Clarity about the possible consequences of a petition to end exclusionary zoning is needed. Cambridge’s Community Development Department has not provided enough information for the City Council and the public to make good decisions.
The A Better Cambridge organization claims that ending exclusionary zoning will increase the housing available to low- to moderate-income residents. They also suggest that the demographics of Cambridge mean this will particularly benefit people of color.
City councillors Paul Toner and Patty Nolan propose amending the ABC proposal to limit the area subject to rezoning and reduce the required inclusionary units from the current citywide standard of 20 percent for projects of 10 or more units to 10 percent.
A proposal that has support within the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition restricts projects of nine or fewer units with the presumption that this will result in more projects with 20 percent inclusionary housing.
We need to see how each of these would work. CDD needs to estimate the cost of new units built because of the zoning proposed by A Better Cambridge. We need to know if the claims for this proposal are correct.
I believe the cost of new, or newly renovated units, will mean pricing (sale or rental) that excludes buyers making less than 150 percent of area median income. That would mean that apart from required inclusionary units, ending exclusionary zoning will not create housing for people with low to modest incomes.
Let us say that all new housing includes 20 percent inclusionary units. Inclusionary units provides housing for households making 50 percent to 80 percent of AMI; if a lot with a single-family house on it is sold and the house is replaced with a nine-unit building, the result will be that the number of high-income units will have gone to nine from one. This is an increase in gentrification. If the new building has 10 units, two will be inclusionary; one high-income unit has been replaced by two modest-income and eight high-priced units. This, too, is an increase in gentrification.
Under current conditions, the inclusionary units would go to households with incomes in the 50 percent to 80 percent AMI range. Only a low-income household holding a housing voucher would be eligible to occupy a new inclusionary unit. Unfortunately, there needs to be a major increase in the number of available vouchers to make the rezoning benefit low-income households.
ABC also argues that the end of exclusionary zoning will result in so much new construction that market forces will lead to lower housing costs in Cambridge.
City staff needs to estimate how many units have to be built before market forces drive the cost of housing down. The number may be so high that ABC’s predicted benefit will not occur for a generation. It is challenging to predict the future cost of housing correctly. It would help if staff estimates how long before the predicted new construction produces enough units to lower market costs. Is the estimate one to three years? Three to 10 years? Ten to 30 years? At City Council meetings, advocates for the proposal say they believe it will generate modest-cost housing for them. They, and we, need to know if this is true.
Henry H. Wortis, Berkshire Street, Cambridge
A stronger
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OMG, there is much logic in this piece that ABC will be busy taking you down personally to tell a story of how their magic economic numbers make sense beyond the all hallow’s eve festivities.
I certainly appreciate how it does delineate the limits of the “housing without transportation” reasoning.
How can a home be affordable and accessible if there are no busses to connect it to the places of life, worship and work within reasonable, if not by safe, public modes?(no bikes are not public modes, but busses and sidewalks are).
If moderate and low income communities received more services, instead of concentrating them into new developments, their economic outcomes would be different and not suffering for increased hidden living cost associated with such desertifications.
But wait, for ABC, none of us is moving or dying fast enough for them to replace units and occupants with higher paying and better funded developments(generally to benefits pension funds) with whom is impossible to compete fairly in this “Magic Market” they wish all of us to join in for their own sake and profit.
Let’s not forget the redlining history of many parts of our city and how they overlap with this “new zoning strategies” to build(bulldoze) over them, regardless of those living in them now.
If you care about solving the housing crisis in Cambridge, you need to understand that bold action is urgently needed. Reasonable people can disagree on the details, but unfortunately every person I’ve heard oppose the re-zoning effort has no alternative for what that bold action should look like. Instead, all I hear is delay, delay, delay, and ideas to water down the proposal.
Worried about gentrification? Then we should be talking about what other policies could complement the re-zoning, like rent control.
Pretzel logic nonsense. Restrictive zoning is what caused the housing crisis. Rolling that back is the solution. Maintaining the status quo is not.
The letter claims to prioritize clarity but fails to specify the necessary data or analysis for informed decision-making. For instance, it lacks clear metrics on how many units must be built to affect market rates. Funny how a call for clarity fails to provide any.
