Ordinance Committee Advances Upzoning Proposal to Full City Council

The Cambridge City Council’s Ordinance Committee voted Thursday to advance a proposal to eliminate single-family zoning across the city, leaving the measure just two votes of the full City Council away from passing.

The vote came after the city’s Community Development Department presented the Ordinance Committee with estimates that the most recent amendment to the proposal — requiring a minimum lot size of 5,000 square feet for buildings over six stories — could reduce the number of affordable housing units in 2030 by 100.

The amendment, which passed in December, was designed to address pushback from residents who feared greater height and density would be environmentally disruptive and endanger the character of their neighborhoods.

The new estimates suggest the ordinance will fall even further short of the city’s initial goal of creating 12,500 affordable housing units by 2030.

Councilor Paul F. Toner said he thought new affordable housing units built under the proposed zoning ordinance would still be a victory for renters in Cambridge.

“If we get to a couple of hundred over the next year, that’s multiples more than what we've had in the past,” he said. “If we just make forward progress on building more market rate and affordable rate inclusionary housing, I’m happy with that.”

The committee did not attempt to backtrack on the amendments, with members saying they represent a compromise between supporters and opponents of the proposed zoning changes.

“I'm proud of the work that we’ve done,” Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern said. “I think we've addressed a large number of concerns that people have had, but yet we’re still moving forward with making it easier to build more housing across the city.”

“We can’t afford to do nothing. We’ve got to do something,” Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

The committee ultimately voted to advance the ordinance to the full city council with one amendment, which increases the maximum building height from 70 to 74 feet to provide more flexibility for projects that include ground-floor retail requiring additional height.

Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy was the only committee member who opposed advancing the proposal to the full Council, which will hear public comment before deciding whether to move it forward to three additional meetings or allow it to expire.

Because the Ordinance Committee includes all nine members of the Council, the decision to advance the proposal at Thursday’s meeting could be a bellwether for the Council’s remaining votes. The Council will render its final decision by Feb. 17.

Councilor Patricia M. Nolan ’80 asked the Community Development Department for more precise estimates, recommending they consult developers to determine whether it would have been feasible in the first place to build six-story affordable housing units in lots smaller than 5,000 square feet.

But after months of heated debate on the proposal, the Council seemed exhausted — and skeptics of the amendments were ready to move forward with whatever compromise they could eke out.

“I will just say that I’m just on Team ‘Pass Whatever We Can’ at this point,” Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui said.

— Staff writer Diego García Moreno can be reached at diego.garciamoreno@thecrimson.com.