calls parks. They are empty 90% of the time and not utilized from dusk to dawn. Lets build on those too.
Cambridge is a perfect example of the pendulum swinging too far on the right as becomes the next San Francisco. Instead of forcing the good-for-nothing politicians to help build fast public transit infrastructure so that people can live far away from the city, yet commute in easily, we just want to kill the neighborhood vibes by building on top of each other. The generous people of Cambridge have taken it upon themselves to solve the “housing crisis” by destroying what makes Cambridge a desired place to live.
And anyone who does not support this measure it a NIMBY.
LU, I’m confused about what you’re trying to argue here. How could having denser housing lead to less open space, greenery, or clean air? Open space means public space. It can come in the form of parks, plazas, bike paths, etc. Nothing in the proposed zoning changes impacts open space because it concerns private property. We can certainly encourage the city to add more street trees, buy more land to make into parks, etc. I like that idea. But I honestly do not see the connection between open space and eliminating exclusionary zoning.
EastCamb, if you prefer to live in a quiet neighborhood where only single-family housing is allowed, I completely understand. But that’s a very inefficient use of land in a city. And it has directly led to the affordability of homes we’re dealing with today. I would also love to see better regional transit, and we absolutely should electrify the commuter rail. But we can have walkable neighborhoods and good transit. Why would it necessarily be one or the other?
Scout –
Why cannot we make more cities like “Cambridge”? If this is such a desirable city, then lets understand what makes it desirable and apply it to other cities. You are more likely to “solve the housing crisis” if you turned Belmont, Waltham, Lexington, Newtown, Medford, Malden, Sommerville etc into a “Cambridge”. Now you have 10 desirable places to live instead of trying to cram everyone into just one.
I am not against development or change. But a blanket statement of saying 6 story buildings everywhere in Cambridge is corporate speak for “30% reductions across all departments”. And just like corporate execs who will be long gone by the time the directive shows up in financial results, the current City Council will be long gone onto their next gig by time this plays out. All that will be left is a bunch of finger pointing.
no more parking, no more single family, no more open space. My single family, with a yard and parking keeps getting more valuable and so farther out of reach to the next family to purchase.
Thank you all YMBY, I do not even have to renovate my kitchen to appease sellers.
but please make way for the bike highways(instead of reducing the speed everywhere for real safety), large labs(or even any lab alongside residences like they really belong together), and private developers’ “piggybank buildings”(that is what anything above 5 floors can be classified).
The pension fund that will buy our home and rent it to the well off bikers and trustfunders that can afford their rents is already celebrating!
Please ask me to come argue against my interest again, by asking for more options, better review and yes also conservation of our “existing Middle” that some seem to conveniently be missing in their speculative scoping of our urban landscape.
So, thank you. Less work for more money, always in the same pockets, and let’s displace the same people.
Scout
I do not think I was “arguing” something. I am putting down some facts and you perfectly twisted them all around the private property concern. Let me help you understand it a little bit- but feel free to educate yourself further on the open space. let’s think of a garden, yard, from yard, backyard, side yard whatever, of a single family house, don’t you count it as an open space? Also I am wondering why makes you feel like you have the right to tell us where to live? What makes you entitled to “own” Cambridge? This is our city and we will do our best to keep it as healthy, walkable and green as possible. Also I totally agree with @EastCamb and @ProjectCambridge on their comments of bettering the transportation system instead of increasing density of this city! So, for the sake of environment and people NO to developer backed up zoning ordinance! Instead, the city can work on every one of their neighborhood to make it look like this single family dominated neighborhoods- livable, healthy and walkable oh of course AFFORDABLE!!!! Also, I am not even going to talk about the increasing density requires increasing services like hospitals, schools etc.. Cambridge public schools are on lottery for a reason!!!!! The funding of the public schools are awful, I am how wondering inviting more and more people to live in Cambridge will help already existing citizens and newcomers while there is already shortage of services like schools and hospital! So, I would prefer to have a school at next door instead of a big company backed lab!!!
@LU, correct. Open space is for public use, not private. In its Open Space Planner’s Handbook, the state of MA defines open space as including things like conservation land, forested land, parks, etc. Cornell defines it as “parks, recreational sites, scenery, trails, forests and woodlands, wetland and stream corridors”. Lawns are not open space. Also, remember that the multifamily zoning petition is also not banning private lawns or gardens. But they would no longer be mandated by law. To me, this feels completely aligned with the progressive and forward-thinking culture that makes our city special. And I am not saying you need to agree with me. None of us certainly owns this city. But wish you would try and see the bigger picture here, and the enormous opportunity before us by building more housing. :)
This housing crisis, although real, is fabricated by the deficiency of our public transportation in favor of private modes and interests.
Make it make sense otherwise