The letter also asserts that even with 20% inclusionary units, most new developments will serve primarily higher-income residents.
This view completely disregards substantial evidence that increasing housing supply can lower overall rents, benefiting a wider range of income levels.
Research shows that new market-rate housing can reduce nearby rents through supply-and-demand dynamics, yet the letter completely overlooks this.
Moreover, the claim that only low-income households with vouchers will benefit from inclusionary units is misleading. It ignores the potential for more affordable units to arise from increased supply and fails to address possible reforms or expansions in voucher programs that could enable more families to access these units.
This letter is just more NIMBY obstruction guised as information gathering. It is nonsense. It is more of the same tactic: delay, delay, delay.
This letter ignorea a substantial body of research showing that new market-rate housing can help reduce nearby rents through supply-and-demand dynamics.
It is basic economics. It is why cities all over the country are getting rid of zoning restrictions.
The letter writer ignores substantial evidence and experience in favor of dubious self-serving arguments.
In short, we DO know what will happen if we end exclusionary zoning. It will create *more affordable housing*.
We know this because there is substantial evidence showing that that is exactly will happen. Pretending we don’t know is just a NIMBY tactic.
The city’s Community Development Department has compared projected results from our current zoning laws with projected results of the laws as amended by a proposal from the Housing Committee. Their analysis estimates that the proposed amendments will result in a nearly 14-fold increase in net new homes and a more than 30-fold increase in net new *affordable* homes by 2040, compared to current zoning laws.
Henry Wortis’s letter urges instead an incipient plan suggested by two Councilors not on the Housing Committee. He provides his own analysis, lacking any projections and seemingly more focused on reducing high-cost unit counts than on removing barriers that now prevent low-cost units. He acknowledges that “it is challenging to predict the future cost of housing correctly,” but then insists that the City must do exactly that, for 1-30 years out, before proceeding with the Housing Committee proposal, which the full Council accepted by an 8-1 vote.
I hope that the Council continues its work toward adopting its Housing Committee’s plan, based on facts and analysis, as a much-needed corrective for our growing housing shortage. Meanwhile, Henry Wortis and others should continue to work on the two-councilor proposal, providing more details and true analysis than available here, because many Cambridge residents are in need of all the housing help they can get.
We are facing a housing crisis, yet Henry H. Wortis, the letter writer, offers no solutions. Instead, he employs the familiar NIMBY strategy of questioning any proposed plans to address the issue.
He claims it’s impossible to predict the future of the housing market but then insists that we must do so before implementing any plan. This contradiction is misleading. As @James Zall points out, the new housing plan is projected to significantly increase affordable housing.
This isn’t mere speculation; it’s basic economics—supply and demand. Numerous cities have shown that increasing housing supply leads to more affordable options.
Don’t be misled by NIMBY tactics that raise unfounded questions; we already have the answers.
Exclusionary zoning created the housing crisis. Now the author of this letter is trying to argue that ending it is not part of the solution??
Give me a break. The relationship between exclusionary zoning and the lack of affordable housing is well established. Half-baked arguments by people defending their privilege doesn’t change reality.
Frank D – Pretzel logic and exclusionary zoning did not cause the housing crisis. Speculators from out of city, out of state and out of country have caused the crisis. They have been pushing this whole process to increase height etc from the beginning as they see a way of making huge bucks. They have ZERO interest in low income housing or even middle income housing.
And the people complaining most aren’t resident’s they are folks who want to buy into the money scheme, as always. This has been going on NATIONALLY, not just here or in our state. Our zoning laws and restrictions did not cause the problem.
A developer does not build for low income housing, unless they are a non-profit. They build to have at or higher market value overall. We aren’t talking Habitat for Humanity coming in and building these new buildings, we’re talking about big money folks.
Property take over push is already happening behind the scenes. Buying attempts are being made by realtors for these developers every single week (and they don’t know the area, since my wife and I constantly get calls and we don’t own the entire building we are in, just a condo in the building). They make the mistake that since we are owner occupied (as we have been for more than a quarter of a century) that we must own the other 2 units (since they are rentals) not realizing they each have their own separate owner and have since long before we bought.
