Cambridge now has, arguably, the highest rents in the nation. We’re leading all 50 states in child care costs. And the costs of groceries, meals out and basic necessities just keep climbing. We are not just matching U.S. metro standards, we lead the nation in high costs. No wonder so many of our neighbors are thinking of leaving.
These prices aren’t the result of bad luck. They’re the direct outcome of decades of policy choices – choices that made it nearly impossible to build homes in most of our city. Until recently, much of Cambridge’s residential zoning wouldn’t even allow a triple-decker, let alone the kinds of affordable apartments that once kept Cambridge accessible.
For the first time in decades, housing is being proposed in neighborhoods. But this is no “building boom.” In the new zoning, we’re talking about just four proposals: 60 and 84 Ellery St., the A.J. Spears Funeral Home site on Western Avenue and the Harriet Jacobs House at 17 Story St. Together, that’s it. Maybe four buildings in the whole city six months in; roughly 350 homes in a city with 50,000 units already.
Even these few proposals face roadblocks, and none can happen without approval by committees. Conservation districts can block the Ellery Street and Jacobs projects. Demolition delay can de facto stop the Spears site.
The easiest thing to say in politics is “I support housing, but …” as if a perfect alternative exists. Politics is about tradeoffs, and decades of wishful thinking have brought us to the worst housing crisis in the nation. Let’s examine these proposals in detail.
At 84 Ellery St., the Conservation Commission has already rejected an 81-unit apartment proposal (16 of them forever affordable) built to the highest environmental standards, with no displacement, across from a park and library. What’s more likely now? Something more similar to their original plan: 20 luxury condos. Is that really a better outcome?
Some prefer the look of old brick buildings. I understand that. But brick is porous, and our Passive House standards don’t allow it. That’s a policy choice choosing climate friendliness over some aesthetic preferences.
On Western Avenue, the Spears Funeral Home could become 74 homes, again with no displacement, steps from the Central Square T stop. The reason for the potential demolition delay? It is named after a historic Black family in Riverside that was at the last meeting and supports this project.
At 17 Story St., the plan would preserve the Harriet Jacobs House, open it to the public and add 50 apartments, paying for the preservation with funds from hotel rooms. The new zoning didn’t even change the height here, yet some are so upset they are threatening to abuse the landmarking process and ensure we don’t touch the building and allow it to decay.
Survey after survey shows housing costs and cost of living in general are Cambridge residents’ top concern. Yet some are whipping neighbors into a frenzy over four buildings. Again, just four buildings in the whole city. Too often, to them, “neighborhood character” matters more than the actual neighbors struggling to stay.
Yes, growth brings challenges. Construction is noisy. Traffic and parking need management. But those are problems we can solve. The alternative is the pain of not growing: friends moving away, families priced out and the knowledge that even with a good job, you’re barely hanging on. In the wealthiest state in the wealthiest nation in history, it is a policy failure when people cannot afford the most basic need: a home.
It’s too expensive to keep things the same and change will be hard, but growing pains are better than the pain of not growing.
The writer is a Cambridge city councillor.
A stronger
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Million times YES. We desperately need to build more housing in Cambridge. Since we cannot create land, the only solution is to build taller apartments.
The fact that a multi-term City Councillor doesn’t know the difference between the Conservation Commission, which oversees the Wetlands Protection Act, and a neighborhood conservation district commission tells me what I need to know about what he knows.
Your vague blanket as- of- right policies without deep study, have consequences, Sir. It was your laziness on the exemption from the Dover Amendment that lead to the $540K law suit Cambridge had to pay out. Your rubber-stamping and scorched earth is so single-tracked you ignore the deeper fabric of your constituents, generational residents, layers of history. 84 Ellery St was not shut down, the committee asked for a better design. These buildings will be here long after we are all gone. you will get your housing.
there are four other examples of re-purposed historical and housing collaborations: Frost Terrace, Mellen St (Lesley), Norfolk St, and the nursing home on Harvard St- all preserved historical houses while building more housing on the back. 84 Ellery has the same potential. Commissions have been allies of housing over the years while protecting Cambridge historical identity. your one size fits all is unimaginative and ideological.
