The city sought to remove barriers to affordable housing construction by cutting permitting times and costs. And while funding shortfalls will hurt its full potential, it already appears to be working.
Beneath a facade of inclusivity and progressivism lies an ugly truth: Cambridge is not open to everyone. But the City Council should not settle for a surface-level fix.
Cambridge is a poster child for rich, anti-housing cities region-wide. But a quartet of city councilors there are trying to challenge that orthodoxy in a dramatic way.
Cambridge’s new Affordable Housing Overlay has had a tremendous and immediate effect on parcels already in nonprofit hands, adding over 400 new units of affordable housing to the pipeline in a year and a half.
While it’s still new, it’s already clear Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Overlay will be an effective tool in the housing toolbox – and Just A Start’s 52 New St. project is leading the way.
Housing activists are looking to pro-development candidates in Cambridge’s November election following the city council’s decision not to act upon a proposed citywide affordable housing overlay district.
