With deep sadness CCC announces the passing of City Councillor and CCC friend, Joan Pickett.
She was an extraordinary community leader, activist, and friend to many inside and outside Cambridge.
She was an extraordinary community leader, activist, and friend to many inside and outside Cambridge.
ACTION ALERT
City Council is considering a citywide upzoning to allow 6 story market rate housing in every neighborhood.
This will be discussed at the Housing Committee Meeting August 21, 2024 at 11:00.
Read more about the plan in the Boston Globe
Presentations of this radical citywide upzoning proposal reveal stunning changes to our city’s zoning code: See HERE
A few things jumped out for us.
- Maximum height of 6 stories for all new market rate housing would be above grade, now redefined as 75' (the equivalent of 7.5 stories) not 65' as per original plans.
- The corollary of this is that ALL AHO projects anywhere can now be 13 stories above grade. There is no mention of this as only on the corridors.
- Setbacks: for the front yard are 10'; for the rear and side yards: 0' (This may mean that AHO rear setback of 15' can now be reduced to 0').
- Required Project review has been changed from 50,000 to 75,000 sf. Most projects are below 25,000 sf which would require minimal review if any.
- This citywide up-zoning petition will be ready for first Council meeting in September.
Write to City Council at: [email protected]
CC the clerk: [email protected]
Sign up to speak by zoom or in person 24 hours before the meeting: cambridgema.gov/publiccomment
CCC is committed to promoting good governance and to driving positive urban change. To fuel our mission, we rely on the generosity of individuals like you.
CCC is free and open to everyone.
But we urge people able to do so to donate $25-$40 yearly either to help CCC 's active Civic work (at the Act Blue link above) or to support complementary city election efforts at CambridgePac.org: HERE
But we urge people able to do so to donate $25-$40 yearly either to help CCC 's active Civic work (at the Act Blue link above) or to support complementary city election efforts at CambridgePac.org: HERE
Weekly Calendars of Local Civic & Other Events
Weekly Calendar A: Cambridge City Government - the CITY WEEKLY CALENDAR
Weekly Calendar B: Cambridge Day Weekly Calendar HERE
Weekly Calendar C: Cambridge Civic Weekly Calendar of Events and Meetings in Cambridge: Cambridge Civic
Weekly Calendar D: Have Fun! Patch Local Music and Entertainment: HERE
Weekly Calendar E: Find It Cambridge HERE
Weekly Calendar B: Cambridge Day Weekly Calendar HERE
Weekly Calendar C: Cambridge Civic Weekly Calendar of Events and Meetings in Cambridge: Cambridge Civic
Weekly Calendar D: Have Fun! Patch Local Music and Entertainment: HERE
Weekly Calendar E: Find It Cambridge HERE
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Find out how to contact City Council and Commissions Find out how to sign up to speak at city meetings, and more ...
Congratulations! Charlie Sullivan for the 2024 PM
Lifetime Achievement Award!
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CITY FINANCIAL MATTERS:
HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO BELT-TIGHTENING TIME?
DENSITY & HOUSING: How Much Can We Sustainably Grow?
Exactly how many new homes, and at what price points, does the city aim to build? We need real data, and from that we need to come up with a viable plan - taking into account environmental and equity needs and the natural COVID and High Interest Rate building downturn,
According to the Cambridge City Manager's report as of June 2023, Cambridge housing stock includes 57,894 units either available or under construction. 8,591 of these are public housing (tax payer sponsored housing).
ON THE ISSUE OF HOUSING SUPPLY AND DEMAND:
READ URBAN PLANNER PATRICK CONDON
CITY COUNCIL HOUSING COMMITTEE PROPOSING MASSIVE CITY WIDE UP-ZONING
MARK YOUR CALENDARS: May 22,2024 Housing Committee, the citywide up-zoning returns to the Housing Committee.
Allowances will allow dense C-1 zoning criteria for residential areas citywide and may include 6 stories for buildings with 10 units or more with mandated inclusionary zoning. There are also large increases in allowable occupancy levels, with no building design oversight, and no required parking.
What are we trying to achieve? If this is about adding more affordable housing (a key city goal), this will not work, and indeed will make things worse by encouraging more market rate competition to public housing developers. As the current situation has shown, no market rate developer wants to build 10-unit apartment or condo structures if it means adding 20% inclusionary. Instead, they l build 9-unit structures. And as we add more density, heat island impacts rise. In all probability, if this zoning proposal passes, these developers will compete with public housing (AHO) developers for properties, and the former will have ample funds to win.
