The Orthodox Jewish sect that is suing the city and its Board of Zoning Appeals for denying an expansion of its religious center now wants a major change to zoning rules. The change would give religious organizations such as itself relief from many zoning limits, including the ones involved in its defeat at the board.
Lubavitch of Cambridge, also known as Harvard Chabad because of its ties to Harvard students, has filed an application with the City Council to exempt property used for religious purposes from density and indoor space limits and other zoning restrictions.
The changes would give religious organizations relief from limits on floor-to-area ratios and gross floor area restrictions and would allow them to build up to six stories on a 5,000-square-foot lot. Those are the same measures that the city adopted for residential properties in its groundbreaking zoning ordinance that allows multifamily housing throughout the city except for open space districts.
Properties used for religious purposes also would not have to meet certain open space requirements, the Lubavitch application says. Generally, churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship would get the same freedom from zoning restrictions as housing under the city’s new multifamily zoning ordinance.
Lubavitch, a Jewish movement that is growing fast worldwide, established a religious, social and educational center at three properties on Banks Street that it bought between 2000 and 2007: 38-40 Banks St., 48 Banks St. and 54-56 Banks St. Last year, the group asked the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance and special permit that would allow it to move one building closer to Banks Street and connect it with another building, changes that would almost double its indoor space and exceed the permitted floor-to-area ratio.
Lubavitch said it needed more room because it doesn’t have enough space inside to feed people attending its religious services and to conduct other activities. Because of the crush, the group is forced to serve meals in an outdoor tent even in cold winter temperatures, Lubavitch said.
A neighborhood organization, the Kerry Corner Neighborhood Association, opposed the expansion, saying the big increase in space would bring in many more people and change the character of the quiet area. It suggested a smaller expansion, which Lubavitch said wasn’t sufficient. Lubavitch said in its suit that the neighbors’ complaint that the expansion would change the “character” of the neighborhood was an example of antisemitism.
In June, the zoning board denied the request. Three of the five members who heard the case voted to approve, but Lubavitch needed four yes votes. Lubavitch sued the city and the board, claiming that the decision involved antisemitism and that it violated a federal law forbidding local zoning rules from imposing a “substantial burden” on religious uses unless the locality can show the rules serve a “compelling government interest” and are the least restrictive option.
Acting during mediation
At two zoning board hearings, Lubavitch’s leader, rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, and its lawyer, Sarah Rhatigan, cited the federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and Zarchi warned of a lawsuit. The board sought and received advice from the city’s law office. It has not been made public.
After Lubavitch filed suit Sept. 20, both sides agreed to enter mediation, even before the city and board had submitted an answer to the complaint. The talks are continuing, according to the latest report from the mediator last month.
At Monday’s council meeting, two members of the Kerry Corner Neighborhood Association who spoke in public comment urged councillors not to approve the zoning change. “In the face of [Lubavitch’s] unsuccessful bid to receive a dimensional variance on their project on Bank Street in the Kerry Corner neighborhood, they are opting to piggyback on the recent zoning relief offered for high density and affordable housing in order to circumvent the variance denial,” said Alan Joslin, a Bank Street resident. “If the city of Cambridge is truly interested in promoting housing, I don’t know why they would suddenly unleash constraints on institutional use. Institutional growth has been a challenge to the stability and the growth of the city’s housing stock.”
The Dover Amendment
Joslin said the city was the only Massachusetts community that has not adopted the Dover Amendment, a state law that prohibits cities and towns from regulating religious or institutional use except for “reasonable regulations” on “the bulk and height of structures” as well as “yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking and building coverage requirements.”
The city excluded itself from the Dover Amendment because it has a large number of institutions and places of worship, Osman said. In place of the state law, Cambridge has adopted “a special set of institutional use regulations,” Joslin said. Amending the zoning ordinance as Lubavitch is proposing “would open up widespread disruption to residential neighborhoods across the city,” he said.
Zarchi said in an email message that he could not respond to opponents or say why Lubavitch is asking for the zoning change, because the organization is in “confidential” mediation.
Council looks for insight
Councillors didn’t appear to know much about the issue. Councillor Patty Nolan said there was a question about whether the city was required to give religious uses the same treatment as housing, but no one from the city’s law office was there by the time the Lubavitch application came up late in the meeting.
