Ordinance Committee Meeting – Housing – Jan. 16th 2024

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Update

The Ordinance Committee voted 8-1, with Councillor Zusy voting in the negative, to forward the petition as amended to the full City Council with a favorable recommendation. The version forwarded was Variation 6 with the following amendments:

  • 5-foot “contextual” side and rear setbacks, excluding town houses
  • Require a lot of 5,000 square feet for buildings taller than 4 stories
  • Ensure that the AHO still scales with the new zoning and allows up to 9 stories for Affordable Projects

The council will likely first review the petition on January 27th where they will likely vote to send it to a second reading, then have a final vote two weeks later.

Overview

Meeting Link

Source – presentation from first meeting

FAQ on Multi-Family Zoning by the CDD from the second meeting

The Ordinance Committee will hold its fifth and final meeting to discuss zoning amendments to end “exclusionary zoning” by allowing the construction of multi-family housing city wide. All residential zones would be merged into a single zone and be subject to the same requirements, restrictions, and allowances.

Unlike the last meeting, which was entirely public comment, this meeting will have no public comment.

The most likely next steps after this meeting will be for the petition to move to the full City Council for two readings and a final vote. The Council will be able to make additional amendments before final passage. Other possible outcomes, although both unlikely, are that the Council either lets the petition expire or votes it down.

Corrections

The special permit requirement was not included as part of the recommendations to the CDD. The city was also asked to review the feasibility of the additional open space requirements and not necessarily to amend the proposal.

Updates From Last Meeting

Based on recommendations from Ordinance Committee, the City Council voted to have the CDD further investigate and update the petition to match Variation 6. This would allow four stories as-of-right and an additional two stories for Inclusionary Projects. This is a change from the originally proposed six stories as-of-right.

The committee also voted to recommend the following changes:

  • Restore 5-foot “contextual” side and rear setbacks, excluding town houses
  • Require a lot of 5,000 square feet for 6 story buildings
  • Require a Special Permit for projects over 50,000 square feet
  • Ensure that the AHO still scales with the new zoning and allows up to 9 stories for Affordable Projects
  • Review feasibility of requiring five and six story buildings to have 40% open space of which 50% must be permeable

Likely Discussion

In the upcoming meeting, there are a couple of likely points of discussion beyond the aforementioned recommendations.

In the last meeting, Councillor Wilson requested that the CDD investigate lowing the as-of-right height to three stories while maintaining the six story allowance for Inclusionary Projects. This is now commonly spoken of as the 3+3 plan, with the four story variation now known as the 4+2 plan. At the last City Council Meeting, there was significant commentary and discussion of both plans.

Councillors also discussed limiting the average square footage of a unit to 2,000 square feet.

Current Zoning

Source: Cambridge CDD

Currently there are 12 residential zones that fall into one of three major types: single family A zones, two-family/duplex B zones, or multi-family C zones. C zones also include institutional uses such has universities. Multi-family homes can be as small as a triple decker or as large as a several story apartment building. Each zone also has restrictions on building height, size, footprint, and set-backs from the plot line. A type zones are the most restrictive with C type zones being the least.

Proposed Zoning

Source: Cambridge CDD

The proposed zoning changes aim to allow types of residential buildings and homes across the city as well as, “promote equity and consistency,” by using the same restrictions across all neighborhoods. To accomplish this, single and two family zones would be eliminated by converting A and B zones to C-1, which is the most common multi-family zone. Further, the requirements of C-1 would be changed to be more permissive of larger buildings to promote the construction of more housing. In brief these changes would:

  • Remove minimum lot sizes
  • Regulate based solely on open space and stories above grade instead of building size (FAR – floor to area ratio) and density (lot area per unit)
  • Allow up to 6 stories with a 75 feet height limit
  • Reduce or remove lot line setback requirements
  • Reduce or remove special permit requirements

Commercial buildings would still be subject to traditional regulation based on FAR

Mixed Use Districts

Source: Cambridge CDD

Currently, in business districts such as Inman Square, commercial buildings have stricter limits than purely residential buildings. The proposed zoning changes would promote these neighborhoods to be used use, allowing commercial buildings to use residential height allowances for the purpose of building more housing.

Variations

The city council requested that the CDD prepare five additional variations of the original plan for evaluation. These are the variations including the original.

  1. The original plan, which allows six stories city wide
  2. Four stories in current A and B zones six in C zones. Multi-family buildings will still be allowed in all zones
  3. Six stories for Inclusionary Zoning Projects only. All other projects would maintain the current zoning. A sub-variation of this plan would convert A and B zones to C-1 without modifying the zoning further.
  4. Four stories city wide and six to eight stories on select neighborhood streets: (e.g. Broadway, Prospect St, Huron Ave, Concord Ave)
  5. The original plan but with four stories instead of six
  6. Four stories city wide with an additional two stores for Inclusionary Zoning Projects.

Housing Projections

The CDD has prepared the following projects for housing construction under the six plan variations.

Source: Cambridge CDD
Source: Cambridge CDD


All comments are from members of our comment team.

One response to “Ordinance Committee Meeting – Housing – Jan. 16th 2024”

  1. Charles J. Franklin Avatar
    Charles J. Franklin

    I’m a supporter of the 4+2 plan, as it’s an attempt at a compromise that still allows basic housing to be built as-of-right that doesn’t tower over the neighborhood without at least getting some rent restricted homes in exchange. The 3+3 plan is an attempt in vain to slow down displacement. It does still allow more units on a given plot of land because it does away with other ludicrous restrictions, but limiting to three floors as of right doesn’t change much else cause we can already build to at least three stories in most of the city. It’s one of the reasons why developers keep putting up skinny three story single families in my neighborhood.

    The 3+3 plan probably won’t slow down displacement any more than 4+2 either. We’re already getting tear downs because skinny single families make more money than decrepit triple deckers. And if they’re not doing a full demolition, they’ll do a gut renovation which may as well be a tear down. Best case from 3+3 is that we’ll get a handful of extra Inclusionary homes but likely at the expense of the overall homes total. In my view, that’s a bad outcome. The vast majority of inclusionary homes are always going to come from large projects like Market Central, formerly known as Mass and Main. We also shave the Affordable Housing Overly which allows many zoning allowances for 100% affordable housing.

    The purpose of this plan is to help those who don’t fit in the income bands for the Inclusionary and Affordable programs and yet still can’t afford to live here. of which there are many, The 3+3 plan moves even further from this goal than the 4+2 plan without justification.

    Now, I’m not a fool. I know no amount of market rate housing is going to bring down rents. What will happen is that rents will stop increasing so fast, then incomes can finally catch up. It’s not quite as simple as supply and demand because housing isn’t a fair market, but supply is a critical factor in affordability and we can’t keep on ignoring that.

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