Nothing NEW being built will be Affordable by real standards of affordable. They will be in at a minimum of half a million dollars to 2 million per unit. This is exactly how it has played out in other cities that fell into the developer trap. Chicago has neighborhoods where condos run for 450k up to 3 million a piece, That’s not affordable to anyone who is not making 125,000 or more a year (unless they have a windfall of money at start for a huge down payment). Tell me a $2,170 monthly payment on a condi is ‘Affordable’ for someone that in anywhere falls into low income. Do the math.
@Cambridgejoe. That is a complete misunderstanding and mischaracterization of the housing crisis.
Here are the facts:
Approximately 75% of residential land in U.S. cities is zoned exclusively for single-family homes, restricting the construction of more affordable multi-family housing.
These restrictions have led to an estimated housing shortage of 3.8-6.5 million units nationwide.
By limiting density and housing types, exclusionary zoning has made it difficult to build enough housing to meet deman.
Virtually all housing experts agree that exclusionary zoning has been the major contributor to a nationwide housing crisis.
In fact, many cities and states are beginning to implement zoning reforms to address the housing crisis by eliminating single-family exclusive zoning and reducing parking requirements.
Do you know why all those cities are doing that? Because it works.
Blaming the housing crisis on outside investors and speculators is nonsense. They have exploited a situation created by exclusionary zoning.
The problem is simple: Not enough housing. The solution is more housing.
Your whole argument here hinges on how much “gentrification” is going on, relying on the negative connotation around that word, that people associate it with displacement.
The problem is, you haven’t linked an increase in homes with displacement, only hoping that calling new construction “gentrification” will do the heavy lifting for you.
Fact of the matter is that every academic study on the topic reveals that higher rates of new homes results in less displacement and lower rents, yet we’re supposed to believe that a single large home for one wealthy family turned into 10 modestly sized condos (two of which are occupied by lower income families) is “gentrification”. Get real, this does not pass the smell test.
@Cambridgejoe You really need to familiarize yourself with AHO. It *requires* affordable housing for the new developments.
The Cambridge Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) defines affordable housing as housing costs that do not exceed 30% of a tenant’s or homeowner’s gross income.
To illustrate how this rule works in practice, let’s consider an example:
For a gross income of $50,000:
Affordable housing costs = $15,000 per year or $1,250 per month.
30% of income is by definition affordable housing. New developments will require affordable housing. Therefore, there will be more affordable housing.
Do the math.
Henry Wortis is correct. Let’s use Councillor Azeem’s own numbers, which he helpfully put in a recent newsletter. He was excited about the projected thousand inclusionary apartments, saying they would be worth one billion dollars and leaving out the fact that the market-rate apartments in the building will go up in price to pay for the developer’s/landlord’s loss on the below-market rents. Divide one billion dollars by one thousand, and you get an average cost of one million dollars for each apartment. In what universe is that affordable to people who don’t have a lot of money? And that’s before the markup for the developer’s profit.
What does effectively infinite demand do to the simplistic Econ 101 for dummies claim that apartment prices will rapidly become too cheap to meter, or should that be so cheap everyone will have an affordable place to live? When did capitalists stop caring about getting top dollar, or at the very least making a profit? Where are construction costs and land acquisition costs dropping like stones in this picture? Note that there is no claim, nor stated purpose, of lowering prices in any of the city materials on this proposal. I’m pretty sure I know why that is.
@HeatherHoffman and @Cambridgejoe That is not accurate.
The Cambridge Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) has significantly increased affordable housing production in Cambridge since its 2020 adoption.
Over 700 rental units have been proposed, and the annual development rate of affordable housing has risen from 40-60 units to an average of 200 units.
The AHO’s success has inspired other cities like Boston, Somerville, Berkeley, and Salt Lake City to consider similar policies.
Portland, Minneapolis, and Sacramento have already implemented comparable measures, all resulting in increased affordable housing stock.
These real-world results demonstrate the AHO’s effectiveness without the need for speculative calculations.