I am baffled. Here I thought it was the MCNCD(Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission) that ruled on Ellery Street. Also, I was led to believe the Harriet Jacobs house was to be moved to accommodate a hotel, not residences. What gives, Councillor?
Is 80% market-rate/ luxury a better outcome? 20% will NEVER catch up to need. so, in the meantime, more people get pushed out as condos/ homes become smaller, catering to transient renters in studios and 1-bedroom warehouses. And as land becomes more expensive.
Elizabeth, it’s true that all the talk we’ve been hearing is of a boutique hotel, but residences are indeed part of the plan.
Azeem: “friends moving away, families priced out”
That’s right Birhan, and the City Council over a long period of time is responsible for mainly the economic middle class being forced out.
During the last 25 years, the city was very fortunate that the biotech industry thrived in Cambridge. It brought a surge in tax revenues.
Rather than focus on keeping the increase in tax rates low (and I’m not speaking of the level of tax compared to other cities), it chose to continue to spend. Tax increases have been substantial. Why?
Because the city continued to be a spendthrift city.
This is only a very, very minor example (I could give hundreds involving much more money),
but it says everything about how the city spends money.
We have activities for kids where it is by lottery. Why do we spend even a penny on
non-residents?
With regard to War Memorial Programming
Wednesday, August 13 — Registration opens for non-residents at 5 p.m.
Pete- you hit the nail on the head
Azeem has been stoking this fairytale that its our regulations preventing us from getting more affordable housing. That its decades of “policy choices” that have made housing here so expensive.
First he said eliminating parking mandates would spur development. Recently he blamed single family zoning. He’s now running out of answers for his young, vulnerable followers who he’s told that the City Council has the ability to make housing here in Cambridge cheaper for everyone who wants to live here.
It wont be long before Azeem’s followers catch on to his grift and deception.
How many units will be affordable? Oh 20% or 10%? So thanks for upending Cambridge with blanket zoning for the developers under the guise of affordable housing.
Let’s just add that the Councillor and his acolytes all claim that each inclusionary apartment is worth a million dollars on average, and they claim the apartments cost the City of Cambridge nothing. Let’s think about that. First of all, when did million-dollar apartments (because all the market-rate ones are similar) become affordable for people who aren’t rich? Second, the rent the landlords aren’t collecting on the inclusionary apartments gets tacked onto the market-rate apartments to the extent the market will bear, because landlords aren’t in business to lose money to make the Councillor and his acolytes happy; they are capitalists, and they have bills to pay just like the rest of us. I don’t know how much the lower rents affect the assessed value of the property, but, to the extent that it lowers the assessed value, it does reduce taxes collected by the city on that building and the rest of us pay for that.
Nothing is free. Someone pays for it one way or another.
Regarding complaints about the percent affordable, it is worth noting that in the area that is now C-1, prior to the zoning reform there were basically 0 affordable inclusionary units being built, and now there are four proposals that if built will have inclusionary units. That is a win for housing affordability, an issue that voters care a lot about, as is evident by the surveys that Burhan linked to.
Could someone help me. A simple question, but am afraid I don’t know the answer.
When a builder builds apartment houses that contain all or some affordable housing apartments, who is moving into those apartments? Are they families who already live in Cambridge and need better (newer) apartments, or is it something else?
I will be appreciative of an answer. Thanks.
Heather is right on the mark here: Inclusionary Zoning isn’t free and it’s an inefficient way to produce housing. Condo owners pay a higher portion of common charges to cover the reduced share borne by IZ units. Meanwhile, the owner of a Hubbard Park mansion contributes nothing.
Why should it fall to the rich to house the destitute while the fantastically rich don’t pay? This is just one of the many reasons why the middle class has evaporated from Cambridge.
At the end of the day, there are people like Councillor Azeem who strive to build housing for everyone, and then there are the people who try to throw as many roadblocks to housing up as possible for groups they don’t like.
