Council Updates, End of Summer, and More

Community Benefits Clarification
After the contentious discussion on how community benefits should be allocated and defined, all of us agree we need a better process and clear guidelines. Councillor Toner, Mayor Simmons, Councillor Azeem and I submitted a policy order asking for clarity and a process. We all hope to avoid another divisive situation as happened over the Biomed 320 Charles Street project. Biomed was exemplary, the process was not clear to many, which led to anger and confusion, which was not good for the community. We hope to fix that for all similar projects going forward.

Micromobility Commission
In April 2025, MassDOT announced a Special Commission on Micromobility aimed at “studying current state and local regulations and developing recommendations to expand micromobility use to help achieve shared goals for increasing mobility options, emission reductions, and economic vitality.” This state commission is taking on a very important issue – that city and state residents have been wrestling with for a long time. An example of why this commission’s work is important: A friend was hit by an e-scooter a year ago – ended up in the hospital and with a broken bicycle. The scooter driver was clearly in the wrong, yet the police were in a tough position of not really being able to ticket the driver like they would have if it had been a car, since the state law hasn’t caught up to the reality of today’s streets and vehicles. That is where the state commission should be able to help, especially in its consideration of issues like regulating different speeds. I filed a policy order this week with Councillors Azeem and Toner and Vice Mayor McGovern to ask City staff to continue to participate in the commission process and update the Council and the community on its findings and recommendations. The policy order language spells out why this is important – and asks for the city to get input – so here is your chance for anyone to send comments to the state so the recommendations meet the needs of all our residents.

License Plate Readers
Back in February 2025, the City of Cambridge accepted an Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant to deploy license plate readers for regular use by the Cambridge Police Department in the course of their regular criminal investigations. In the months since, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been reported to be active in Cambridge, and recent actions by ICE around the country—including in Somerville and Worcester—have raised concerns about the safety of community members and the legality of the agency’s actions. The ACLU and other community advocates have brought up concerns around nationwide sharing of surveillance data and the fear that the Cambridge Police Department could inadvertently share surveillance data with the federal government, which, without a lawful warrant, could be in violation of our Welcoming Cities Ordinance. To be clear, the Police Department only intends to use this technology to assist in solving crimes, not for any immigration enforcement purposes – which is not the job of local police – but there are concerns about data sharing with cloud-based surveillance software like this that would allow ICE to access private CPD data, which could be a violation of residents’ right to privacy. You may remember that I, along with Councillors Siddiqui and Sobrinho-Wheeler, voted against this technology authorization back in February for exactly this concern about the federal overreach of the Trump administration – but in light of escalating actions by the federal government, I filed a policy order this week to consider delaying deploying the technology until we have a better understanding of the legal implications as well as the need to protect residents from federal overreach.

Short-Term Rentals
For several years now I have been working to improve our local regulations for Short-Term Rentals (AirBnbs). I filed a policy order back in September 2023 after working with dozens of residents over the years who have struggled to deal with illegal STRs in their neighborhoods. On August 27 the Ordinance Committee met to discuss possible zoning amendments in order to better regulate STRs. The Boston Globe did a piece on some of that work, which you can read here. The City originally began regulating STRs in 2017, but we haven’t had any comprehensive reporting on the impact since then, and many residents have struggled with unregulated or illegal STRs in their neighborhoods. Many cities since 2017 have taken steps to better regulate STRs – we should be on the cutting edge as well, as STRs, when unregulated, can impact housing availability and have negative neighborhood impacts. When STRs work well, they can be a great opportunity for local residents to supplement their income by renting spare rooms. When they are unregulated they can take away important long-term rental opportunities and upset neighborhoods with constant turnover, partying, trash issues, and other ill-effects. At the meeting on August 27, the Council discussed a number of ideas with City staff around enforcement, clearing up ambiguities, and setting clear standards for operators.

Throughout this discussion, it’s important to maintain the goals of updating the ordinance, which are to regulate short-term accommodations within the city to ensure proper enforcement of safety, waste, noise and nuisance, contact requirements, and other neighborhood concerns; to ensure that short-term accommodations are not having an undue effect on long-term rental markets in the city; and to ensure compliance with the regulations of the existing ordinance, in light of a majority of short-term rentals currently listed on the market being unregistered and operating illegally. Short-term rentals can help residents earn extra income and be a meaningful part of the housing and lodging ecosystem within a city, as long as they don’t create public health or nuisance concerns or disproportionately affect market rate rental costs, and so enforcement of zoning and regulations is essential. I filed a policy order for Monday which asks ISD and the Law Department to reach out to all registered STR operators as well as condominium owners to talk about possible regulations that we can work on more this fall.