@HeatherHoffman Your calculations are incomplete and don’t reflect the full picture:
1. They omit the mandatory affordable housing units (capped at 30% of income) required by the AHO.
2. The AHO has already shown success in increasing affordable housing production, as @FrankD noted.
3. Other cities have experienced decreased housing costs after ending exclusionary zoning.
Some background reading might help.
For example:
1. Exclusionary zoning is linked to higher housing prices.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780444595317000193
2. A study in 2005 finds that prices of Manhattan condominiums are 50 percent higher than they would be without zoning restrictions.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/429979
3. Research has also connected exclusionary zoning to racial segregation.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4083588/
In fact, housing likely explains more than 30 percent of the Black-white racial wealth gap.
Ending exclusionary zoning alone won’t do it. There needs to be complementary efforts, like requiring affordable housing in new developments and streamlining the approval process for new developments. That is exactly what the AHO does.
The AHO’s approach of ending exclusionary zoning, mandating affordable units, and streamlining approvals is a comprehensive strategy to address the housing crisis.
The Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) allows construction of buildings that contain only low cost housing. Unfortunately the proposal to end exclusionary zoning is not an affordable housing proposal. It does not require the creation of any affordable units.
A real housing solution for Cambridge requires an immediate measure to block sharp rent increases and non-fault evictions. We also need an expanded rent voucher system and a dramatic increase in the construction of new housing through a social housing program. Our new state budget includes funding for social housing. Cambridge should compete for those funds.
@FrankD You seem to be confusing the AHO and this new proposal to upzone the entire city and end single family zoning.
Multifamily units built with city/state funds under the AHO are required to be affordable.
What Azeem is proposing for upzoning the entire city has NO affordability requirements and will be built by private developers, not city/state funding. If the building is built with 10 or more units, then the city’s existing Inclusionary Zoning kicks in, requiring the developer to keep 20% of the units as affordable. Which he does by raising the cost of the other 8 units. But as Heather explains and numerous other examples there is no incentive for a developer to build 10 or more units. IZ is only financially viable when large 300-400 unit buildings are built in Alewife and Cambridge Crossing. Local developers explained this and much more at the June Housing Committee meeting, you can listen for yourself.
So what ABC is trying desperately to make us believe is that building more $1-$2m new condos will lower housing costs in Cambridge, even though the upzoning will raise the cost of our land. And that its worth the displacement of the small number of people who lose their homes for the larger number of people who move in.
Complete lunacy.
The claims of land grabs and gentrification due to the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) are unfounded.
Evidence shows:
1.The AHO has already increased affordable housing production in Cambridge.
2. Similar reforms in other cities have boosted affordable housing and lowered rents, without causing gentrification.
Critics often omit the AHO’s requirement to build affordable housing in their predictions.
This selective presentation of facts, along with speculative calculations, are typical NIMBY tactics.
The reality is that zoning reforms like the AHO can effectively address housing affordability without the negative consequences some claim.
We know this because it is already working.
I think you’re misrepresenting what I have been saying in these discussions. I have NO problem with the ending of restrictions on single family home areas in Cambridge and elsewhere. Triple deckers are a fine use of space, and I happen to live in a condo in one for more than the past quarter century,
My problem is with the increased heights to the point of 10+ story buildings to replace existing rental properties, and that such properties will NOT be affordable. Take a look at condo prices in other places as they gentrify. Seattle, Chicago, etc.
Hoffman and Wortis are trying to change the goals of the zoning amendments the Council is now considering.
The Council aims to remove from the zoning code decades of restrictions that have prevented the construction of multi-family buildings. Homes in such buildings are less expensive per unit because they share walls and roofs, open space, trees, land and construction costs, among other things. They’re doing this because many Cambridge residents can’t find housing that fits their budgets.
Hoffman wants to make sure that home prices drop quickly and drastically. Wortis wants to make sure that construction of new homes doesn’t include *any* expensive ones at all. They both hope that landowners and home builders will do this under unspecified financial restrictions.
