 These images show documents from a Harvard undergraduate student group who has spoken out at the recent up-zoning meetings. At the last few meetings on the citywide up-zoning the people who gave public comment were roughly divided between proponents and opponents of the proposed ordinance, and concomitantly between largely older Cambridge property owners and largely younger Harvard & MIT students and others. Indeed, one commenter, noted that he could determine in advance the Pro- versus Con- viewpoint of a given speaker based on the relative youthfulness of their voices. Some of the intensity of opinions on these issues carries the flavor of the earlier generational divide during the Vietnam war era. In both cases core fundamental values and ideologies feature prominently in this discussion. When a society is facing tough issues concerning housing, affordability, livability, the environment, and infrastructure, then complex issues such as these often come into prominence. This is especially so when locally, nationally, and internationally the housing costs have grown exponentially, along with housing, property and related investments are bringing large returns, and a general sense that those who may have purchased earlier and are seeing their properties values (and taxes) increase so profoundly. There are other factors here as well, over the past 20 or 30 years the number of graduate students at our local universities have grown a lot, far outpacing the ability of schools to acquire needed housing. We know from the 2018 Cambridge Town & Gown Report the following housing facts: Students Living Off-Campus in non-University Housing Harvard 3340 (17.6% of all students in degree programs) MIT 2659 (23.8% of all students in degree programs) Hult School of Business 415 (39.3% of all students in degree programs) Lesley University 214 (5.8% of all students in degree programs). 6,228 (total # of students in Cambridge non-student housing) There are also another 6879 faculty and staff living in Cambridge as well as various post-docs. At some point this too needs to be addressed, as the number is increasing year-over-year (up 8.7% since 2014). However, in the current local, national, and university financial climate, as well as the increased costs of steel and other imported building supplies, this is not likely to be resolved without greatly reducing the number of graduate students, which in turn would impact university and program activities and revenues. What also needs to be stressed is that the growth of student population at two of the highest endowed universities in the world without university housing to mirror that growth has resulted in students driving up rents in neighborhoods, rent sharing in units that once housed working class families. Some also have been allowed t on affordable housing lists even though their income is temporary, by choice, and accompanied by the clear benefits of the degrees they are receiving. Let us explore this more closely by looking at MIT and Harvard public student engagement with the up-zoning proposal and ordinance. The MIT Graduate Student CouncilThe October 17, 2024 MIT Graduate Student Letter to City Councillors on the proposed upzoning ordinance is a very thoughtful one, laying out some of the problems that students are facing here not only with addressing housing needs, but also food insecurity.  The MIT Graduate Students Union raise two points of special interest and concern for them (see below). We appreciate these concerns, and their interest in bringing increased density (more residents) to the city as something important to both the success of our universities and technology industries here, as well as for maintaining and bringing new talent to our city. Similar increased population goals are in the city's Envision report.  At the same time, these students argue for the expansion of the citywide Affordable Housing Overlay (where and how is not indicated by them). What they do indicate is that they as graduate students want to be able to benefit from this part-publicly funded housing, alongside others of lower-and middle-income. As they note, "graduate students...mostly make less than 50% of area median income and often have difficulty finding housing at prices that do not result in severe rent burden." One former Harvard Graduate Student recalled to us how, in the past, students were encouraged to apply for federal and local funding set aside for others who would not share the same expectations of future significant earnings growth. In some ways this is also what MIT's students are suggesting. Yet, at the same time it is important to understand the responsibilities of this university (and others) to provide adequate housing in the area, in so far as they are receiving sizable tuition or grand funding and/or lab- teaching support that these students in turn are providing. In many ways students are simultaneously both an enormous resource and a driver of our housing costs. Since they receive receive regular housing allotment increases (to meet the increasing cost of housing here) and most are relatively short term renters, whose leases turn over every couple of years, their presence in our housing market helps push up housing costs with each new housing allotment increase, and with each lease termination. Indeed, it is at the time of lease terminations that rent prices increase most fast, presenting a classic "chicken and egg" problem. How we address this issue going forward has to involve MIT and other universities. Harvard's Undergraduate Urban Sustainability Student GroupThe "Cambridge Civic Taskforce" within the Harvard Urban Sustainabiliity Group states on their website that they are: "Interested in what’s going on where you live? Want to advocate for sustainable, just policy at the