After passing a series of zoning changes to meet Cambridge housing needs projected in 2017, the City Council is asking whether the goals have changed.
The city manager is being asked to report back with a plan by June for creating a study to answer that, per a policy order by councillor Cathie Zusy, but with the understanding that none of the work will delay the creation of housing, per an amendment by councillor E. Denise Simmons. “This is a reasonable clarification. It allows us to gather useful information while also making clear that Cambridge must continue moving forward on housing production,” Simmons said.
Zusy called Simmons’ intent “inappropriate.”
“Who knows what we’re going to learn?” Zusy said. “To make a commitment not to change existing policy, no matter what the results yield, that’s crazy … the whole goal of doing this analysis is to have new data and to guide us to make best decisions.”
Their fellow councillors agreed with both, though. Tim Flaherty liked that it was “a parallel project that has nothing to do with anything else the city is doing” – and maybe a project that should have been done years ago – while Marc McGovern said it was important to be clear with the public that it was not about a housing moratorium. His questions were about how much a study would cost, as budgets are tight and due to get worse, and Zusy was making an example of Provincetown hiring the University of Massachusetts’ Donahue Institute to conduct a housing analysis there.
Along with approving Zusy’s order and Simmons’ amendment, the council passed an amendment from councillor Ayah Al-Zubi to hone how Cambridge Community Development staff will think about study pros and cons and what data gaps it would address. “We have a very packed year when it comes to what CDD is working on,” Al-Zubi said.
This year is already due to see two studies related to housing: one about inclusionary zoning in bigger residential projects, which sets how much square footage must be deeded as affordable, and another about linkage fees, which commercial developers pay to make up for upheaval caused by their projects.
A citywide master plan called Envision Cambridge finished in 2019 set a goal of seeing 12,500 homes added to the city by 2030, which was based on regional need projections from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in 2017. Since then, with an Affordable Housing Overlay and Multifamily Housing Ordinance passed, as well as other zoning that encourage housing, “conditions have changed substantially,” Zusy said, citing “a global pandemic, significant increases in construction and financing costs and economic headwinds affecting our universities, research institutions and life science sector – all of which have contributed to rental vacancies and slowed the production of rental and ownership housing.”
Whatever the specifics of the study – Zusy brought up single-room-occupancy buildings, rooming houses and cooperative housing as forms that might get attention – it would be surprising to see a recommendation to slow housing production.
In March, city demographers said Cambridge has surpassed its peak historical population of 120,740 in the 1950s and as of 2024 had 121,186 residents.
Further, the staffers said, the MAPC sees Cambridge rising to about 140,000 people in 2050 not including those in group quarters such as dorms and nursing homes. (With around 14 percent of Cambridge’s population lived in group quarters as of 2024, this suggests the full population of the city in 2050 would be around 162,790 people. That’s up 33 percent from what’s believed to be the city’s population now.
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