Council Updates, Risk to State Level Climate Action, and More

Health and Environment Committee Updates
Joint Housing / H&Env on Solar Energy Systems: Thursday, December 11, 3:00pm-5:00pm

• (meeting materials, when available)
• After some pushback from the rest of the Council on my proposal to protect existing solar energy systems, this proposal was sent back to committee for more deliberation. This meeting, a joint meeting of the Housing Committee and the Health and Environment Committee will continue to try to come to a compromise in order to protect residential solar panels.

Finance Committee Updates
Joint Housing / Finance on Incentive Zoning: Wednesday: December 3, 3:00pm-5:00pm

• (meeting materials, when available)
• The Housing Committee and the Finance Committee will hold a joint public hearing to discuss the feasibility and potential impacts of implementing residential development incentives – such as tax incentives, public equity financing, and reduced fees and requirements – on housing production and city finances.

Mass Ave and Cambridge St Zoning
I have gotten a number of emails related to Mass Ave and Cambridge Street zoning petitions. I wanted to include my response here so that everyone had an opportunity to see where I land on each of the proposals. There is also a bit of misinformation in the community about what is actually in each of the proposals, so I include a quick summary as well. I encourage you to read, and I’m happy to answer any questions.

I agree with much of the planning board’s assessment on both petitions. I think the heights are definitely a big change on a lot of both corridors, but are good incentives to building housing along transportation corridors, and especially on the Mass Ave petition. I think the definitions of active uses are good, but I don’t know how or if we can further refine that to incentivize local businesses. I think the stepbacks are good on both petitions – both will allow for a better streetscape, in line with the design standards and design guidelines, as well as a step-down to neighboring residential areas. It will allow for more street separation, improving walkability of both corridors, improving the health of street trees with more sunlight, and breaking up the streetscape. I had encouraged City staff to include stepbacks for all those reasons and I am glad to see each petition includes them.

I am slightly concerned with the ratios of heights to AHO allowances. Instead of raising the upper-most height limit on Mass Ave to 12 stories, I think it makes sense to reduce the upper height limit to 11 stories to defer to already existing AHO zoning, which allows 13 stories on corridors. The stepbacks required by the Mass Ave zoning will still give AHO development some advantages as well, but I am concerned it won’t be enough on Mass Ave. Cambridge Street still has a clear advantage for AHO, which is important to maintain. I also have some concerns about displacement of local businesses, especially on the Cambridge Street side. I know we are heavily incentivizing active ground floor retail, which will give those businesses more rental retail opportunities, but I want to continue to pursue all other options to help the potential risk that redevelopment raises for local businesses. We discussed some of this in the most recent Ordinance Committee meeting, but will need to do more work to consider options.

My most significant concern is with the minimal open space in these petitions and the prospect of continuous building facades without open space. I appreciated the planning board’s suggestion of perhaps including open space requirements based on the length of the frontage, to incentivize breaking up street facades, which is also a design standard goal within both MAPS and the Our Cambridge Street Study. We should be looking to existing parts of Cambridge for examples of courtyards, extended sidewalks for extra tree cover, plazas, and even pocket parks. I think all of these are included in our design guidelines documents, but I don’t see the incentives in the actual zoning for open space to break up the streetscapes. And I’m very concerned that without adequate incentives for that open space and streetscape design, that once parcels are redeveloped, we will lose that opportunity for open space for decades – there’s no way to restore open space once buildings are built, so I am concerned about losing it and not protecting it now, because there are extensive benefits for open space options along both corridors: cool and inviting areas for people to sit (including new residents who will live in these buildings), canopy space to reduce heat island impact, permeability benefits. The Mass Ave petition requires no open space below 8 stories, and the Cambridge Street petition requires no open space below 6 stories. All buildings will still need to comply with the Green Factor requirements of existing zoning, which may mean open space opportunities, but I am not convinced that developers will find ways around providing permeable, green open space. The design standards and guidelines as well as the envision goals and the working groups all pointed to the benefits of extended plazas, courtyards, and open space, but I’m not seeing that intention in the zoning. I am interested in looking more into the Planning Board suggestion of including open space requirements that take into account street frontage instead of simply height.

I think we are close on both of these petitions and there is a lot of good here. But I also think there is still a lot of unknown in terms of expected results. I am concerned about the results of very limited open space requirements and I’m concerned about incentives for AHO corridor development and even the future prospect of social housing development, which we are starting to dig into. I am glad the Council agreed that we need to continue this conversation, which we will do on December 2 at 5:30pm, and continue to do public outreach, and the people who engaged in the MAPS and Our Cambridge Street processes in good faith also deserve the benefit of the Council’s extended process. I’m committed to continuing this discussion and I believe in the vision of both the MAPS process and the Our Cambridge Street study, and I want to make sure that both these petitions reflect the vision of an inviting, vibrant, walkable corridor with more housing options.

Climate Rollback in Massachusetts
Last week I filed a policy order taking a stand against a Massachusetts House bill that would have dangerously set back the state’s and our city’s progress on climate mitigation. This bill was eventually successfully halted, in large part due to incredible advocacy by climate advocates all over the state including Mothers Out Front, the Sierra Club, and many others, but the efforts will likely continue in the future. The bill would have had significant impacts on sustainable construction in Cambridge and would have resulted in dropping state commitments to reduce carbon emissions and gutting investment in clean energy infrastructure, risking progress towards decarbonization and putting hundreds of thousands of residents at economic risk, including eliminating utility bill subsidies for moderate income residents. I am proud of the work by advocates to push back on this bill and was inspired to stand with them at the state house last week. It is more important than ever to remain vigilant against attacks on our efforts to combat the climate crisis.