Changes proposed for Cambridge’s multifamily zoning won’t stop the flow of homes being built or take away the zoning’s status as the most permissive in the state, staff said at a Wednesday meeting of city councillors from the Housing and Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration committees.
Steps such as requiring more setback around a structure and changing how that space is calculated should stop abuses of the zoning, such as developers trying to rebuild homes bigger rather than to add to the total number of homes in the city, staff said. But the zoning is still “estimated to result in more than a 10-times increase in housing growth over previous zoning in residential neighborhoods by 2030,” a presentation said.
Still, the city is expecting its housing construction goals to be met by a handful of projects on major traffic corridors and in projects that create entire neighborhoods – one that includes 2,300 homes was heard Tuesday by the Planning Board – while it takes “dozens of projects to get to 300 units in the neighborhoods,” said Melissa Peters, assistant city manager for Community Development.
There are 58,966 total housing units in Cambridge, of which 9,021 or 15 percent are built and deeded to be affordable, according to Community Development. As part of the Envision Cambridge master planning process in 2018, the city said adding 12,500 homes by 2030 could ease surging, demand-driven real estate costs. The City Council and staff have taken a number of steps since to meet the goal, including eliminating parking minimums, increasing inclusionary zoning figures, passing Affordable Housing Overlay zoning and, on Feb. 10, 2025, enacting the multifamily zoning.
This zoning, which was meant to boost multifamily-home construction even in single-family-home neighborhoods, was described by councillor Cathie Zusy as a crisis. Zusy, chair of the Neighborhood & Long Term Planning committee, said the nearly 150 projects inspired by the law had led to “collateral damage.”
“Those supporting this ordinance believed it would yield subsidized inclusionary units that would allow them to stay in Cambridge, and they believed that increased housing production would lower housing costs … these assumptions are proving false. Mostly, the multifamily housing ordinance is producing luxury units, and it certainly hasn’t lowered the cost of housing. The ordinance’s lack of clarity has confused and enraged both developers and abutting homeowners, and it has incentivized the teardown of existing naturally affordable housing stock, the removal of mature trees and threatened public health and safety from fire, flooding, asbestos and lead. Because of the lack of design review, it has licensed the production of schlock … as of a few days ago, permitted projects – there are 49 of them – will only yield 30 inclusionary units.”
That brought a protest from vice mayor Burhan Azeem, co-chair of the Housing Committee, who noted that larger developments with more inclusionary affordable units take longer to permit. “That’s a whole separate conversation,” Azeem said. “But a lot of the IZ units are working their way through the pipeline.”
Peters and other staff also did not agree to the crisis framing. Calling the zoning “transformative,” Peters said only that the “ordinance is doing a lot of things right, but there are some impacts that can be addressed.” Jen Caira, the city’s deputy chief of planning, said there were only “a few instances” in which CDD sees a new, larger project without an increase in the number of units.
“We know that it’s a concern” and have discussed steps to take that will limit “the scale of the project if those are for larger unit sizes,” said Jeff Roberts, Community Development’s zoning and development director.
Zoning changes could add incentives for moderately sized units, return some design standards, clarify the review and permitting process and address some related issues such as tree protection, stormwater management and other green factors. Flexibility would be offered to developers by going to a “sum” approach for setbacks – emphasizing a total amount instead of specifying how much space goes where. There could be more emphasis on permeable, ground-level open space that can be appreciated by the public, with less bonus for “open space” such as private patios.
Inclusionary zoning
It was also treated as less than alarming by staff that developers skirt inclusionary zoning rules, stopping just short of the 10-unit or 10,000-square-foot threshold requirements to put permanently affordable homes in their buildings, and that developers opt out of going to six stories from the four that are allowed without affordable units.
An analysis due to be heard in full on Sept. 28 finds justification for existing inclusionary zoning rates of 20 percent of new square footage in large residential projects, which was in place long before multifamily zoning was passed. “Due to macroeconomic conditions, market-rate housing production continues to be financially difficult to build, particularly for projects over six stories that require more expensive construction methods,” Peters said. Staff expects to propose “options” around inclusionary zoning at a City Council meeting.
Discouraging abuse of the zoning and preventing luxury-focused teardowns, especially if they take away naturally occurring affordable units, was also a concern of city councillors who generally defended the 2025 law. Councillor Marc McGovern said relying on giant “planned unit developments” and construction on corridors was the opposite of what multifamily zoning was meant to accomplish.
Protecting the positive
A common theme among councillors who defended the zoning was to see true multifamily development encouraged, rather than see construction in general discouraged. And staff made it clear that developers would get an effective warning date of up to six months from the adoption of changes, and that projects far along in the permitting process wouldn’t be affected.
“Restrictions on McMansions and the most expensive type of housing are a good thing, and we want to incentivize the creation of more modest, lower-cost housing and inclusionary units, but we need to make sure that there’s not going to be an impact on inclusionary affordable housing units,” said councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, the other Housing co-chair. “If this decreases the amount of affordable housing that’s getting built, I’m not interested in changes, full stop.”
A motion came from councillors Patty Nolan and Ayah Al-Zubi to start the process rolling on the zoning changes, and Sobrinho-Wheeler added a wish to see modeling proving that staff’s proposed changes wouldn’t reduce the number of homes being created. A majority of the committees’ members passed them along.
The changes will appear on the council’s Sept. 28 agenda for a vote, go to the Ordinance Committee for at least two hearings and come back to the council with an opinion from the committee. Passage requires two votes of the full council over at least two weeks. “So we’re a ways away,” McGovern said. “And anything can be further amended throughout that time.”