A-1 districts (and others) may be rezoned to C-1 (East Cambridge) levels and may see a decline from 6,000 SF lot sizes to 1,200 SF lot sizes (the latter would become generalized citywide) . This proposed plan would remove large amounts of green space and trees. Therecould be far more units within each property, without a parking or planned neighborhood infrastructure changes. We likely will see historic house tear downs to build large McMansions or multi-unit luxury condos. None of these proposed plans would require BZA approval.
Where is the process on this?. No city staff members have reached out to let residents know about this highly consequential proposal. We should not make the same mistake we did on the AHO-2 where the proposal was rushed into zoning language and all one could do was tweak it.
Allowances will allow dense C-1 zoning criteria for residential areas citywide and may include 6 stories for buildings with 10 units or more with mandated inclusionary zoning. There are also large increases in allowable occupancy levels, with no building design oversight, and no required parking.
What are we trying to achieve? If this is about adding more affordable housing (a key city goal), this will not work, and indeed will make things worse by encouraging more market rate competition to public housing developers. As the current situation has shown, no market rate developer wants to build 10-unit apartment or condo structures if it means adding 20% inclusionary. Instead, they l build 9-unit structures. And as we add more density, heat island impacts rise. In all probability, if this zoning proposal passes, these developers will compete with public housing (AHO) developers for properties, and the former will have ample funds to win.
A-1 districts (and others) may be rezoned to C-1 (East Cambridge) levels and may see a decline from 6,000 SF lot sizes to 1,200 SF lot sizes (the latter would become generalized citywide) . This proposed plan would remove large amounts of green space and trees. Therecould be far more units within each property, without a parking or planned neighborhood infrastructure changes. We likely will see historic house tear downs to build large McMansions or multi-unit luxury condos. None of these proposed plans would require BZA approval.
Where is the process on this?. No city staff members have reached out to let residents know about this highly consequential proposal. We should not make the same mistake we did on the AHO-2 where the proposal was rushed into zoning language and all one could do was tweak it.
Read More on the Zoning Proposal in our Blog Post Below
The Proposed Citywide Up-zoning Change
The Added Problem with Tear-downs In this Up-zoning
A useful article on environmental cost of demolitions here: https://restoreoregon.org/2021/04/12/understanding-the-carbon-cost-of-demolition/
- "Conservatively speaking, residential and commercial demolitions in the City of Portland are responsible for 124,741 metric tons of C02 emissions per year, which amounts to approximately 4.5 percent of the City’s total annual reduction goal."
- "This study finds that it takes 10 to 80 years for a new building that is 30 percent more efficient than an average-performing existing building to overcome, through efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process.”
- "calling upon policy makers to acknowledge the environmental impact of sending usable buildings to landfills; strive for density without demolition; provide meaningful incentives for retention and reuse; and maintain or strengthen demolition review requirements for designated historic properties."
Reading Assignment - the NYC example (2024
City Councillor Committee Assignments
The larger CCC Team has put together a list of priorities for this term. Below are the highlights.
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CCC PRIORITIES 2024-25
CCC looks forward to working with every Councillor, city staff member, resident, and business across the city to help our city government achieve the following policy or process changes. This can be a year of real progress for the city. SIX TOP PRIORITIES BETTER GOVERNMENT: Require speedy responses to public records requests; require clerk (or others) to publish votes with initials on city website during Council and other public meetings; publish weekly meeting calendar; add more separation between Councillors and judiciary committees (BZA, CHC, PB); limit House Doctor (our “in house” pre-approved contractor projects) to below $500K. CITY FINANCES: 5-year plan to keep city fiscally sound; more upfront detail on development proposal costs; maintain low residential and commercial property taxes. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND CLIMATE RESILIENCY: Annual City updates on climate change results; published plan for new infrastructure; enact Urban Forestry Master Plan; improve environmental impact studies re climate goals. HOUSING: Support the rights of tenants against unfair evictions, lease terminations, and rate hikes; encourage adoption of Senate bill S684 providing legal counsel; add financial incentives for property owners to add units to existing homes and keep rents below market rates for non-family for a fixed time period; allow multifamily zoning citywide without unduly increasing property values and impacting green space; create citywide design review committee; promote city purchased land for housing (land trusts) and lease land to developers; add regular independent reviews of tenant concerns and building upkeep; provide a single anonymized list of housing applicants and update annually NEIGHBORHOODS: Provide more local meeting places and encourage more neighborhood groups citywide; host annual city council meeting with neighborhood group leaders; address long term vacancies (homes and local businesses) by adding escalating fee structure. Do annual review of ISD requests and completions. Simplify and speed up responses to street light outages etc. TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Traffic camera use for better counts citywide and consider violation tickets like DC; address best practices for safest bicycle, scooter, skateboard use; Modified broadband for city square open spaces and both low income and senior housing. |
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READ CCC's BLOG ABOUT THE ELECTION RESULTS
TRANSIT
CCC has a blog post up on the 2023 City Bicycling Report
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HOUSING
CCC has a new blog post the climate change and building heights: HERE
The massive citywide upzoning amendment known as AHO 2.0 was ordained by City Council on October 15, 2023 allowing 12 story buildings on key avenues and 15 story buildings in historic squares for exclusively income-limited residents seeking housing from around the area and more broadly. Historic still sustainable buildings will be demolished throughout the city for tall very dense structures without setbacks, parking, key infrastructure planning, or Planning Board oversight.Opposing AHO 2.0 were Councillors Carlone, Nolan, Toner; Supporting AHO 2.0 were Councillors: Azeem, McGovern, Siddiqui, Simmons, Mallon and Zondervan.
