City Council Proposes Changing Zoning Code to Promote LGBTQ+ Inclusion

The Cambridge City Council’s Housing Committee unanimously endorsed a policy order proposing changes to the city’s zoning code to “allow unrelated people to live together” during a Wednesday afternoon meeting.

The policy order comes after the Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission expressed concerns that the city’s current zoning language did not consider people who are not legally related to be a family, which the commission said excluded many queer residents.

The set of changes was first proposed in January by Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern, Mayor E. Denise Simmons, and Councilors Sumbul Siddiqui and Burhan Azeem, who referred to the current language as “archaic”at the Wednesday meeting.

“This is something that isn’t always enforced, but it always looms large,” Azeem said.

The amendments include adding “residential household” to the definition of “family” in order to “be more inclusive” of non-nuclear family structures, according to a presentation by the city’s zoning director, Jeff Roberts.

In a Wednesday interview with The Crimson, McGovern said “it was important for us to update our policies and our ordinances” to more accurately reflect the diversity of family structures within Cambridge.

Linden Huhmann — a member of the LGBTQ+ Commission — praised the Council for their work on the issue during the meeting.

“It’s clear that much thought and care went into the proposed zoning language, and we feel that the proposed changes will make Cambridge a more welcoming and inclusive place for LGBTQ+ and other households,” they said.

In a September letter to the Council, the LGBTQ+ Commission wrote that they have “heard stories of how this zoning restriction damages individuals’ relationships with their landlords and with the city.”

“A landlord was illegally not providing heat to a nine-person household,” according to the letter, “but the household was afraid to reach out to the city to learn more about their options because they were afraid the city would remove them from their housing due to having more than three unrelated residents.”

Last month, the LGBTQ+ Commission conducted a survey of LGBTQ+ residents to better understand how to improve their housing options.

The committee referred the policy order to the full City Council, which is set to formalize the recommendations in a zoning petition.