If they know how to accomplish this without unintended consequences, and have a plan that meets the guarantee-the-future standard that they’re expecting for the proposal the City designed and drafted, I hope they get to work on it quickly. In the meantime, I hope that they will spend more time on their plan and less on trying to block the City’s plan.
@AvgJoe Please provide us any proof that other communities have been able to lower rents enough to be considered “affordable”. They may have seen an increase in housing, but its market rate housing. And here in Cambridge market rate for existing housing is $1000k a sq ft, which means $1 million per unit, add 20-30% for new construction.
That is not affordable.
Heres a study that looked at the effects of Minneapolis eliminating single family zoning which is Azeems proposal. The costs of housing rose, especially in low cost neighborhoods.
https://www.planning.org/blog/9219556/measuring-the-early-impact-of-eliminating-single-family-zoning-on-minneapolis-property-values/
This study found that allowing upzoning with affordability requirements depressed the amount of new construction in Seattle
https://furmancenter.org/files/publications/Upzoning_with_Strings_Attached_508.pdf
@kdolan Your arguments are misleading:
The Minneapolis study you cited focuses on the cost of *owning single-family houses*, not rental apartments. “Rent” isn’t mentioned in the article. It says nothing about affordable housing.
Similarly, your “Cambridge Market rate” reference for new construction is irrelevant to affordable rental apartments.
A Pew Charitable Trusts study found that cities like Minneapolis and Portland saw slower rent increases after allowing more housing types through zoning reform. The AHO’s additional incentives could potentially enhance these effects.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/05/business/single-family-zoning-laws/index.html
You discuss zoning laws alone, ignoring the AHO’s incentives and requirements for affordable housing. Requirements for affordable housing create affordable housing.
Zoning reform *alone* does have the potential to cause a short-term increase property values. That is why it is important to combine it with other changes like setbacks, parking minimums, and affordable housing incentives – precisely what the AHO does.
In fact, the AHO is working. New developments are expected to serve over 2,000 residents, with 98% earning under $78,500 annually, reaching the intended low to moderate-income demographic.
In sum, real data shows the AHO is creating affordable housing, negating the need for speculative back-of-the-envelope calculations.
@kdolan Also, your one example from Seattle is rendered moot by the fact that the AHO has already increased development of affordable housing in Cambridge.
It’s kind of hard to argue that it won’t happen if it already is happening.
Minneapolis is a great example to look at. I would recommend the report here, which looks at rent price changes in the period after they passed a similar zoning reform to what is being contemplated in Cambridge:
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/01/04/minneapolis-land-use-reforms-offer-a-blueprint-for-housing-affordability
That report finds that Minneapolis built more housing than the rest of Minnesota between 2017 and 2022, and that during the same time, rent went up only 1% in Minneapolis vs 14% in the rest of Minnesota. Rent went up in Cambridge a lot more than 1% in the period between 2017 and 2022. It also finds that homelessness went down 12% in Minneapolis vs increasing 14% in the rest of Minnesota.
As the report says “These findings are in line with a robust body of research showing that jurisdictions that expand their housing supply experience slower housing cost growth than those that do not. Although some observers have worried that allowing more housing would fuel higher rents that lead to the displacement of some residents, research indicates that enabling the construction of more multifamily housing is associated with reduced displacement risk and increased racial diversity.”
It is true that new market rate homes are on the expensive side relative to older market rate apartments. However that does not mean they worsen affordability. Scarcity of housing contributes to high rent and housing costs! I have a friend that used to live in an apartment in central square in a building that was built in the 1960s. This friend bought a condo in a new building in the Cambridge crossing area a couple years ago, so they ended up moving from their 1960s era apartment to the shiny new apartment in Cambridge crossing. So as a result of the new building in Cambridge crossing, a vacancy was created in the more affordable older apartment in Central square, freeing it up for another household. From the standpoint of someone looking for housing, more vacancies are good. The threat of vacancy is ultimately what prevents landlords from charging more than they already do for housing. Multiply this moving chain process triggered by new housing by a thousand, and you get a more healthy housing market for renters and young families looking to buy homes and stay here long term. This is also what research has found, for example this paper:
“We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048
With regards to the Seattle example, there is substantial discussion over how and how much inclusionary zoning requirements affect new construction. The design of the program, including what levels of affordability it requires, what housing it applies to, if it is subsidies by the city, and the baseline level of demand for housing all matter a lot. Inclusionary zoning essentially constitutes a tax on new development, but the magnitude of that tax relative to the profitability of new development matters a lot.