The application was sent by councillors to their Ordinance Committee and to the Planning Board for hearings, the procedure for handling applications for zoning amendments. Nolan said she wanted to ensure the council knew that the legal question “has been raised and hopefully it will be answered by the time this gets” to committee.
“We have been supportive of the expansion of their building to a size and capacity that is compatible with our neighborhood. What they are asking for in a zoning amendment is to go around the neighbors,” said another area resident, Deborah Epstein, who identified herself as Jewish and called allegation of antisemitism “slanderous.”
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Good. I hope they win.
Good for them. It’s obvious from the picture the Day used that there’s nothing “out of character” for their proposed usage. There’s a twelve story apartment building on the same block and a twenty story Harvard dormitory at Banks and Flagg.
I lived down the street from Chabad about ten years ago and they were quiet neighbors. I can’t say the same about some of the hard partying students in Mather House.
Although it’s uncertain whether the Lubavitch group will be able to prove that anti-Semitism is the reason behind the neighbors’ objections to the building expansion, it’s not “slanderous” to ask that the question be considered, judicially or politically.
It is clear, though, that neighbors have long been using government authority — with the help of city boards and commissions, and prior City Councils — to exclude people, buildings, and modes of transportation they dislike. The harmful effects of these exclusions are now resulting in displacement, climate and environmental issues and other problems affecting everyone.
Commissions, boards and regulations are there to protect residents, environmental justice AND displacement. Older houses usually serve as naturally occurring affordable housing, yet many would rather tear them down for tall more expensive modern buildings in places that can’t accommodate them.
Kerry Corner is only a couple of blocks surrounded by Harvard affiliated buildings. It is not the affiliation per se, but the nuts and bolts regulations by both the historical commission (who got bullied into submission) and the BZA tasked to look at context. The petitioner even said “if you are against this project, you are anti-Semitic”, basically using guilt and the race card. they were not willing to have meetings with neighbors and were combative from the beginning.
“Preserving neighborhood character” is the worst excuse for opposing development. Cities constantly evolve to meet residents’ needs, and this neighborhood’s character has changed significantly over the past 30, 50, or 100 years.
Affordable housing requires building more homes—supply must meet demand. Cities can’t solve a housing crisis by protecting old buildings.
As for protecting residents, that depends on what you mean. Restrictive zoning laws originated from racist policies and now use wealth and cost to achieve similar ends.
I say we let them ignore density and indoor space limits. Some problems solve themselves!
As someone who lives in one of the buildings in this photograph — I can assure you that the “neighborhood character” is not going to be impacted by their expansion. At worst you hear a few parties happening a few times a year. But guess what? There are multiple frat houses in this photo as well that have parties more often, yet “Kerry Corner” association (could not find any public info on them online, nor do I know where Kerry Corner is) doesn’t seem to have vocalized any opposition to that.
Let the Jewish community build their building. It’s fine.
Some people oppose any development, no matter how weak the reasons. “Changing the character of a quiet area” is flimsy logic that would block any increase in density. That doesn’t serve the broader community. Besides, I wouldn’t call this area “quiet.”
The image here is no longer what they’re proposing. The Historical Commission gave approval for a much larger, institutional-looking building, coupled with the relocation of the building in the rear of the lot to the street. Anyone interested in seeing what they are now pushing can see it at the CHC website. They may yet need a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeal.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/historic
[See:
Case D-1720: 38-40, 48, and 54-56 Banks St., by Lubavitch of Cambridge, Inc. Partial demo of #38-40. Relocation and partial demo of #48. Demo of #54-56 (1892).
application
plans
additional plans
staff memo ]
It’s revealing to see how many people who regularly bleat about the overwhelming need for housinghousingHOUSING!!!!!! are perfectly okay with the removal of housing in favor of some other purpose as long as it results in bigger buildings, i.e., more development. One of the important purposes of Cambridge’s now-former exemption from the Dover Amendment was to stop institutions (like Harvard, back then) from buying housing and turning it over to institutional uses. In other words, one of the results of the recent zoning change is to make it possible for institutions to remove housing without being required to replace it. I eagerly await the explanation for how that alleviates the HOUSING CRISIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! instead of exacerbating it.