The Tyee has published a five part series about a green new deal for housing. The Tyee is based in Vancouver, where housing prices are pricing out more and more people who need to live there. The series is authored by Geoff Dembicki.1 Part 3 looks into a new approach to zoning that has been approved in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Cambridge Massachusetts has approved a city wide zoning overlay. Going forward, more density is permitted in all residential districts. When more density is added to a new housing development, all of the housing in the development will have to be permanently affordable. The idea is attracting attention in Vancouver, where advocates are looking for ideas to make more housing affordable and available.
Geoff Dembicki spoke to people in Cambridge who developed and pushed for the overlay to be approved. Vehicle emissions are one of the motivating factors behind the overlay. Many people who work in Cambridge couldn’t afford to live there, even in new high density developments near public transit terminals.
Also, local non-profit housing developers and housing providers are ready and willing to build more affordable housing, but have similarly been priced out of the market.
The overlay was built through extensive consultation and consensus-building among students, environmentalists, equity seeking groups and non-profit housing providers. Sitting politicians, responding to the NIMBY concerns of some residents, initially rejected it. So the people who built the overlay turned to political organizing. The most recent election replaced some of those politicians with new faces and the overlay has now been approved. The process will be interesting to groups seeking local reforms.
The idea of opening up a community to higher density development, on condition that all of the homes are permanently affordable, holds considerable appeal. It’s too early to tell whether developers will seek to increase density or build at currently approved levels. Read more in the Tyee: What If New Density Had to Be All Affordable? This City Did It
Readers on the trail of zoning reform may also wish to check out this post from Minneapolis-St. Paul: Minneapolis Drives A Stake Into The Heart Of The American Dreamscape and this one about Local Housing Solutions: A Treasure Trove Of Local Ideas For Building More Affordable Housing
Footnotes
- Part 1 looked at the relationship between the climate crisis and housing affordability. Part 2 assessed the potential to build a government commitment to publicly funded green and affordable housing. Part 4 will recount the story of a community group that turned a zoning proposal into a call for green industry and affordable housing. Part 5 will look at Indigenous initiatives that combine housing and climate change challenges.