The massive citywide upzoning amendment known as AHO 2.0 was ordained by City Council on October 15, 2023 allowing 12 story buildings on key avenues and 15 story buildings in historic squares for exclusively income-limited residents seeking housing from around the area and more broadly. Historic still sustainable buildings will be demolished throughout the city for tall very dense structures without setbacks, parking, key infrastructure planning, or Planning Board oversight.Opposing AHO 2.0 were Councillors Carlone, Nolan, Toner; Supporting AHO 2.0 were Councillors: Azeem, McGovern, Siddiqui, Simmons, Mallon and Zondervan.
Get Building Height Right for the Climate! "It may seem obvious that cities filled with big buildings use energy more efficiently than dispersed suburban landscapes, and that newer, taller buildings are more energy-efficient than older, squatter structures. People widely understand that New York City, for example, ranks well on energy use per person, where housing tends toward the vertical, one boiler room can serve many units, and heat rises into the units above, rather than being lost to the sky....Skyscrapers use and lose more energy than low-rise buildings, research shows....
'The results show that height is a significant predictor of energy use, even accounting for other variables,'the researchers wrote in a paper published in the journal Building Research and Information. In fact, each additional story in a building is associated with a 2.4 percent increase in electricity use and 2.9 percent increase in fossil fuel use, more than doubling the average emissions per square foot for the tallest buildings in their survey." Source: Greentech Media November 2020 (read article at link below).
'The results show that height is a significant predictor of energy use, even accounting for other variables,'the researchers wrote in a paper published in the journal Building Research and Information. In fact, each additional story in a building is associated with a 2.4 percent increase in electricity use and 2.9 percent increase in fossil fuel use, more than doubling the average emissions per square foot for the tallest buildings in their survey." Source: Greentech Media November 2020 (read article at link below).
This proposal was not taken up by Council on Sept 11 as planned, but because it is not a zoning petition with a time limit, it can be brought back by one or more Councillor at a future date. This bill, that pretty much gives full reign to developers to build what they want, would remove all but one professionals from NCD Committees, require City Council approval before a proposal can begin, disallow commission discussions or decisions about height or setbacks, increase tenfold the number of petitioners needed (from 10 to 100 even for a small street), allow 30 petitioners to terminate an existing NCD, require lengthy reviews every 10 years.
PROPOSED INCREASES IN URBAN DENSITY:
POSSIBLE HEAT ISLAND IMPACTS
CCC blogpost:
AHO THIRD YEAR INTERIM REPORT:
Past, Present, Future(?)
Key takeaways from our recent blog: The Third Year Interim AHO report: already we are seeing the impacts of AHO 1.0 and even the AHO 2.0 currently under discussion and they often are not positive. Yes there are some successes, such as the repurposing of the former Sacred Heart Convent and School in East Cambridge and the fact that there are now some 1500 affordable housing units in the works. Another success has been the New Street development near Danehy Park, a project that preceded the AHO passage as a result of an intervention by then Councillor Jan Devereux to switch a proposed storage container building to affordable housing. We are also seeing more clearly now what happens when we have little viable accountability and oversight by the Cambridge Housing Authority and the city itself. Jefferson Park will cost nearly $1 million per unit to build (far more expensive than market rate housing units cost). And here there was no need to purchase land, since here they are simply rebuilding the existing structures at double the density and at greater height. In addition theses developments are sometimes very poorly managed, with so many complaints that the Mayor and Vice Mayor wrote a letter to the Cambridge Housing Authority to complain about the management of Walden Square. CCC's August 18, 2021 First Year AHO Report can be found HERE.
RECENT CCC BLOGS OF IMPORTANCE NOW
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Originally published in Cambridge Day
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Frogs-R-Us addresses some of the issues around developer interests and investments in Cambridge. Above image left; the cover to Jean-François Batellier’s 1978 cartoon collection, “No Deposit, No Return.”; right: cover of Cambridge Monopoly game.
