Council Updates, Bike Plan Updates, Holiday Joys, and More

Multifamily Housing Zoning Petition
On Wednesday, the Ordinance Committee held a meeting on the Multifamily Housing Zoning Petition that was entirely comprised of public comment. The committee met for about three hours and we heard from a very wide range of residents with both concerns about and praise for the proposal. But what really struck me was not the disparate views (of which there were many), but the common ground that so many people held. I first formally brought the conversation to end exclusionary zoning to the Council with a policy order in 2020 with Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, and it’s great to see so many in the community agree with the basic principle that we should undo exclusionary zoning (areas where only one and two-family units can be built) by allowing multifamily housing to be built anywhere in the city. More than that, we agree on much more than just the fact of building multifamily housing everywhere, including the need to maintain and protect affordability, the need to support the affordable housing production of the Affordable Housing Trust with inclusionary development through private development, the need to protect and develop open space, and the need for design guidelines and design review while also streamlining the process by removing common variance issues. This broad agreement can be a huge benefit to the community as we work through this process and I will keep these points at the forefront of my thinking. Of course there is nuance within those points: there is a difference between allowing three, four, or six stories to be built as of right, in terms of scale and also in terms of development pattern; there is a difficult balance between incentivizing teardowns and incentivizing inclusionary development; and there are important differences between design guidelines and a formal design review or special permit process. These are the questions we need to grapple with. I wrote about where I currently land on a lot of those issues in my previous newsletter here, and my thinking will continue to evolve as I discuss with residents, experts, and my fellow councillors.

I also want to continue to acknowledge that this process has its limits. No matter what we pass, it is unlikely that rents and housing costs will go down a lot here in Cambridge without surrounding communities doing more. It hopefully will curb some of the growth of housing costs, but until demand is met throughout the greater Boston region, housing costs in Cambridge will continue to be high and will likely continue to rise. It is important to be honest about expected results so that we can make good choices. I do not see this conversation as a binary choice between housing costs and the status quo. I am looking at this process through a range of expected outcomes and balancing a range of competing goals. I am committed to ending exclusionary zoning, and committed to maintaining open space and good urban planning. I don’t see those as diametrically opposed, but I understand that it requires balance.

I have been working to talk with and meet with people during this process to spread the word about this petition, and to understand individual concerns around the proposal. Thank you to everyone who has attended one or more of my recent office hour zoom meetings. They have been productive conversations and helped outline some of the concerns around the proposal. Over the coming weeks I will continue to ask City staff to address those concerns so that we can have an inclusive and productive conversation around zoning and housing. If you would like to meet to discuss the proposal at all, please reach out to my aide, Patrick, at phayes@cambridgema.gov, and he will work to find time.

And as a reminder on the process, my expectation is to vote on some proposal sometime in January or early February, so if you are interested, now is the time to get involved. You can sign up for email updates from CDD on the proposal here, and I have been writing about the proposal in my regular newsletters. Additionally you can see an overview of all previous meeting and meeting materials on the dedicated CDD website here.

Bike Plan and Cycling Safety Ordinance
During Monday’s meeting the council considered, and unanimously supported, a policy order I sponsored with Vice Mayor McGovern, and Councillors Sobrinho-Wheeler and Wilson that asks City staff to start the process of updating the Cambridge Bicycle Plan, which was most recently updated in 2020, to identify potential improvements and consider next steps for the bike lane network and especially how to coordinate routes with neighboring communities including Arlington, Somerville, Watertown, Belmont, and Boston. Also mentioned in the policy order is the work on the Grand Junction multi-use path, which can be transformational on the east side of the city. We need to continue to transform our streets to make them safer, more accessible, and environmentally cleaner, and that we can do that best through a robust and inclusive community process. I am excited to have that work begin, so the community will have notice that we will be looking to extend and improve the network of protected bike lanes AND have time to weigh in and adjust to any proposed changes. The Crimson wrote an article about the policy order and the Council discussion. I look forward to hearing from City staff on how that community process will look.

As mentioned in a previous newsletter, the Ordinance Committee met to discuss a number of topics related to the Cycling Safety Ordinance. On November 21, the Ordinance Committee met to discuss changes to zoning to allow for additional flexible parking along business corridors, which will allow local businesses to open up their underutilized parking to the general public for use. This change is meant to ameliorate the loss of parking due to the installation of separated bike lanes on some streets. Additionally, the Ordinance Committee met on December 3 to finalize the six month extension of the CSO to November 30, 2026. You can read my more detailed thoughts on that process here. Both of those ordinance changes will be finalized in the coming weeks and will go into effect thereafter.

Finance Committee – City Budget
On November 20 I chaired a meeting of the Finance Committee to review and discuss the Operating Budget in advance of the FY26 budget season. As co-chairs, Councillor Toner and I are working to build upon the work of the last two budget cycles, which offered the council and the community opportunities to give input before the budget was presented and essentially finalized. Over the last two budget cycles, we have held meetings earlier in the fiscal year which have allowed for deeper discussions with City staff on budget priorities and long-term fiscal planning. This meeting built on some of the discussions we have had in the Finance Committee over the last few years and especially the Roundtable discussion we had together with the School Committee on October 28 discussing macroeconomic trends. As we continue to plan, we will not be able to fund everything we want. We will have to prioritize spending, be judicious in choices on spending, and be aware of options to economize. We have made significant, and important, investments in affordable housing, community safety, road safety, schools, and preschool education over the years, and so we will need to take stock of the continued financial impacts of those decisions. We were also able to discuss some of the financial planning decisions and debt management practices that help protect residents from increased tax burdens due to a slowdown in commercial growth. We will continue this discussion of short and long term financial decision-making with a Finance Committee meeting next Wednesday, December 11 where we will discuss the Capital Budget and public investment planning. This meeting will focus on longer term capital investments and bond management.

Charter Review
On Monday afternoon, the entire Council will meet as part of the Special Committee on Charter Review to discuss the status of the Charter Review process and develop a timeline and plan for advancing recommendations. This meeting will build on the meetings on June 5th and June 25th where the Council made a few determinative steps. I am disappointed it has taken so long to convene this special committee, and I am excited to continue the work of reviewing and improving our city’s governing document. The meeting materials from June linked in the above communication are a good primer to the process and also contain the full report of the Charter Review Committee.