 PART TWO -- YIMBY Present and PastCouncillors Burhan Azeem and Sumbul Siddiqui were key sponsors of this up-zoning in the May 15, 2024 Boston Globe article: HERE On the image at the top of this post and the right hand side of the image bellow, we see the Kirkland Street property that was used in show-casing the upzoning petition's two main proponents, Councillors Burhan Azeem and Sumbul Siddique (here shaded by the large Spruce tree that was cut down several days later). The Kirkland Street property appears again in the Boston Globe more recently, specifically in the February 2025 article celebrating Cambridge for its very YIMBY citywide zoning petition. This second photo was taken before the tall defining adjacent Spruce tree was fed to a wood-chipper, because of Insurance company concerns of possible structural harm.  Housing across the city has been horribly expensive for a while, and it was in part to redress this problem that Cambridge YIMBYs and others have advocated for and have finally succeeded in loosening the requirements for building, targeting the BZA and other Boards as well as some more restrictive requirements on set backs and heights consistent with neighborhood housing nearby. The Boston Globe's first post on the Cambridge up-zoning plan in May 15 2024, by their pro-YIMBY reporter, Andrew Brinker, featured the views of the two councillors promoting this vision, Burhan Azeem and Sumbul Siddiqui, who were key sponsors of this up-zoning: HERE KIRKLAND STREETLet's take a closer look at a Kirkland Street property featured in the Boston Globe is an especially important one to explore further because it offers a number of insights on what is already beginning to happen here with the Multi-Family Housing upzoning. First some facts about the property from the City Assessor's Office, and the Online Property Database. We can see much of the data below. The Kirkland home is found in C-1 zoning, delimited as one of the city's most dense areas, but earlier with both specific height and set back criteria, along with design oversight criteria and a means of legal redress. Like many properties in Cambridge, the land is worth far more than the building itself. The property is a relatively deep one, with the the house located near the front of the lot with two parking areas, one on the left, and the other down a long driveway on the right that leads to a shed that abuts the rear property.  The title of the property identifies it as belonging to an LLC company, associated with a developer who lives a few blocks away in the same Kirkland Village neighborhood. The property is listed on the City database as being in "very poor" shape on the exterior and interior. It appears to have been used as offices in the recent past. It would seem to be a perfect candidate for demolition rather than repurposing, and possibly with a much taller and larger structure (or two). The land area of this very narrow property is 5,756 square feet, so according to the new upzoning, this property could go to six stories, provided that it is a building of 10 or more units, 20% of those being inclusionary ones that are "affordable" (meaning intended for people owning c. 60-120% average median income. This is VERY unlikely to happen however, since the price of steel is so high, and very few developers want to pay for the extra "affordable" ones, and the other tenants (or condo owners) would pay for the cost differential, escalating the prices even more. Neighbors of the Kirkland property are pretty lucky in that this current owner and developer is a neighbor who has indicated that he wants to get this project right. Plausibly this project will become two single-family homes, one at the front (closer to the street than the current home), and another behind it. In all likelihood the project will go to three stories, but two stories and four stories are also possible. In terms of style, we have learned that the architect is looking to create "box-like' contemporary homes that younger clients tend to like. We can't fault the developer or the architect on this front. Indeed, some of these contemporary box-like homes are very attractive and such plans tend to make good use of existing space.  Boxes take many interesting shapes, and likely the new single family homes (and their new owners) will be welcome additions to the neighborhoods, so too, would be the opportunity for architects to create new and sometimes creative approaches to the form. The structure on the left is featured as a "modern cozy box home" in Dwelling.Com. The one on the right called "a twisty box" was showcased in the November 11, 2020 Real Estate Section of Boston.Com. We won't know the final design of the Kirkland Property until the plans come to the Inspectional Services Department (ISD) for approval and permitting. We do know that these new homes, and every other must be compliant with BOTH Cambridge and the Mass State environmental rules. As more such homes get built the amount of electricity the city will need from Eversource or another source will increase substantially. Whatever the final architectural plans created for the site, the finished home(s) are likely to cost $2.5 million apiece or more. This is not the kind of housing that will work for our local firefighters, social workers, or teachers. American Dream Houses c.1900 What we also know is that the current "Gilded Age" mentality in Cambridge and around the U.S. by this YIMBY generation.is very different from what was happening 125 years ago when this Kirkland House was built ca.1900 right at the very beginning of a new populist movement to provide inexpensive homes via kits or accessible plans that would see a much less expensive grouping of homes rise across the area and elsewhere. When the existing Kirkland home is torn down, we hope that a neighbor (or even the developer) will have the foresight to look at the lumber to see if he can get the trademark name of the furnisher. Was it a Bennett home, or another model. 1900 was well before the 1910s when Sears & Roebuck were selling kit homes, which made them even more accessible to so many young people who wanted to bring up families in towns across the United States.  Where, we must ask, is the new "American Dream" in the far overpriced luxury McMansions that, Councillors Azeem and Siddiqui and their supporters on Cambridge City Council are now promoting in their recent upxoning ordinance, which might be better labeled "Mana from Luxury Mansion Heaven. These new homes, unlike the 1900 American Dream Homes are not about the "every person" or their needs. Even in the Gilded Age, there was a sense that hard working "regular" people needed a reasonably priced place to call "home."  Learn more about this American Dream House movement in sources like these:
Historic New England Kit Houses 1900s Kit Homes as Architecture Products Sears Houses in Cincinnati The Mail Order American Dream – uploaded to McMansion Hell We are now some 125 years post the American Dream House movement, though many are also still thinking about building kits, less expensive models and the need to house a new generation of workers and their families. But the $2.5 - $4 million costs per home, is not going to achieve any similar ends, and will do quite the opposite by increasing property values (and taxes) also of nearby homes, possibly forcing out lower- income and middle-income residents here and those fixed incomes. READ PART THREE -- HERE
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