The animus that the anti-housing folks have against those who benefit from those who buy market rate housing is pretty gross, honestly.
Heather, let’s not pretend that you don’t like Azeem because he mixes up two similar sounding random bureaucratic institutions. You don’t like him because you don’t like his policies. There’s plenty that you don’t know about the inner workings of running the city, but that’s not why I disagree with you, it’s because I think your ideas about how to run the city lack merit.
In the same breath, opponents to new housing will complain that it isn’t affordable enough while also kneecapping the number of units that can be built, necessarily raising the cost of housing. A $6MM lot split into 60 apartments costs $100k per unit than the same lot split into 30.
Absolutely agree. Cambridge’s cost-of-living crisis is the result of years of restrictive housing policy, pushed mostly by those who profited from rising home values. Now they want to preserve those restrictions at the expense of poorer residents.
The only real solution is to build more homes in more neighborhoods. Four projects citywide is barely a start. Blocking needed housing over personal aesthetics or procedural delays only deepens the crisis.
@HeatherHoffman:
Inclusionary zoning isn’t perfect, but it’s one of the most effective tools cities have for improving affordability and diversity, especially where market forces drive inequality.
Someone always pays and in this crisis, poorer residents have been footing the bill to make wealthy homeowners wealthier.
It is pretty gross that they want this to continue while less fortunate people are in desperate need.
The residential units here will likely be “hotel condos” Looks like a bate-and-switch to have individually deeded residential units within a hotel. While owners could use them personally, the hotel rents them out most of the time. They will not even function as real homes – another profit scheme.
@Frank
You said, “Someone always pays and in this crisis, poorer residents have been footing the bill to make wealthy homeowners wealthier.”
I don’t understand that statement. Would you please explain.
Is no one willing to answer my question
“When a builder builds apartment houses that contain all or some affordable housing apartments, who is moving into those apartments? Are they families who already live in Cambridge and need better (newer) apartments, or is it something else?
@Old Boy. It’s simple. Homeowners supported exclusionary zoning and oppose development, restricting supply and driving up home values, which grew their wealth.
Less affluent people pay for this through higher rents and housing costs, often spending half or more of their income on rent or enduring long commutes.
This isn’t conjecture. The link between exclusionary zoning, wealth, and housing costs is well established. It’s amoral to continue it.
Who moves in? What difference does it make? People need homes where there are jobs. Do you not want “outsiders” here?
@Old Boy
Wealthy people with stable housing block the construction of new housing. This leads to a housing shortage, in which renters and new residents have to pay higher prices for a place to live. All the while, those wealthy people enjoy higher property values due to the scarcity of land in a high-demand, low-supply city.
“Is no one willing to answer my question”
Please read up on the city’s website, it’s public info: https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/housing/forapplicants/rentalapplicantpool/rentalfaq
Specifically,
“Do I have to be a Cambridge resident to apply to the Rental Applicant Pool?”
“No, you do not have to be a Cambridge resident to apply to the Rental Applicant Pool, but Cambridge residents do receive preference.”
@Old Boy
My understanding is that if your income qualifies you for an inclusionary affordable home, you can join a wait list. The wait list is ordered by number of points:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Housing/rentalpreferenceupdates/inclusionaryrentalprogrampreferencepointchanges_slidedeck.pdf
So Cambridge residents, people that work in Cambridge, people with an emergency need, and people with children are prioritized. Given how the points work it appears that Cambridge residents are heavily prioritized.
Thank you for naming the reality: the cost of doing nothing is too high. I’ve watched people try to frame the Harriet Jacobs project as cultural harm, when it’s actually preservation through public access, storytelling, and housing. The house would be restored and opened to the public — not torn down. And it funds that preservation through a project that adds homes (with affordability!) in a city that needs them.
The amount of procedural delay and aesthetic moralizing getting thrown at four housing proposals is wild. Not every project is perfect, but this one has real support from the Jacobs Legacy Committee, the Historical Commission, and city leaders. We have to stop letting subjective taste block progress, especially when people are getting priced out every day.