Please read this very enlightening two part series discussing inclusionary zoning particularly in Minneapolis. https://streets.mn/2024/10/03/who-pays-for-inclusionary-zoning/
https://streets.mn/2024/10/16/assessing-minneapolis-inclusionary-zoning-policy/
As the articles discuss, this is actually not a reason not to upzone, but a reason to design inclusionary zoning well and assess its impacts — and subsidize it if broader impacts are desired. Upzoning can actually counteract the effects of IZ by making it easier to construct new housing.
Also, I think this discussion has confused “bringing rents down” with “decreasing rent growth”. Both are noble goals, but upzoning is much likelier to do the former.
For anyone who actually is interested in learning more about housing affordability rather than spreading misconceptions in local publications, I recommend the recent books “Fixer Upper” bu Jenny Schuetz, “The Affordable City” by Shane Phillips, and “Arbitrary Lines” by M. Nolan Gray.
*meant to say the latter, in that upzoning is likely to exert downward pressure on rents but not bring nominal rents down. (Although certainly they can bring rents down relative to inflation).
@DWH333 and @nortor Thank you for providing examples that counter the misconceptions in this thread.
The evidence clearly shows that zoning reform, combined with inclusionary incentives and requirements, effectively creates more affordable housing.
Criticisms focusing solely on zoning reform are misleading and fail to acknowledge the impact of comprehensive packages like the AHO (Affordable Housing Overlay).
Moreover, we have evidence that the AHO is
already proving successful.
BTW, I also recommend reading:
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It by M. Nolan Gray
It will also counter many of the misconceptions being spread.
@AveJoe Sorry AveJoe. I think you, like many others, are really confused by the requirements of the AHO, vs this new proposal to eliminate single family zoning. They are two separate things and operate independently.
So we agree that zoning reform alone does have the potential to increase property values. Whether the developer builds condos or rentals, the final price of both are determined by land costs, labor, building supplies, etc. All of which have dramatically increased. So theres just no possibility that these new housing units, condos or rentals, will be “affordable” in Cambridge. So what you are supporting is more market rate housing, that replaces older existing possibly cheaper housing with more market rate units.
The AHO is already in place. This zoning reform doesn’t impact it, unless the increased cost of land prevents affordable housing developers from buying more properties. I really urge you listen to the 6/27/24 Housing Committee Meeting where all this was discussed so you are sure about what you are supporting.
@Nortor is correct. Theres a tremendous amount of confusion between “bringing rents down” with “decreasing rent growth” and upzoning is likely to exert downward pressure on rents but not bring nominal rents down. ABC should be making that clearer to its constituents.
@kdolan, you seem to misunderstand.
The AHO has already proven effective, creating affordable housing for 2,000 residents.
Projections indicate this number will multiply significantly in the coming decades.
Your arguments against the AHO are unnecessary and misleading. The reforms are demonstrably successful, and claiming otherwise is unfounded.
@kdolan. Your analysis is flatly contradicted by an analysis by actual analysis of construction costs.
The AHO is projected to reduce, not increase, the cost of building affordable housing.
Your analysis relies on unsupported estimates and overlooks key factors.
The AHO will lower construction costs through:
1. Streamlined approval process, reducing development costs and timelines. Increased density allowances, maximizing affordable units per land area.
2.Bypassing zoning restrictions, enabling greater height and density for 100% affordable projects.
3.Reduced permitting challenges, eliminating long and costly obstacles.
These well-documented factors demonstrate that the AHO’s impact on construction costs is more complex than simple analysis suggests.
@kdolan Your claim that there’s “no possibility” of affordable housing units in Cambridge is directly contradicted by the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) already creating 700 affordable units.
These units are capped at 30% of income, which meets the definition of affordable housing.
