Residential/Retail Development | 2400 Mass Ave | Cambridge

This is what imagined a Safdie-designed replacement for horrible old MIT West Campus grad housing could look like,
instead we got the ugly wall along Vassar - anyways, looks cool so prob wont happen...
 
SuffolkHeights11 said:
No matter how many times it is explained to local governments that inclusionary zoning does not work at 20% they just keep doing it. At this point advocating for this policy is akin to being a flat earther. It does not work mathematically and has failed in every city across the country that has implemented it. Local politicians should be asked over and over: why are you proposing and/or in favor of a policy that does the opposite of what you're intending?
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I hear ya, but as the article states, inclusionary zoning has been the primary driver of affordable housing construction in places like Cambridge and Somerville, including at 20 percent when construction costs were cheaper. It is far too simplistic to say the policy "doesn't work" just because projects have a harder time penciling out during a downturn.

Rather than knee-jerk scrapping a successful policy due to the whims of an economically-challenged president, I would love to see if there's a way to peg the IDP number to some sort of index of construction costs (with a floor of say, 15%). That way the policy can adjust to the broader economic climate and ensure housing construction continues, including rising above 20% in some future dream scenario where construction costs plummet.
 
lexicon506 said:
I hear ya, but as the article states, inclusionary zoning has been the primary driver of affordable housing construction in places like Cambridge and Somerville, including at 20 percent when construction costs were cheaper. It is far too simplistic to say the policy "doesn't work" just because projects have a harder time penciling out during a downturn.

Rather than knee-jerk scrapping a successful policy due to the whims of an economically-challenged president, I would love to see if there's a way to peg the IDP number to some sort of index of construction costs (with a floor of say, 15%). That way the policy can adjust to the broader economic climate and ensure housing construction continues, including rising above 20% in some future dream scenario where construction costs plummet.
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Yeah, I read the article not as saying that it doesn't work, but that it did work until inflation hit in 2022. It's also worth pointing out that (a) the only source the article has for this project having a good chance at financing without Inclusionary Zoning is the developer, who has a financial interest to promote that narrative; and (b) the article points out that plenty of residential projects are having trouble getting financing, as has been the case since interest rates were raised in 2022. I'm not really convinced that, with rates still being pretty high, we'd be back to 2019 in terms of financing without the inclusionary requirement, nor am I convinced that this project in particular would be financed if we could only do away with these pesky affordable units.
 
I think you will always have a hard time convincing progressives that development doesn’t make money hand over fist. Most people live in 100 year old buildings and pay through the nose for them, and those landlords live like kings. They really only stop profiting so much when another owner buys it for market value and has a multimillion dollar mortgage that they then have to pay through high rents.

Development is different and more expensive than that… and we never really see figures posted. Like, for this one: how much will it cost to build? How much do they expect to earn from rent? Then we can see if they’re lying or not. I don’t really see another way to do it, I do tend to agree with the other commenters that as far as policies go this is a very blunt tool. Rent control would almost be better.
 
Equilibria said:
Yeah, I read the article not as saying that it doesn't work, but that it did work until inflation hit in 2022. It's also worth pointing out that (a) the only source the article has for this project having a good chance at financing without Inclusionary Zoning is the developer, who has a financial interest to promote that narrative; and (b) the article points out that plenty of residential projects are having trouble getting financing, as has been the case since interest rates were raised in 2022. I'm not really convinced that, with rates still being pretty high, we'd be back to 2019 in terms of financing without the inclusionary requirement, nor am I convinced that this project in particular would be financed if we could only do away with these pesky affordable units.
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Welcome back!
 
lexicon506 said:
I hear ya, but as the article states, inclusionary zoning has been the primary driver of affordable housing construction in places like Cambridge and Somerville, including at 20 percent when construction costs were cheaper. It is far too simplistic to say the policy "doesn't work" just because projects have a harder time penciling out during a downturn.

Rather than knee-jerk scrapping a successful policy due to the whims of an economically-challenged president, I would love to see if there's a way to peg the IDP number to some sort of index of construction costs (with a floor of say, 15%). That way the policy can adjust to the broader economic climate and ensure housing construction continues, including rising above 20% in some future dream scenario where construction costs plummet.
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Interesting thought. It might also make sense to couple the requirement with interest rates.

