Poll shows support for multifamily housing ordinance

A recent survey of Cambridge voters conducted by pro-housing groups found broad general support for the Multifamily Housing Ordinance, the sweeping “upzoning” measures passed by Cambridge City Council nearly two years ago.

The ordinance lowered restrictions on heights and setbacks for developers in an attempt to spur new construction to meet the city’s housing needs. It has not met that hope, at least yet, in part because of market conditions. But it has spurred spirited opposition from groups advocating for its reversal — lobbying city council to make changes and embarking on a “Pause the upzoning” yard sign campaign.

The poll suggests this is a vocal minority of voters. The poll surveyed 442 Cambridge voters that reflected the demographic characteristics of the city. Nearly two-thirds of them said they support the MFHO to some degree, with 37 percent strongly supporting it.

The poll was conducted by Embold Research and commissioned by Abundant Housing Massachusetts and A Better Cambridge, a local nonprofit that has pushed for policies to encourage new housing development across the city.

The poll results are similar to the annual Cambridge Residents Survey conducted by Polity Research Consulting on attitudes about housing affordability. In that survey, released earlier this year, 80% of respondents said it was important or extremely important for the city to focus on making market housing more affordable. Meanwhile, according to the new survey, about eight in 10 respondents said they or someone close to them has been affected by the cost or availability of housing in the city.

“Finding housing in Cambridge has been my single biggest stressor both financially and emotionally at any time,” one respondent to the ABC/Abundant Housing survey said. “I have had to move due to the difficulty of finding affordable housing.”

Parton vs. Putin

In the new survey, younger Cantabrigians heavily favored upzoning, with 86% of people 18 to 34 approving of it and only 9% disapproving, giving it a 77 net approval rating. To give a sense of scale, that’s the same net approval rating a national survey gave to recently deceased country star Dolly Parton.

But for those 65 and older, only 38% approved of the MFHO, while 57% disapproved, giving it a net approval rating of -19. And for men over 65, that net approval rating was -27 — slightly less popular than Vladimir Putin.

Those who were more aware of the MFHO tended to have lower approval levels. Only 5% more residents who said they had seen or heard a lot about the MFHO approved of the policy than those who disapproved of it, which is about the same as the poll’s margin of error of 4.9%. Those who knew of it only through the survey’s brief description had a net approval rating of 47, and those who said they had known “a little” about the ordinance had even higher net approval ratings of 62. This could mean that the more people learn about the MFHO, the less they like it, or it could also reflect the propensity for people who dislike the policy to stay up to date with its developments.

“What’s most important is how people feel about what this pro-housing policy actually does, whether or not they know a lot about the ordinance itself,” said ABC co-chair Justin Saif. “When given plain-language information about what the multifamily housing ordinance actually does, support for building more homes was impressively strong.”

Inequality also evident

Other demographic factors that affected residents’ views on the MFHO were political tilt and race. People who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election largely favored the policy, while the opposite was true for those who voted for Donald Trump. People of color were slightly more likely to favor it than White people.

But divisions over policy got more muddled the more specific the questions got. While overall net support for the MFHO was 36, there was only a 15 point difference between the percentage of people who said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who prioritizes building more homes (50%), over those who prioritize the look and feel of existing neighborhoods (35%). That division was about the same among people who wanted council to make few or no changes to the MFHO compared to those that want more sweeping amendments, even if it slows down development.

“The ABC poll frames the choice as a trade-off between more housing and neighborhood aesthetic factors. Yet it also finds that most respondents favor some change to the MFHO, whether modest or substantial, a position CCC and many Cambridge residents share,” said Suzanne Preston Blier, president of the Cambridge Citywide Coalition. “Cambridge residents want housing to be more affordable. The MFHO as written will produce mostly more expensive new housing and will not enable middle-income families to stay. ”

There were also insights not related to the MFHO that shed some light on how housing is viewed across different Cambridge subpopulations. Younger people were far more likely to be renters, and to list housing as the top priority city council should be addressing.

The survey also unveiled some profound inequalities. Black Cantabrigians were only about a third as likely to own their own homes as White residents, and were more than three times more likely to be staying with friends or family.

Selected questions and responses from the study:

When it comes to the Multifamily Housing Ordinance, which of the following is closest to your view, even if none is exactly right?

If you were voting today in an election for Cambridge City Council, which would you be more likely to support?

Source: Embold Research

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