Given that the AHO has already produced affordable housing, how can you assert that it won’t do so?
@kdolan, there’s more to consider. @FrankD overlooked some additional cost-saving factors:
Reduced Site Holding Costs: The Community Development Department estimates that the AHO lowers annual site holding costs during permitting from over $200,000 to $65,000-$80,000 by streamlining approvals.
Decreased Risk of Uncertainty: Quicker and easier approvals reduce uncertainty for developers.
Mitigated Exposure to Rising Construction Costs: With construction costs increasing by 3-5% annually, a shorter timeline leads to significant savings.
Due to these factors, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies estimates that the AHO could REDUCE affordable housing construction costs by 10-15% per leasable square foot—a substantial savings.
The AHO can and will work; as others have noted, it has already successfully created affordable housing.
I meant @AvgJoe overlooked some factors. Ha.
@avgjoe and @FrankD. No-one here, including me, is debating the AHO. Its already implemented and a part of our zoning ordinance. Its not even under discussion.
What is being debated, as outlined by this op-ed from Henry Wortis, is the proposal to end single family zoning and the role of our Inclusionary Zoning requirements to generate truly affordable units. A completely separate conversation that the AHO has no influence over.
I hope you are following the discussions at city council to be able to really understand what it us you are supporting, because you both are really confused.
As kdolan said, the AHO is not what either one of us, nor Henry Wortis’s op-ed, is talking about. We are all three talking about the petition before the City Council to massively upzone all residential areas in the city. The only thing the AHO has to do with this is to explain what I believe is the real reason CDD decided to allow 75′ rather than 65′ for six stories–to trigger an automatic increase in allowed AHO heights to thirteen stories in all our residential areas without Councillors’ having to vote for it explicitly. There is simply nothing to support the idea that passing this proposal will increase housing affordability in Cambridge, and it is no surprise that that is glaringly absent from the statement of intentions prefacing each of the two City Council petitions at issue.
Capitalism has not been repealed. Do not expect to see any of these alleged savings for developers reflected in what residents are charged to live in this market-rate housing, not as long as there continues to be effectively infinite demand to live in Cambridge. Developer profits, on the other hand, will continue to be robust.
Minneapolis is not comparable to Cambridge. Its land area is more than 8-1/2 times ours, and its population density is about 2/5 of ours. I do not know how our respective commercial density compares, but it would not surprise me to learn that ours is proportionately materially greater, which affects where we could build new housing.
Stop trying to deflect the conversation. It won’t work.
@HeatherHoffman and @kdolan. Wrong.
The AHO is directly relevant.
Cambridge’s upzoning proposal and Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) work together to address the city’s housing crisis.
The AHO provides incentives and streamlines the process for developers to create affordable housing, addressing concerns about upzoning’s potential effects.
This comprehensive approach of combining upzoning with affordable housing incentives aligns with expert recommendations. The AHO makes it more cost-effective for developers to build affordable units rather than solely market-rate housing.
Discussing upzoning concerns without acknowledging how the AHO addresses them presents an incomplete picture of Cambridge’s housing strategy. It is gaslighting.
Experts agree: Upzoning is most effective when combined with supportive policies like the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO).
The idea that AHO policies are acceptable without upzoning is misguided. These measures work as a package.
Solving the housing crisis requires comprehensive action, not half-measures or inaction.
Claims that upzoning won’t create affordable housing without acknowledging the policies to create affordable housing is gaslighting.
@HeatherHoffman Wrong. The cost saving to developers will be passed on to tenants in lower rents. That is what the AHO is for. Developers only get the financial savings if they build affordable housing.
Funny how you want to talk about problems but not the solutions
“Upzoning will not create affordable housing”.
“But the AHO ensures that it will create affordable housing”.
“We’re not discussing the AHO”.
It is very convenient for NIMBYs to bring up problems but declare the solutions off-limits for discussion.
@AvgJoe and @FrankD.
At least now we know WHY neither of you use your real names when you spread this misinformation.
@HeatherHoffman You say there’s no reason to believe that upzoning will increase housing affordability in Cambridge, while ignoring the body of literature exploring the relationship between supply and cost of housing supporting the idea that building more means lower rents.
