Council Updates, Welcome to Fall, And More

City Manager Update
We received a Fall Update from the City Manager during our council meeting on Monday. In it, he talked about the FY24 Budget, council budget priorities, which I helped to coordinate and develop as co-chair of the Finance Committee, and an expanded Participatory Budgeting process. More transparency as well as more council input into the budget process were two of my main priorities as Finance chair this term. Anyone who follows my work will know that the climate crisis is always at the top of mind. 2023 is likely to be the hottest year on record, and we need to treat the emergency for what it is. In Cambridge, we can’t control the rest of the world, but we can take strong action to decarbonize locally, develop resiliency, and inspire broader action regionally. These tenants inform my climate crisis strategy for Cambridge. I was happy to see the City Manager highlight the incredible work of the council and the city in that area. Between big actions, like BEUDO, which I fought to take strong action through advocacy and cooperation, and seemingly smaller actions, like the EV sidewalk charging pilot, which I suggested, our city is working harder than ever to make the transformational changes that are necessary to combat the crisis. The work isn’t over, but I appreciate the City Manager taking the time to acknowledge the important progress this term. One more note on the City Manager’s update: I have sincerely appreciated this City Manager’s responsiveness and willingness to take action. Hiring a city manager is perhaps the most important decision a city council can make in Cambridge and I am proud of our decision and glad to be working with City Manager Huang to tackle the issues, big and small.

Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment
On September 13 I held a Health and Environment Committee meeting to discuss a ban on the use of gas-powered lawn equipment in Cambridge. As a part of that meeting, we heard from City staff in DPW and the licensing commission as well as from landscapers and climate and public health advocates. As a result of that meeting, we decided to pass two policy orders. The first policy order asks the City to work with me and Councillors McGovern and Zondervan and stakeholders to develop a phase-out plan for gas-powered leaf blowers. The second asks the City to develop funding mechanisms to help with that transition and the potential transition of other gas-powered lawn equipment. Both orders passed the council unanimously and I look forward to working on ordinance language with city staff and stakeholders. I am pleased that after so many years of pressure and science-based activism, that the City has agreed that we are in a place, technologically speaking, where we can make this important transition. And the financial assistance is an important part of the equation – as I always mention, it’s carrots and sticks. We have the political will in Cambridge to support public health initiatives and decarbonization efforts, but we are also lucky enough to have the money to support those whom these policies affect the most.

BEUDO
I’m still thrilled to have led action on the strong, groundbreaking legislation of the BEUDO amendments passed earlier this year. My efforts on climate continue with this proposed further amendment. The City Council AND city administration have advocated for new buildings to be net zero as soon as possible for years and it’s time we walk the talk. I had hoped that the BEUDO amendments on the table by the city would include this requirement for new buildings, but since they did not, we have the opportunity to do so now – although I personally believe that the buildings should be net zero now – not by 2030. It makes no sense to allow any new fossil fuel infrastructure. We met last week to make some important updates to the BEUDO ordinance which we recently passed. As a little bit of background, when we developed the initial BEUDO amendments, we designed them to work in tandem with the new Specialized Stretch Building Code and the Fossil Fuel Demonstration Pilot – both state actions. During the state process, the City and council advocated for a true net-zero building code and a strong fossil fuel free building pilot. Unfortunately, the state left an important loophole in their programs – namely the construction of new lab buildings. Over time, our BEUDO ordinance will require all large labs to decarbonize, but as the state regulations exist now, new lab buildings can be built using fossil fuels. We are now trying to close that loophole by requiring that all new construction of lab buildings (which are left out of the state fossil fuel free pilot program) must be net-zero by 2030. As we know, building net-zero is possible – and EASIER than retrofitting later! This is an important change we must make to close the loophole and ensure that new buildings are net-zero from the start.

Atlanta Police Training Facility
We deliberated last week on a policy order that condemned action in Atlanta in developing a police training facility, the construction of which would lead to approximately 85 acres of deforestation. Protests of concerned citizens have been met with violence in recent months and have led to a lot of skepticism about the facility. Protestors have been fighting for climate rights, for indigenous land rights, and for civil rights. It is important to ensure that Cambridge holds all its city operations to the highest standards of justice, not just its police department, but in this case in terms of community safety and climate resilience. We can and should also ensure that our police department uses only training facilities that meet our standards for environmental and procedural justice. I did vote to remove a phrase “and similar facilities” since I thought the focus of our statement should be on the Atlanta facility, which is a specific place where it is clear there are deep concerns antithetical to our values. The broader term seems to potentially water it down – and since “similar” wasn’t defined, it seemed that passing it could be problematic – and leaving it up to others to define. If there are similarly situated facilities that are as bad as Atlanta’s, then we could call them out. I was happy the policy order passed on a 6-1-2 vote.

AHO 2.0
I’ll mention again that I’ve written about the AHO at length in previous newsletters, so if you want to learn more about how this process has played out over the last year, please take some time to go through those, or reach out and I’d be happy to discuss. Throughout the process I continue to see flaws in the approach and the amendments and I will not be supporting them. I am also disappointed that this conversation has gotten so polarizing, and I will continue to do what I can to try to bring the conversation to a more nuanced and collaborative place in addressing the urgent issue of housing. We can do more – even though we as a city have more than doubled our spending on affordable housing – from $13 million just a few years ago to more than $40 million now – which is more than double the goal in our Envision plan. There is more to do – and we can do it without this change to the AHO. We need to understand how the AHO has affected our ability to produce affordable housing in order to determine how to improve upon it. The rear-view analysis has been missing from many of these conversations and it’s important to me to continue to try and get answers.

I was disappointed that my policy order asking that we explore how to reserve some units for middle-income folks was voted down. Our own data shows clearly that the city has lost middle income families – and we have a goal of bringing middle class residents back – yet so far, there has been no plan or proposal to do so. After voting down my policy order, the council deliberated the AHO amendments again and voted 6-3 to send the amended ordinance to a second reading, which means that we will have one more opportunity to consider and vote on the amendments in October. I’m disappointed that several of my colleagues have led us down this path to considering amendments before the review process, but I will continue to work towards compromise and a more thoughtful approach to zoning reform.