Please write to the Planning Board by noon on Monday and CC the city council and clerk (see below). All of us support the building of multifamily housing throughout our city. But that does not mean we should have NO zoning and take away any binding review of these properties (effectively emasculating the planning board). Worse yet, we are handing over zoning and design to developers. The proposed citywide upzoning will allow 6 story (75ft) buildings, 13 stories for AHO buildings) In every neighborhood, extending to the property line on the sides and in the back, without any design oversight (it is “as of right”. This will mean vast amount of mature tree loss on our private properties, as well as green space to grow more trees.it will put many gardens and solar panels on near permanent shade. *It takes some 60 years for a sapling to grow large enough to provide the same environmental capacities as a mature tree, and most newly planted saplings do not survive.* Six (and 13) stories is too high for most of our neighborhoods. Alternative proposals are being floated which would provide more market rate housing and affordable housing, as of right, but with more plan review, at 4 stories. Larger buidings should go on our major corridors and in our squares, where the renters/homeowners have access to mass transportation, Even there, we need more access to parking, since all of this proposed “new” housing does not call for any parking.. The current proposal goes against Envision (which sought to add green spaces to denser neighborhoods) and has environmental justice ramifactions by adding to heat island impacts and related harm particularly in our denser neighborhoods. It will almost surely result in tear-downs of currently affordable housing (many of them our neighborhoods’ doubles and triple deckers) and the displacement of hundreds or thousands of current Cambridge renters. Please write to oppose the current upzoning proposal, as it is written, on environmental and equity grounds. Ask that we continue to require oversight and advice for these larger buildings. Thank you, Ruth Planning Board is planningboardcomment@cambridgema.gov Council is: council@cambridgema.gov Clerk is cityclerk@cambridgema.gov