City Council Agenda Highlights (4/11/16) (2 Responses)
By
, on April 8th, 2016
In:
Council Agendas.
Tagged: affordable housing, city manager search, inclusionary zoning, medical marijuana, opioid addiction, traffic.
The agenda for the Cambridge City Council meeting on Monday, April 11 is posted on the Open Meeting Portal.
It’s a relatively short agenda, but it includes one very important topic that we will be discussing for at least the next several months: a consultant’s report with recommendations for changes to our inclusionary housing program. The report appears as item #3 on the City Manager Agenda (see below). After our initial discussion on Monday we will vote to refer it to the Housing Committee for further consideration. I am a member of the Housing Committee along with Mayor Denise Simmons, Vice Mayor Marc McGovern, Councillor Dennis Carlone and Councillor David Maher.
City Manager Agenda:
#3 Inclusionary Zoning Study & Recommendations: As the report makes clear, the inclusionary program has, since its inception in 1998, been the primary vehicle by which Cambridge has been able to maintain about 15% of the city’s total housing units as affordable for low and moderate income households in the post-rent-control era and with HUD’s retrenchment. The report warns, however, that unless the inclusionary requirement is increased we will not be able to maintain even this baseline level of affordability. So we must make changes — and the 121-page report provides copious data to inform our decision. I highly recommend reading the report’s Executive Summary (pgs. 1-3) to understand the impact that sharply rising housing costs have had on the community’s socio-economic diversity. The good news is that the consultants’ economic models show that it is economically feasible to increase the net inclusionary percentage from the current 11.5% up to 20% without having to raise density bonus. Developers will still be able to make an attractive return on equity (8%) on residential projects that include more inclusionary units, and we will not have to allow even larger buildings as incentive. The report does caution us not to increase the inclusionary percentage so much that the land becomes more valuable for commercial projects than residential.
The extent of income inequality and the increasing burden of housing costs is plain to see in the report’s charts. A few of the many startling numbers: The 2014 Area Media Income (AMI) for a family of four was $94.1K, and the median rent of a 3BR unit was $3,400. A household would have to earn at least $136K in order to “afford” that median rent (that is, pay no more than 30% of gross income in rent). But the market would have offered almost nothing affordable for this family to rent. In 2014 fewer than 2% of 3BR units on the market would have been affordable to a family of four earning 100% AMI. (Only 28% of our total housing stock has 3BRs or more, and the proportion of small units is rising.) To stay in Cambridge many residents wind up paying substantially more than 30% of their income to keep a roof over their head — by 2011 more than half of all households were “cost-burdened” by housing. Small wonder that we have displaced or lost so many households earning below the median, even as the total number of households has grown. Between 2000 and 2011 the percentage of households earning 120% AMI or more rose from 25% to 35%, while those earning between 50-80% of AMI fell from 30% to 18%.
To prevent further erosion to our diversity, the report’s Policy Options and Recommendations (pgs. 56-62) include (my broad strokes summary):
- Increasing the inclusionary percentage to 20% (from 11.5%) and maintaining the current density bonus of 30%. The 20% could be either entirely for households at 65% AMI, or 15% for 65% AMI plus 5% for 100% AMI.
- Requiring more 3BR units and disallowing studio units in the inclusionary program.
- Applying the inclusionary requirement to projects of fewer than 10 units, with a payment into the Affordable Housing Trust required for any fractional unit.
- Allowing sub-premium units to be placed in the inclusionary program in exchange for more affordable units.
- Not applying the new requirements to projects that have already been IZ permitted or those in construction.
Resolutions:
#2 To declare April 15th as Arbor Day. Here, here! But we still have work to do to make future Arbor Days more worthy of celebration from the trees’ standpoint.
Policy Orders (there are only 5 this week):
#1 I sponsored an order for a safety review of the Mt. Auburn St and Sparks St intersection, which residents and cyclists have complained is difficult to cross. There are bus stops on the corners and the Sparks St bike lane is a major route to the river without easy connections. The potential for conflicts and crashes seems high.
#2 I co-sponsored this order to televise all future committee hearings on the city manager search process. For an update on the most recent hearing see this article in Cambridge Day. The committee approved a timeline that would put the Council’s vote for a new manager on Sept. 26 and extend Rich Rossi’s contract by 3 months through the end of September. A request for proposals for search firms will go out next week.
#3 I sponsored this order to add more locations where residents can safely and securely dispose of unwanted prescription medications. Some people find it inconvenient to use the dropbox at the police headquarters in East Cambridge. We want these unused drugs, especially highly addictive opioids, out of medicine cabinets.
#5 This order asks the City Manager to write a letter of non-opposition for Sage Cannabis to locate a medical marijuana dispensary in a new zoning district on Mass Ave. The Council will vote on the new zoning at our next regular meeting on April 25 (we will not have a meeting on April 18 because of Patriots Day).
Roundtable Minutes:
Our roundtable with the School Committee on Mar. 28 is summarized. Most of the 2-hour session focused on the $157m reconstruction of the Cambridge St school/library/pool complex. The school administration offices will likely move to this new building from Thorndike St.
Public Comment and Viewing Meetings:
Public comment begins at 5:30 pm. Each person is allowed to speak for 3 minutes on any agenda item except for communications from other members of the public. You may call 617-349-4280 on Monday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm to sign up to speak, or sign in when you arrive (before 6:00 pm). If you submit written public comments, please email council@cambridgema.gov and cc City Clerk Donna Lopez at dlopez@cambridgema.gov. Your comments will appear on the public record (under “Communications”) at the next regular Council meeting.
City Council meetings are televised on CCTV Channel 22 and live streamed on the City Council’s website. Recorded versions of all Council meetings may be found on the city’s Open Meeting Portal.
{"widget_type":"comment_query","include_string":271,"exclude_string":"","page":0,"query_type":"","supplemental_filter":""}