For a year or so now the Chestnut Hill realty Corporation has been trying to pass amend the zoning law in Cambridge to allow them to convert the basements of their large apartment buildings into apartments. Also note that the Zuker family who owns Chestnut Hill Realty is a major contributor to several of our city Councillors’ campaign funds. Councillor Decker being the major beneficiary of their largesse.
When they first introduced this it was entitled the “Workforce Housing” amendment. Chestnut Hill claimed that this would allow lower income local workers to find affordable housing in our community near their jobs in local businesses and institutions. The problem is that nowhere in the new law was there any provision for all of these new apartments to be affordable. The Planning Board and many citizens saw through this hypocrisy and the amendment failed to pass twice. The latest version will likely come up for a vote before the City Council on Monday, Dec. 12. Although the pretense of affordable housing for workers has been dropped, the basics are still the same. The area covered by the proposal is now smaller now and would extend for several blocks along Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard and Porter Squares, not the low rent district.
Other objections to this are that basement apartments often suffer from flooding, sewer back-ups, poor ventilation, and other problems associated with the mechanical equipment that they are often jammed in with, AND THERE WILL BE NO PARKING ADDED FOR THESE NEW UNITS, not to mention the stigma associated with being a basement kid.
Recently, the City Solicitor’s office issued an opinion in another zoning case that stated that zoning changes designed for the enrichment of a single property owner are prohibited under state law. That’s pretty close to home here.
Is there any way that this could be made into something actually beneficial for Cambridge? I think there is. The Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods discussed the matter last night and came up with an amendment that would make some of these objections go away. How about some actual affordable housing? The amendment would require that for each new unit added to a building, one unit in that building would have to be made affordable, and that , in accordance with existing city policy, the affordable units be distributed throughout the building and not clustered either in the basement or some other area forming a poor or “ghetto” area.
Many of the problems associated with basements can be alleviated through good inspection and enforcement of health and building codes, but the parking issue is certainly still there.
If you believe that Cambridge should make a move to increase its stock of affordable housing, distribute it more evenly throughout the city, and that large property owners should not be able to change the law for their own benefit without giving something back to the city they do business in, please contact your city council and ask them not to pass this amendment without this affordability provision.
Email: council@cambridgema.gov(An email message to this address will be received by all nine councilors)
Comments
I like the Association of Cambridge Neighborhood's idea and will email the Council.
Hi, Mark.
I wrote to the City Council, and Leland Cheung kindly responded. Here's my December 10 email to the Council:
Please vote no on Chestnut Realty's attempt to change zoning laws for their own building, unless they create new non-basement-level affordable apartments at the same rate as the new basement apartments."
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Below is the December 13 reply. What do you think about it?
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Christian,
Thanks for your email. I appreciate your taking the time to write in with your thoughts.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I have many friends who live in basement apartments in Boston and I personally find them charming, so far be it for me to pass judgement on whether people should live in Garden apartments or condos. So as I've said from the beginning, I have no problem with the proposal if:
1. The units are constructed in a way considered safe by the city engineer and won't put people's possessions at undue risk to flooding.
2. The development fits in with the surrounding community.
3. There is an approval process that allows the city to mitigate any potential impacts on existing neighbors.
Following the Ordinance process and an extensive negotiation between the petitioner and the Community Development Department, all of my demands have been met:
1. The City Engineer has the authority to approve or deny any proposed development for each individual site, and to require mitigation at his discretion.
2. The Community Planning Department limited the geographical scope to a narrow pilot area where the density of residential development is such that this is a marginal increase in unit count – nothing like the wholesale redevelopment we've fought in other areas of the city.
3. The parking waiver was removed from the petition, and each development must go through the Planning Board, which has the authority to require modify the scope of a project and require mitigation measures to minimize impact to neighbors.
We cannot continue to lament the loss of the middle class in cambridge and the flight of families to the suburbs, if at the same time we fight development at every turn. The solution is not simply to only allow larger units for families because the problem is fundamentally one of supply and demand. There is an exceptionally high degree of cross correlation in the prices of any housing category. We have to look for opportunities to sensibly develop housing while at the same time respecting the existing community. I know you disagree, but for all the reasons I cited above, I think this is one of those times.
Leland