On the contrary, I’d say there’s no evidence to suggest that Cambridge is uniquely unable to respond to supply, that our housing market is a unicorn among unicorns. Fact of the matter is that we, as a city, have courted commercial development that far outpaces residential development for decades, and this is why the entire region has been dealing with crushing housing costs.
I am among the large number of people who have been calling for less commercial and more residential development for years and years (to the deafening silence of all those who now claim to be the only pro-housing people around). The thing I have learned about why the City Councillors who keep telling you their top priority is housing have rejected our entreaties every single time is that the City balances its books and pays the bills in the era of Proposition 2-1/2 precisely by favoring high-end commercial development over housing. City policy, supported by these Councillors and their sycophants, for years has been to maintain this imbalance, because gentrification and displacement support those vaunted AAA bond ratings and maintain their ability to pretend to care about housing affordability while undermining it at every turn. For the money. Ask them what would happen if we built nothing but housing for the next decade.
@HeatherHoffman This is simply whataboutism. The zoning proposal we’re discussing relates to residentially-zoned areas, not commercial ones so why change the subject?
Let me put it this way. You claim to support more residential development, but you are strongly opposed to re-zoning that would bring more of that development. So let me ask you this, what would your ideal solution to the housing crisis in this city be?
Heather Hoffman says that “the City balances its books and pays the bills … by favoring high-end commercial development over housing.”
It seems she’s unaware that the City’s tax rates for commercial/industrial property are almost double those for residential property.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/departments/finance/propertytaxinformation
I believe the size of the difference between the two categories is limited by state law.
James Zall, thanks for proving to everyone that you know absolutely nothing about Proposition 2-1/2.
Scout, it appears that you have no idea where the vast majority of the housing has been developed in recent years. Here’s a clue–mixed-used districts in East Cambridge and North Cambridge/Alewife. For example, when Volpe was rezoned, the proposal was 60% commercial/40% residential. Everyone who showed up at meetings advocated for flipping those percentages. We lost because the City’s finances required that we lose. Not one single Housing Über Alles Councillor supported us in any way whatsoever.
What we are seeing are classic example sof NIMBY tactics:
Claim to Support Housing:
They profess to be pro-housing but criticize any proposed changes without offering solutions.
Dismiss Solutions and Evidence:
They ignore solutions and evidence that contradict their stance and narrow discussions to exclude viable options.
Assert Uniqueness:
They argue that the city is uniquely different from others to justify resistance.
In reality, there is substantial evidence showing a direct link between housing supply and costs, with increased supply leading to lower costs.
Despite claims about the effects of upzoning, city projections indicate that upzoning and the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO) will result in more affordable housing.
@HeatherHoffman. When all else fails, trot out a conspiracy theory.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that the author attributes the policy to A Better Cambridge? A Better Cambridge supports the six story multifamily proposal, but the organization didn’t write it. The proposal is cosponsored by Councilors Siddiqui and Azeem. My understanding is it was written by them after consulting with affordable housing developers and other experts.
No, Jess, I noticed it too, and it’s been repeated by several commenters. I didn’t bring it up because it seemed maybe the least of the, um, inaccuracies offered here.
My understanding is that the multifamily amendments started as a general goal proposed by the two councilors, and the Housing Committee added issues/questions/concerns arising in a couple of meetings. That went to CDD/Zoning Dept who got input from CDD’s economic development people and the Law Dept (and maybe others?), and CDD wrote the zoning language from the results.
@HeatherHoffman I don’t doubt that you’ve been a voice to build housing over commercial development in the past, but in this instance you are arguing against something that would categorically increase the housing-to-jobs ratio.
With Prop 2.5 restrictions, a lack of development constrains our ability to pay for the things we’d like to provide in the city (though it’s a little bit more complicated than that, we’re still well below our Prop 2.5 ceiling, if I read the new budget/tax rates correctly). Obviously, to many on the council, it’s preferable to court commercial development over residential because commercial requires less from the city, and provides more in taxes, but that’s why we need to throw our support behind housing development, because council won’t do it on their own.