local level? We’re building a community of students who care about local politics and want to be knowledgeable and involved in Cambridge. This group will meet over a weekly meal to discuss local news, municipal governance, and opportunities for involvement. No experience in local politics is necessary!" We definitely applaud this, as we do their core"Community-First" orientation. As they state on their website: “The work we do can impact communities. We care about working directly with local governments or local impact groups. We work with a variety of stakeholders in order to ensure the research we provide is directly useful." This too is an ideal goal. We also applaud their focus on "Innovation" and specifically that "Making progress in the urban environment is all about thinking creatively. We values unique ideas and stories in order to make an impact." These are all laudable goals that we all share. We also support how they have encouraged fellow students to sign up and speak at City Council on this, as well as putting together and publishing a petition on this issue. This is all part of civic engagement and responsibility. Advising one's supporters on what they might say can also be helpful as they do here:  And what caught our attention here is not only that they are asked not to give their dorm name, but also that they are guided specifically to Councillor Burhan Azeem, the zoning petition's core sponsor, and the document that he and/or his office had prepared on this. This seems to us a rather one-sided perspective, and indeed a somewhat problematic influencing by Councillor Azeem to get the voices of these students (most of whom do not vote here) to come out in force on this issue. This "doc" with speaking talking points from Councillor Azeem's office is shown here. Many of us had wondered why so many of these youthful commenters were sounding so similar one to the others. You can see it here:  The information provided to these students at the Harvard "more housing" link at the Cambridge Civic Committee tab on the Harvard site also contains the following: "The below images are from a presentation by city staff on the original ordinance and a presentation by A Better Cambridge (a housing advocacy group) on how zoning limits housing options. [Emphasis added]These provide detailed explanations and examples if you want to learn more! While we support all residents and especially younger ones getting involved with civic issues in Cambridge, it is not a good sign that they have chosen, not to listen to various sides of the issue, but instead to follow the largely ideological driven views of this one political group. There were five different groups that spoke out against the the current upzoning ordinance. These included our group, Cambridge Citizens Coalition, the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition, the Cambridge Residence Alliance, CARE Housing, NAACP, and Our Revolution. The pro-developer/pro-housing group A Better Cambridge (ABC) were the only main group in support of this plan, and because they now are a majority of Council, this large scale Zoning Petition has now been ordained. The link that is provided to the materials prepared by Azeem's political group (A Better Cambridge - ABC) includes glossy drawings and photographs of what this group believed (inaccurately in our view) will now be happening in Cambridge. See image below:  Finally, it is clear that, in addition to Harvard University Undergraduate Students and MIT Graduate Students (and others) sharing a responsibility to look broadly and deeply at the issues to better understand the issues, and get the facts right, we also feel that here too a line was crossed on the part of Councillor Azeem, much as he appears to have done with Cambridge's Plan E rules and possible issues around an investment property last May (see Part V). The petition that Harvard students are encouraged to sign (see below), takes the students directly to the A Better Cambridge mailing signup and volunteer possibilities.  Note what ABC is asking their student petitioners to support: apartments in Cambridge neighborhoods. Yet there is nothing in the ABC ordinance that requires or even encourages apartments to be built (unlike in some progressive upzoning efforts). Nor are there likely to be any apartment buildings constructed because they simply do not "pencil" out.
We do not begrudge Councillor Azeem and the ABC political group that spear-headed this YIMBY up-zoning effort. We applaud them in their success in attracting the Cambridge university students to their cause (although few appear to actually vote here). However, we do feel strongly that they have an obligation to take ownership of the likely outcomes of this upzoning petition: to make housing even more expensive here for everyone, including student renters, and others. And we do feel strongly that when a Council Council leader remarks that the residents here are roughly divided on the issue, so it is up to his Council majority to take things in their own hands and decide, that he is mis-framing if not misleading the population by privileging the comments of our more youthful residents who appear to have been in large part funneled Councillor Azeem's literature, talking points, and strategies of engagement. advocacy. At the same time we, in our civic groups, as professionals, civic leaders, educators, parents, and mentors need to reach out further to this group and others, letting them know that this huge Cambridge YIMBY success is already leading to higher housing prices and larger single-family homes, and that there is very little possibility that an "affordable" housing (by way of inclusionary units) are likely to be created through this ordinance. THE END.
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