The organizations A Better Cambridge and Abundant Housing Massachusetts released polling Thursday and said Cambridge’s multifamily zoning is popular and critics are in the minority.
“The majority of voters in Cambridge want the City Council to take action to ensure more affordable, abundant housing options in the city” and support the zoning passed in February 2025, the organizations said in a press release about polling by Embold Research. Working between Sept. 28-Oct. 4, the firm drew 133 respondents on the Facebook and Instagram social media platforms and 309 through text messages to mobile phones. All were Cambridge voters that were directed to the same website survey, according to the firm.
From the analysis of 442 responses believed to be representative of the wider community, the organizations emphasize findings that: 64 percent of voters support the multifamily housing zoning ordinance, while 28 percent oppose it; and renters favor council candidates who prioritize building more homes by more than 3 to 1 (65 percent to 19 percent), with favorability rising to 72 percent among voters aged 18-34.
More than 8 in 10 voters in Cambridge say housing affordability should be the “single top priority” or “one of the top priorities” for the council, according to Embold – and 8 in 10 residents report being affected personally by the cost or availability of housing in Cambridge.
Voicemails seeking response to the polling were left on Thursday with the Cambridge Citywide Coalition via its president, Suzanne Preston Blier, because the CCC often takes policy positions opposite that of ABC; and with city councillor Tim Flaherty.
Flaherty proposed changes to the multifamily zoning in June, with councillor Cathie Zusy as co-sponsor, because “residents across all Cambridge neighborhoods have expressed widespread concern and dissatisfaction regarding the unintended consequences of the ordinance.” He told a neighborhood meeting Oct. 15 that seeing the effect of the zoning was one of the main reasons he ran for council.
“Historically in the city of Cambridge, this zoning ordinance might be the worst thing that’s ever been passed. It has it has the capacity to totally transform our city” within a single generation, Flaherty told the Porter Square Neighbors Association. “It will have a very systematic, and I think it’s ironic to say, in a very effective way if that’s the intent of this, to displace middle-class families and working-class people from the city of Cambridge.”
The zoning allows residential buildings up to four stories in height, or up to six if affordable homes are included, on lots of at least 5,000 square feet in broad new swathes of the city, and it reduces requirements for open space on a lot, including the setbacks around a new structure. The flurry of development that followed inspired Zusy and then the city to create websites to track the projects’ progress.
The outcry heard at meetings of the council and bodies such as the Planning Board and historical commissions have been from “a small but vocal minority of people,” said A Better Cambridge ahead of deliberations on Flaherty’s zoning changes. They return to the council for discussion next month.
“The polling results are a strong endorsement” of multifamily zoning, said Becca Schofield, co-chair of A Better Cambridge. “While a few residents want to stop building multifamily housing, this poll indicates that most Cambridge residents want it to speed up.”
Younger residents
The group said that among voters 18-34 and 35-49, who make up the majority of Cambridge’s population, support for the ordinance sits at 86 percent and 66 percent, respectively. And among renters, support of the ordinance sits at 79 percent.
“Cambridge is a wonderful place to live, but as a young renter, it’s hard to imagine being able to afford to put down roots here,” said Coco Rhum, a Cambridge resident quoted by ABC in a Thursday press release. “Building more housing, including permanently affordable housing, is a key part of making that happen.”
Blier spoke to the demographic issue in a response after publication via social media:
Most cambridge residents between 18 and 25 are students, many living in dorms, who do not vote here. Their universities often give them annual cost of living increases, driving up costs.
Zusy, on the other hand, said she was sympathetic to the need for the young – as well as middle-income adults and families – to find reasonable rents and real estate prices in Cambridge, but that multifamily zoning was resulting in the teardown of the naturally occurring affordably units that provide it. “This is going to make Cambridge less affordable, not more affordable. It is increasing units, but most of them are market-rate units and property values have increased,” Zusy said. “Most aspiring homeowners and individuals can’t compete with developers for properties, who will pay $300,000 to $500,000 more.”
“We need to come up with a new model,” Zusy said.
The organization’s polling results are here.
