---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lee Farris <Lee@leefarris.net>
Date: Sun, Mar 28, 2021 at 10:43 PM
Subject: [ACN] Alert: Citywide residential upzoning at Planning Board this Tues. 3/30
To: Cambridge Residents Alliance CORE <cambridge-residents-alliance-core@googlegroups.com>, Cambridge Neighborhood Association Google Group <association-of-cambridge-neighborhoods@googlegroups.com>
Cc: FPRA Google Group <fresh-pond-residents-alliance@googlegroups.com>, main@ecpt.groups.io <main@ecpt.groups.io>

Dear neighbor,

The Planning Board will hold a hearing on the “Missing Middle” zoning proposal on Tues., March 30, at 6:30pm. The proposal would allow developers to build larger and taller market-rate buildings in all residential areas of Cambridge.

Please let the Planning Board know your thoughts, in your own words, by emailing planningboardcomment@cambridgema.gov. Email by Mon. 3/29 at 5pm so that the Planning Board sees your email (if you can’t do that, please email by Tuesday.) Please BCC me, lee@leefarris.net, so we can know how many emails were sent.

We also encourage you to speak to the Planning Board about the up-zoning. You can sign up for public comment and watch via zoom here.

Ask the Planning Board to give an unfavorable recommendation to this zoning.

This proposal would be a huge upzoning, with little regard to Cambridge’s major goals of affordable housing and climate resiliency.

-It will not result in the housing that we need, because it depends on the market increasing the supply of new housing so much that the price of housing drops.

-In the hundreds of new market units that developers build in Cambridge each year, the rents are not affordable to middle income people, because developers also keep building commercial buildings filled with high-paying high-tech workers that then increase housing demand. The new buildings resulting from this proposed up-zoning will not supply "missing middle” income housing, because the building prices or rents are not related to people’s incomes.

-Any up-zoning raises land value for the developer. When the land value goes up, it is likely that some existing 1 and 2 family houses will likely be bulldozed to allow new denser, taller 40 foot high buildings. For example, on a 3750 SqFt. lot which currently has a two-family, this zoning would allow a 6 unit building, which would be much more profitable than the two family. On a 5000 SqFt. lot with a three family, a developer could build a 10 unit building.

-The proposal may not even increase the number of units on a lot. The Community Development Dept. (CDD) noted it is “possible that the zoning could result in larger dwellings if property owners prefer to enlarge existing units or create new larger units instead of adding a greater number of smaller units.”

-The proposal may increase displacement. Demolition could happen even in dense neighborhoods like the Port, and could lead to property owners, including Black families, getting attractive purchase offers, moving away to a cheaper city, and well-off mostly white people replacing them. Existing old housing is usually the least expensive market housing, and there would be less of it as a result of this zoning.

-The increase in land values will make it much harder for the Affordable Housing Overlay to result in affordable housing. The point of the AHO was that you can build more affordable housing on a lot than you can build market housing. If the advantage for affordable housing is decreased, we will get less of it. CDD said the proposal “would reduce the net additional benefit to affordable housing developments provided by the AHO compared to market-rate development. The Petition could make development sites more attractive for market rate housing, resulting in more competition for sites that might otherwise be acquired for affordable housing and potentially fewer opportunities for affordable housing development in residential neighborhoods.”

-The proposal would result in less open space than we now have. The zoning allows as little as 25% open space on a lot, instead of the current 30-50% open space. It allows a building to be 10 feet from the back lot line instead of the current standard of 20-25’ and it allows buildings to be only 10' apart, instead of 15’, which means less open space and less room for trees. CDD says this is a “potential concern” with regard to climate change.

-The proposal removes all off-street parking minimums. CDD says “It is not clear if any community [in the US] has eliminated all minimum parking requirements for all residential uses citywide.”

The petitioners say they want to end racial inequity caused by zoning that no longer allows new multi-family buildings in some parts of the city. But unless the proposed zoning requires a path to affordable rents and ownership, it is treating a symptom and not the disease. Stephanie Guirand of The Black Response said it well: “Asking for-profit developers to fix the affordable housing problem is like asking an arsonist to put out their own fire. What is their incentive? Upzoning without strategic government intervention rooted in a community process serves to reinforce the underlying failures of zoning, resulting in further segregation and race and class stratification.” Even CDD said “... it is not clear if [this] would directly result in greater racial equity.”

What should we do instead to address racial inequity in housing? If Cambridge residents create a community land trust, the trust could develop the smaller sites that the non-profit developers do not pursue, and that housing could become affordable homeownership offered as a form of reparations for the harm done by redlining. Evanston Illinois is funding affordable homeownership as part of its reparations program.

Please email your thoughts to the Planning Board by 5pm Monday, and speak at the meeting this Tues. at 6:30pm.

Thanks for taking action,

Lee Farris, President

Cambridge Residents Alliance: Working for a Livable, Affordable and Diverse Cambridge

https://www.cambridgeresidentsalliance.org/

Please feel free to forward.

Ruth Ryals
raryals@gmail.com