My larger point was towards whether inclusionary zoning "works." What is that definition? To take Boston as an example, it has one of the largest amounts of deed restricted affordable housing units by percentage in the country, over 20%. Boston also has some of the highest market rate housing prices in the country, and does not have enough deed-restricted affordable housing to come close to meeting demand. If Cambridge's IDP policy is taken to its logical end, 20% or more of all units in Cambridge will be deed-restricted affordable. Will housing in Cambridge then be "affordable"? To me, market rate construction coupled with IDP just does not seem capable of scaling enough to solve either the lack of market rate housing or the lack of deed-restricted affordable housing.
 
SuffolkHeights11 said:
Interesting thought. It might also make sense to couple the requirement with interest rates.

My larger point was towards whether inclusionary zoning "works." What is that definition? To take Boston as an example, it has one of the largest amounts of deed restricted affordable housing units by percentage in the country, over 20%. Boston also has some of the highest market rate housing prices in the country, and does not have enough deed-restricted affordable housing to come close to meeting demand. If Cambridge's IDP policy is taken to its logical end, 20% or more of all units in Cambridge will be deed-restricted affordable. Will housing in Cambridge then be "affordable"? To me, market rate construction coupled with IDP just does not seem capable of scaling enough to solve either the lack of market rate housing or the lack of deed-restricted affordable housing.
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I agree with that - you can't fix this supply-side. The market has to crash.
 
lexicon506 said:
I hear ya, but as the article states, inclusionary zoning has been the primary driver of affordable housing construction in places like Cambridge and Somerville, including at 20 percent when construction costs were cheaper. It is far too simplistic to say the policy "doesn't work" just because projects have a harder time penciling out during a downturn.

Rather than knee-jerk scrapping a successful policy due to the whims of an economically-challenged president, I would love to see if there's a way to peg the IDP number to some sort of index of construction costs (with a floor of say, 15%). That way the policy can adjust to the broader economic climate and ensure housing construction continues, including rising above 20% in some future dream scenario where construction costs plummet.
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It is true that inclusionary zoning is popular and more affordable housing projects have come to fruition because several communities, including Cambridge and Somerville, have reduced barriers to affordable housing construction. It is also true that inclusionary housing mandates increase housing production costs and probably result in less housing development overall and therefore probably actually increase the costs of market-rate housing. This area is as heavily committed to inclusionary housing as any. Has it worked? Are we affordable yet?

What cities have had success in reducing housing costs? Austin and Minneapolis. The Texas Legislature has placed several limits on inclusionary zoning in that state, so inclusionary zoning is definitely not powering that growth. Austin, and Texas cities in general, are just really good at efficiently building lots and lots of new housing. Minneapolis has also dramatically reformed zoning to make it easier to build. More supply will satisfy demand and reduce costs over time. It's really not much more complicated than that.

The last thing we need is a more complicated housing mandate to further restrict housing supply in the name of affordable housing, particularly one that would set a minimum 15% mandate for affordable housing units - regardless of market conditions - with no cap on what could be required so we could theoretically mandate 100% affordable housing if we felt like costs were low enough.

reason.com

Why building a lot of 'affordable' housing is bad news for affordability

Cities become affordable when lots of new housing is built, not when a larger percentage of a small amount of new housing is made "affordable" by regulation.
reason.com reason.com
 
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Smuttynose said:
It is true that inclusionary zoning is popular and more affordable housing projects have come to fruition because several communities, including Cambridge and Somerville, have reduced barriers to affordable housing construction. It is also true that inclusionary housing mandates increase housing production costs and probably result in less housing development overall and therefore probably actually increase the costs of market-rate housing. This area is as heavily committed to inclusionary housing as any. Has it worked? Are we affordable yet?

What cities have had success in reducing housing costs? Austin and Minneapolis. The Texas Legislature has placed several limits on inclusionary zoning in that state, so inclusionary zoning is definitely not powering that growth. Austin, and Texas cities in general, are just really good at efficiently building lots and lots of new housing. Minneapolis has also dramatically reformed zoning to make it easier to build. More supply will satisfy demand and reduce costs over time. It's really not much more complicated than that.

