Council Updates, Juneteenth, Dance Party and More

BEUDO
On Monday, June 26, we will be voting on final ordination for amendments to the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO). There will be some debate I imagine as there are at least a few changes still being contemplated. One change, which I support, would require new buildings constructed after 2024 to get to net zero by 2030. I believe this change is in line with the principles of the ordinance and would help incentivize more building developers to build directly to net zero construction. Other changes being floated may include exemptions for specific uses – which I do not support since we have exemptions for financial or other proven distress – we should not risk creating loopholes. We are at a place where we are on the precipice of passing strong BEUDO amendments that will get us much closer to our net zero goals, and we cannot allow ourselves to weaken the ordinance at this point. BEUDO doesn’t get us to our net zero goals on its own; we still have a huge road ahead of us, so we need to be sure that BEUDO (which does represent a significant chunk of our carbon emissions) is as strong as possible. Your emails to the city council have been incredibly important during this process. Let’s get BEUDO over the finish line on June 26.

Cambridge Community Electricity Program (CCE)
On Monday, we heard from CDD on the ongoing plan to renegotiate our community electricity aggregation program, the Cambridge Community Electricity (CCE) program. This program is an important part of the city’s overall carbon emissions reduction plan as it allows all electricity customers to opt-in to electricity from 100% renewable sources.  AND it finally, after years of advocacy, has the standard program much higher renewables than the state-required minimum.  This program will also work hand-in-hand with BEUDO, helping covered buildings reduce their carbon emissions before doing any serious retrofit work – jump starting their timeline for net zero.

Amendments to the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO)
We have received a significant amount of outreach over the continued discussions around amendments to the AHO. I have responded to many of you, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts here as well. As I’ve stated before and will continue to express, I have several issues with the amendments as currently written and with the rationale for how they were formulated, and I cannot support them at this point. I believe that these amendments to the AHO are premature and should have been considered and proposed as part of the scheduled five-year review process. As all who follow city politics know, the original AHO created rifts and divisions in our community, and I worry that this proposal will do the same. You can read my full statement at the bottom of this newsletter. If you have any questions about my position or would like to discuss the amendments further, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Kelley Petition – EV Charging
On Monday we ordained a very interesting and forward-thinking petition by former councillor, Craig Kelley, that will allow for car-sharing and EV charger-sharing within Cambridge. This is a creative idea which will hopefully 1) reduce the need for individual ownership of cars, and 2) increase the likelihood of residents to ditch their gas car for an electric option. By allowing residents to rent out their electric car charging units in their own driveway, we will expand the total charging infrastructure within our City much more rapidly than we could do otherwise. I’m excited for the potential of this new ordinance.

Home Rule Petition – Automated Traffic Enforcement
This week I sponsored a policy order to file a Home Rule Petition with the state to allow Cambridge to employ automated traffic enforcement for several traffic violations: red light violations, speeding violations, and blocking bus lanes. This home rule, as the attached policy order outlines, builds on all the work of this council and previous councils to work towards automated traffic enforcement. The rationale is for greater safety and offloading some of the traffic enforcement from police officers. I spoke to Commissioner Elow before filing the policy order, and the police department can support this as supplemental to their operations and are open to discussion of possible transition of  these kinds of services away from the department in the future. My hope is that if the state house allows this legislation, it will enable better, safer enforcement of traffic violations and will improve our road safety.

Cycling Safety Ordinance Review
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have been working to see how we can monitor the success of our Cycling Safety Ordinance. I support the ordinance and the timeline, and believe we should monitor effectiveness. The federal study shows bike lanes are safer – let’s make sure we all understand that data so we don’t have competing data sets.  Last Monday, the council passed a policy order, which I co-sponsored, that calls for a joint meeting of the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee and the Neighborhood and Long Term Planning Committees to review the implementation of bike lanes across the city. The policy order, more than anything, asks the city to have conversations, show implementation data, and to analyze the effectiveness of the CSO over time to make sure it’s having its intended effect. I hope this will lead to more transparency, more safety, and better streets.