{shortcode-fc7cd418dd289564cc1b77cf6eefa3aa8e9f95ad}
The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to initiate a study on the Half Crown-Marsh Neighborhood Conservation District in light of advocates’ concerns that the body suppresses multifamily zoning projects.
The March 31 vote comes as a the decennial review of the Half Crown-Marsh NCD, a new process mandated by an amendment made to the ordinance that governs the NCDs. The amendment was approved after Cambridge advocates expressed concerns in public comment that NCDs suppress multifamily housing, slow the process of building new construction, and promote segregation.
NCDs are groups of volunteer citizens appointed by the city manager to review building and demolition permit applications within their boundaries. Half Crown-Marsh is one of four Neighborhood Conservation Districts in Cambridge — including Avon Hill, Harvard Square, and Mid Cambridge — founded in the 1980s to preserve the character of neighborhoods.
“One of the problems in 1981 when this ordinance was first passed by the council, was that in some neighborhoods, there were out of town developers showing up and just ripping down buildings without much attention to what their significance was, and putting things up that obviously didn’t really increase the amount of housing, but did undermine the fabric of some neighborhoods.” David E. Sullivan, who was the primary sponsor of the original legislation, said.
But David E. Sullivan noted that Cambridge’s housing market has evolved since the ordinance was passed more than four decades ago.
“There were other ways of controlling costs of housing that were in existence at the time and don’t exist anymore.” Sullivan said. “The need for more homes in Cambridge wasn’t as pronounced in 1981 as it is today, and as a result, there wasn’t as much attention to it.”
Asha P. Daniere, a Cambridge resident who is renovating her six-unit apartment building to a two-unit development at 18 Clinton St., said working with the Mid Cambridge NCD was a laborious task.
“They did everything they could to try to stop my project and to convince me to take a continuance and to go away and to reframe my project and make the building smaller and not as high,” Daniere said referencing the meeting in which the Mid Cambridge NCD discussed the approval of the construction permit for her project.
But she noted that due to a 2023 amendment which restricts NCDs ability to decide on the size and shape of new construction, the body can only deny a permit on the basis of the publicly visible exterior .
“If they forced me to change the shape and size of my home, they would be breaking the law,” Daniere said.
The meeting to discuss the 18 Clinton St. development was the first time the commission considered approving a permit after the new zoning ordinance.
“They were being asked for the first time to deal with the implications of a completely new zoning regime for which they had not been trained and which many of them were not familiar with,” Charles M. Sullivan – the executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, which oversees the NCDs — said.
“The applicant received her permission to go ahead in the end,” he added. “The idea that commissioners are doing everything they can to stop multifamily housing is ridiculous because up until Feb. 10, the zoning didn’t permit that kind of multi-family housing.”
At the March Council meeting, Charles M. Sullivan said the groups are doing their best to adjust to the situation.
“I think you can trust the Conservation District commissions,” Charles M. Sullivan said in his testimony “including most especially the Half Crown-Marsh.”
“We haven’t seen any denials of multi-family housing,” he added. “We haven’t seen any reduction in units.”
But he said that accommodating the 2023 amendment “hasn’t been an easy task for them,” since the size and shape of construction was frequently in the past to determine whether a project would be granted a permit.
“It took away a significant part of the Commission’s authority, but not all of it,” Charles E. Sullivan said.
And on top of the amendment, Charles E Sullivan said Cambridge’s February decision to end single family zoning further complicated the roles of NCDs in the city.
“It's a whole different calculus,” he said.
Moving forward, the Council can either pre-approve the Half Crown-Marsh district without amendment, discontinue the NCD, or change its guidelines, procedures, and district boundaries.
“So they have to be used in a responsible way,” David E. Sullivan said. “So that, yes, they preserve buildings that need to be preserved but they also don’t preserve the entire city in amber so that nothing can ever change.”
—Staff writer Diego García Moreno can be reached at diego.garciamoreno@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at summer.rose@thecrimson.com.
