From: NorthCommons <northcommons@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [NorthCommons] Chronicle Letter From FPRA About the Overlay
Sharing a letter by the Fresh Pond Residents Alliance just published in the Chronicle about the Affordable Housing Overlay:
Housing for All, Not at All Cost
The City of Cambridge has become quite divided by the recent proposal to change its zoning laws through a city-wide Affordable Housing Overlay petition. While residents and public officials agree that affordable housing is the most pressing issue for the community, there is disagreement over the definition of “affordable” housing, as well as how best to solve the problem.
With the recent formal submission of this zoning petition, there is a fast-approaching deadline to determine whether this change will produce more housing that people can afford or whether it will instead be a Trojan Horse for even more development.
High housing costs are not unique to Cambridge; the entire metro Boston area is burdened by rising real estate prices. Cambridge has built or permitted over 9,000 new housing units since 2010. But despite major contributions to the housing stock, rents continued to climb higher than in any other metro area, and thousands of residents have been pushed out as new luxury housing has cannibalized our existing housing stock.
Cambridge has over 14% of its housing stock set aside as subsidized units for income-qualified residents, well above the state’s mandated 10% minimum and one of the highest rates in the state. This is the same percentage of units that existed during the time of rent control, except that current rules ensure that the housing is only available to those residents truly in need. Recently, the inclusionary zoning percentage was further increased to require developers to set aside 20% of all new units as affordable, ensuring that the City will continue to generate income-qualified, subsidized housing as it continues to grow.
But currently, there is no solution for middle-income housing. Housing that working families can afford. Long-time residents continue to be displaced as developers and landlords raise rents or flip properties for a profit. Luxury housing continues to be built, as does the accompanying subsidized housing for the lowest income brackets, but little or nothing is done to help the missing middle.
Residents of Cambridge were hopeful that the Envision Cambridge planning process would provide more comprehensive housing solutions. Instead, the City decided to insert a long-simmering housing proposal under the guise of Envision and has spent considerable time and effort trying to “sell” it to the residents of Cambridge. It was submitted as a formal zoning petition last month, on May 6th. Under the State’s zoning rules, the City Council has 100 to 155 days to write it, evaluate it, and get a recommendation from the Planning Board before it takes a final vote.
The City’s Community Development Department has created a marketing campaign for the zoning petition and a Political Action Committee with national ties has been active on social media claiming such a zoning change would solve a number of societal ills--equity, racial segregation, climate change, affordable housing, green building, and open space—all conflated with the zoning proposal as a social panacea.
Perhaps the biggest issue with the Overlay proposal is that it encourages more building, but with less oversight and zero planning. Our city has experienced its largest building boom since post-WWII and is the third densest in the State, denser than Boston. Meanwhile, residents struggle with increasing traffic, the erosion of public assets like our tree canopy, reduced permeable open space, climate change impacts in an expanding floodplain, and the failure of any infrastructure plans to accommodate such growth..
Second, it involves changing zoning across the entire City, using new untested mechanisms that the City has yet to effectively articulate, detail, or study. There are still too many unanswered questions even as the City Council sends the unfinished proposal to the Ordinance Committee to complete within the short time frame dictated by State law.
Third, it is expensive. This approach to providing affordable housing is estimated to cost $500k per subsidized unit, a burden that the City of Cambridge would have to fund. In a city already struggling to meet the needs of thousands on housing waiting lists and a growing homeless population, it’s an inefficient use of public funds. It is hard to justify that kind of expense even for a wealthy city like ours, particularly when other efforts would yield more immediate housing solutions for far less cost.
Unintended consequences that City has yet to address include:
1. That adding taxpayer funds to an already overheated real estate market would raise property prices even higher, further displacing middle-income families. 2. That granting different and unequal rights to developers could be challenged in court on the grounds of due process, a concern raised by the Cambridge Planning Board. This could open up the entire city to huge and unrestrained development. 3. That allowing “as of right” approvals removes community and Planning Board input which has historically served to temper the aggressive drive and goals of development in our neighborhoods. 4. That giving City funds to both non- and for-profit developers is setting a dangerous precedent and removes the important separations between private markets and public governance. 5. That changing the zoning law across the entire city will encourage tear-downs of existing rental properties, displacing their residents, and put very large, dense buildings with no green space in already dense neighborhoods, completely changing the character and livability of our city.
Hopefully, the Ordinance Committee will bypass the ongoing disinformation campaign and the recent political theater played out in front of the Housing Committee by Overlay advocates. Instead, they should take a hard and critical look at the real implications of this zoning petition for our city and evaluate its efficacy to produce truly cost-effective housing for all Cambridge residents, not just those at the bottom or the top.
Fresh Pond Residents Alliance is a neighborhood organization and citizen advocacy group focused on urban planning and sustainable growth in Cambridge Massachusetts
Article here
https://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20190611/guest-column-housing-for-all...
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