Playing Monopoly takes up core issues in the architectural preservation issues around a move by another political party to gut long-standing conservation and historic preservation efforts in Cambridge
Playing Monopoly takes up core issues in the architectural preservation issues around a move by another political party to gut long-standing conservation and historic preservation efforts in Cambridge
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Other Cambridge Citizens Coalition Research and Opinion Pieces published in Cambridge Day
WHO WE ARE
Cambridge Citizens Coalition (CCC) was founded by local neighborhood group leaders and is led by them along with other local civic activists and residents dedicated to smart development, thoughtful city planning, good governance policies, sustainability, housing affordability, and the preservation of our trees, green spaces, and historic architecture.
"CCC is a city-wide organization that does not... believe that developers know best about how to solve the affordable housing crisis. That is pure neo-liberalism and that is the flavor favored by our political opponents. We are interested in taking land costs out of the equation as much as possible, building on city properties, encouraging land trusts and protecting renters. We also do not take a back seat on climate issues and want city resources spent on creating safe streets for bikers." (CCC Board Member, Chris Mackin).
"CCC is a city-wide organization that does not... believe that developers know best about how to solve the affordable housing crisis. That is pure neo-liberalism and that is the flavor favored by our political opponents. We are interested in taking land costs out of the equation as much as possible, building on city properties, encouraging land trusts and protecting renters. We also do not take a back seat on climate issues and want city resources spent on creating safe streets for bikers." (CCC Board Member, Chris Mackin).
CCC: Promoting a More Livable Cambridge
Change can’t wait. We need bold, progressive polices to address our most pressing issues
POLICIES THAT MATTER ON:
Cambridge Citizens Coalition (CCC) is dedicated to thoughtful city planning, smart development, good governance policies, sustainability, housing affordability, and the preservation of our trees, green spaces, and historic architecture.
1. Environmental Equity - addressing climate change can't wait! Safeguard trees and green spaces in every neighborhood.
2. Housing - stop gentrification, end exclusive single family zoning, create a real path to home ownership; add more mixed income housing
3. Smart Growth - we need a Citywide plan for smart growth (people before profits)
4. Neighborhoods are key (retain and build on naturally affordable longterm sustainable housing)
5. We live in an historic city; let's work together to preserve our rich architectural diversity.
6. Policies for equity (from Broadband and HEART to Universal Pre-K)
Change can’t wait. We need bold, progressive polices to address our most pressing issues
POLICIES THAT MATTER ON:
Cambridge Citizens Coalition (CCC) is dedicated to thoughtful city planning, smart development, good governance policies, sustainability, housing affordability, and the preservation of our trees, green spaces, and historic architecture.
1. Environmental Equity - addressing climate change can't wait! Safeguard trees and green spaces in every neighborhood.
2. Housing - stop gentrification, end exclusive single family zoning, create a real path to home ownership; add more mixed income housing
3. Smart Growth - we need a Citywide plan for smart growth (people before profits)
4. Neighborhoods are key (retain and build on naturally affordable longterm sustainable housing)
5. We live in an historic city; let's work together to preserve our rich architectural diversity.
6. Policies for equity (from Broadband and HEART to Universal Pre-K)
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MAILING DONATION CHECK$
Checks to Cambridge Citizens Coalition IE PAC can be mailed to CCC at P.O. Box 410291, Cambridge, MA 02141.
Checks to Cambridge Citizens Coalition can be mailed to CCC at P.O. Box 410083, Cambridge, MA 02141.
Checks to Cambridge Citizens Coalition IE PAC can be mailed to CCC at P.O. Box 410291, Cambridge, MA 02141.
Checks to Cambridge Citizens Coalition can be mailed to CCC at P.O. Box 410083, Cambridge, MA 02141.
CCC stands with the LGBTQIA+ community’s fight for equality. We are committed to ending anti-LGBTQIA+ violence, bullying, and discrimination, and to ensuring that LGBTQIA+ individuals are treated with dignity and respect in their communities, their workplaces, and their schools. CCC believes in nurturing growth and positive change for individuals and communities alike. We stand with and advocate for equity and social justice for indigenous communities, people of color (BIPOC), those with disabilities, others marginalized and individuals practicing every religious faith.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We honor and acknowledge that Cambridge sits on the traditional homelands of the Massachusett people. We also acknowledge their close neighbors and relatives, the Nipmuc and Wampanoag peoples.
We honor and acknowledge that Cambridge sits on the traditional homelands of the Massachusett people. We also acknowledge their close neighbors and relatives, the Nipmuc and Wampanoag peoples.