The last thing we need is a more complicated housing mandate to further restrict housing supply in the name of affordable housing, particularly one that would set a minimum 15% mandate for affordable housing units - regardless of market conditions - with no cap on what could be required so we could theoretically mandate 100% affordable housing if we felt like costs were low enough.
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I don't see why it has to be all or nothing. We're on a development forum, of course we all support dramatically reformed zoning and lowering barriers to increasing the housing supply in general. But it is always more complicated than "leave it to the market" (if we as a society haven't learned that lesson by now then god help us all). Your example of Minneapolis, a city with a robust inclusionary zoning policy, actually proves that affordable housing mandates coupled with zoning reform works well! Austin and other TX cities have powered growth through sprawl and poor land use policy, hardly a model to emulate.

And sure, what exactly is the problem with mandating high levels of affordable housing if construction costs are so low that developers can still make money? Sounds like a healthy society to me.
 
lexicon506 said:
Austin and other TX cities have powered growth through sprawl and poor land use policy, hardly a model to emulate.
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This is Austin since 2015. Talk about a city building upward. On the other hand we build 10 stories right next to the Greenway and regularly waste our limited parcels on stumpy labs, stumpy residential (ie less than half as dense as we could easily build), or just don't get things built at all. 25 years ago Austin's skyline was about the size of Providence, whereas today it's surging past Boston's. Instead of building dense in our inner city we expect the suburbs to pick up the slack with a bunch of 5-over-1's. We're more concerned about shaming a town like Milton than building as tall and dense as possible next to North Station, South Station, and many other inner-city train stations. The only cities that need to be building tall are the dense old ones that are mostly out of room, but the ones actually building tall are the Austin Texases of the world. Note they now have a taller building than us (very ugly but still) and have a supertall well on its way (also ugly).

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It's not even just high rises either, Austin is building huge amounts of 3-5 story residential neighborhoods outside of downtown, like none of this was here 10 years ago. They're outbuilding us in like every type of building short of labs lol.

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sm89 said:
For this building in particular, it appears that no parking is required by zoning, yet they want to build a 67 vehicle underground garage for the 56 units. That is a business decision they made that seems ripe for the cut or at least a reduction and it is certainly within their control. https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media...ialPermits/sp403/sp403_applnvol1_20240603.pdf
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Underground parking was part of community input - it was the primary concern of most of the abutters, other than structural integrity of the Cedar St retaining wall. Providing it got them unanimous abutter support at meetings which got it through approvals quickly, and there's a MOU somewhere that provides for at least 1:1 amongst other items.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if this is them priming the pump for them to come back to the city with a proposal for more height in the building facing Mass Ave - it's not passed yet, but with the current Mass Ave + Porter zoning proposal allowing 10 stories in mixed use, vs the 6 currently proposed? its been largely overlooked, but this parcel / intersection is a "neighborhood center" with PDA shading in that proposal.
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DZH22 said:
This is Austin since 2015. Talk about a city building upward. On the other hand we build 10 stories right next to the Greenway and regularly waste our limited parcels on stumpy labs, stumpy residential (ie less than half as dense as we could easily build), or just don't get things built at all. 25 years ago Austin's skyline was about the size of Providence, whereas today it's surging past Boston's. Instead of building dense in our inner city we expect the suburbs to pick up the slack with a bunch of 5-over-1's. We're more concerned about shaming a town like Milton than building as tall and dense as possible next to North Station, South Station, and many other inner-city train stations. The only cities that need to be building tall are the dense old ones that are mostly out of room, but the ones actually building tall are the Austin Texases of the world. Note they now have a taller building than us (very ugly but still) and have a supertall well on its way (also ugly).

View attachment 62836
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We are also quite concerned with building tall downtown, there's a whole plan and initiative out there for it that seems eminently reasonable and a good first step. Unfortunately the tower-living NIMBYs off Washington are just as bad as those in Milton, so both end up getting slowed down or eliminated. The solution, unfortunately, is less direct veto points by individuals and instead letting elected representative leaders do the jobs we hired them to do. Texas doesn't have that issue but Mass is absolutely riddled with it. Crush the holdouts, follow through with the zoning, and start building.

www.bostonglobe.com

City plan to allow 500-foot skyscrapers in Downtown Crossing hits the brakes after pushback - The Boston Globe

Discussions around PLAN: Downtown first began in 2018, then took a pivot after a new chief of planning took office last year.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
 
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