Susan Gittelman
Cambridge has done something exceptional: eliminate single-family zoning citywide. A new ordinance puts the city at the forefront of zoning reform, well ahead of places like Austin, Minneapolis, Oregon and parts of California that have adopted ambitious policies to address escalating housing costs by combatting exclusionary local zoning restrictions.
Under the new city-wide upzoning – dubbed the “Paris-ification” of Cambridge – multifamily housing developments of up to 4 stories are approved by right on any land parcel, and by-right approval extends to 6 stories if at least 20 percent of the units are affordable and the structures are on parcels larger than 5,000 square feet. Projects must still comply with city regulations such as building and energy codes and setback requirements.
Just as significant as the ordinance itself is that it was adopted by an almost unprecedented 8-1 City Council vote.
Consensus, Step by Step
Building consensus at this scale took years of political successes and setbacks. In 2020, Cambridge passed an affordable housing overlay that permitted affordable projects to be approved with more density than was otherwise allowed and created a streamlined approval process for the projects.
Three years later the city strengthened the measure by reducing citywide setback requirements and allowing taller affordable projects in higher-density districts, major squares and mixed-use corridors.
The city abolished parking minimums for all new development projects to reduce the cost of creating new housing.
Even with these ambitious policies, housing costs have continued to escalate at a breathtaking pace in this city of almost 120,000 residents. One result is that its current housing stock skews toward expensive single-family residences on one end of the spectrum and subsidized housing on the other. The new plan is designed to reduce or at least stabilize rents by increasing supply and adding “missing middle” workforce housing.
City leaders have worked hard to understand how to address the white-hot housing market. To their credit, they realized that without more significant intervention, the city would fall farther behind on its production goals. It was time for a pivot.
So councilors worked backward from the city’s housing goals, which were to end exclusionary zoning; promote more multifamily housing, including affordable housing; and to make multifamily projects easier to build by removing barriers that raise costs.
Leaders reflected on what was being produced by the private market, which was small multifamily buildings, and developed organizing principles around building support for density at this scale by taking advantage of the popularity of the triple-decker building typology characteristic of the region.
“Until now, 85 percent of multifamily structures in Cambridge were built before zoning and didn’t conform with the code,” said City Councilor Burhan Azeem, who co-chairs the council’s Housing Committee with Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui. “Now it’s allowable to build the triple-deckers that are the heart of our affordable housing stock.”
Promise of Gradual Change
Leaders worked closely with civic groups such as A Better Cambridge, an early YIMBY organization that has proposed similar policies for several years. Together and with others they built a shared recognition that Cambridge could absorb increased housing production by spreading it across the city.
For example, the fact that 70 percent of the lots in Cambridge are smaller than the 5,000 square feet required to build 6 stories by right reassured residents that density would be added gradually without dramatic changes to neighborhood character.
A series of proposals to upzone citywide were introduced in the four-plus years since the affordable housing overlay was enacted. Debate over the proposals was highlighted by compromise and collaboration, which built a strong base of community and political support that resulted in the City Council’s 8-1 adoption of the most recent reform.
Cambridge expects to add almost 1,200 new housing units (220 of them affordable) by 2030, and nearly 3,600 units (660 affordable) by 2040 as a result of the change.
One important question is whether this reform can be replicated in Boston and other major cities such as Seattle and Chicago that, like Cambridge, are more diverse and transit-adjacent. Both Azeem and Siddiqui see the Cambridge reform as a framework, not an off-the-shelf solution for other communities.
“Cambridge has unique economic forces and a unique culture that will affect the details of how other communities might want to apply these concepts,” Siddiqui said.
As A Better Cambridge Co-Chair Dan Phillips noted, “Factors like Cambridge’s housing affordability programs, existing level of density and even the views of specific individuals involved all influenced the details of this reform. But the main goal is the same everywhere: build housing where people want to live.”
Fully replicable or not, we now have a precedent and a roadmap where achieving real consensus can yield ambitious efforts to build both responsibly and at scale.
Susan Gittelman is executive director of B’nai B’rith Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer currently working in Boston, MetroWest and the North Shore.
