 Below are some notes from the recent October 21 Planning Board meeting on the Mass Ave and Cambridge St upzoning.
While they voted unanimously to support for City Council’s upzoning of these areas, there were a number of important concerns raised about it. These are outlined below.
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 On October 24, 2025 Joe Adioletta wrote the letter below to a City Councillor who had responded to his concerns about the new Mass Ave and Cambridge Street upzoning, noting that he believes that this councillor’s views, the thinking behind them, and the data to support them are extremely flawed. We publish it with his permission. He writes:
I'd like to start out with the proverb, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. This encapsulates what I believe to be the fundamental problem with the views of the council - theory and practice do not align historically in Cambridge, yielding unintended (and often obvious) consequences. This was true with the Garden Street conversion, as described below. The "wish" here for Mass Ave, espoused directly by the Mass Ave planning group is to increase green space, improve walkability, increase housing, improve bikability, create community space - and more. In short, these are an impossibly conflicting set of constraints that are implausible to mutually create. Regarding the working group and soliciting community input - this is farcical. I went to a number of these meetings, as did many, many neighbors, and the outcome was preordained. Those of us that do not want to see towers in Porter were not listened to. We don't want 8 stores on Mass Ave. Why do we continue to push policy down the throat of neighborhoods that are opposed to such development? Principally, the answer seems to be that the council is under the misguided notion that more construction means an affordable Cambridge. This is untrue, and wishing it to be true won't change the reality. Manhattan has a density of 78k residents per square mile, averaging ~$2k/sqft for residential real estate. Cambridge is 18k residents averaging under $1k/sqft. There is plenty of headroom on density and higher real estate costs that can be tolerated in desirable markets. To that end, the demand to be in Cambridge vastly outstrips supply. Affordability is driven in our case by macro-economics, NOT supply and demand. Build all you want, you won't drive prices down. A recession might. Lower interest rates might abate cost escalation. But, the idea that Cambridge will build its way to affordability is a pipe dream. Certainly the council's continued bent on tax increases to fund absurd spending hampers affordability. And, in the meantime, for longtime residents like me, you destroy what brought us here to begin with. I met with CDD individually regarding Porter Square and the Mass Ave planning study. There seems to be ample available capacity on Mass Ave to build up, given the vast number of single story businesses. I asked them specifically if they had talked to individual owners to understand why they wouldn't consider re-construction. The answer was unequivocal. They had not met individually with business owners to understand their problems. Rather, the view was that it wasn't "economical" in the broad sense. So, what does the council recommend? Making sure developers can profit on these plots via taller builds. And the neighbors suffer. Why is the city council in the business of ensuring developer profitability? To tie in the parking point below, I asked CDD their view on Porter Square development accounting for additional vehicle traffic - if you've even been there on a weekend to shop, or during the holidays, it's a mad house! The view was they actually want to make it MORE DIFFICULT to access via car, because if they made it easier, it would incent demand. As a family of six that literally frequents Porter Square daily, I find this personally offensive. It is clear that the council, through policy and pre-ordained decision making, cares more about people that don't live here than families that have been raised here. I'll close by saying that we can - and should - build more affordable housing; and, the continued conflation of affordability with affordable housing by the city council is extremely disappointing. There are a bevy of economic levers that the city could avail themselves of to build up a portfolio of properties over time that pushes the percentage of affordable units towards some - currently unclear - goal. We don't need to line the pockets of developers to create affordable housing, nor destroy neighborhoods in order to do so. But, as long as the council chases the myth of affordability, people like me will continue to call for its ouster. I sincerely hope that you change your view, and should you like to have coffee to discuss this, I would be happy to oblige. Sincerely, Joe What was said at the Planning Board Meeting on the the Mass. Ave and Cambridge St. Upzoning on Oct 21, 2025
While the Planning Board voted unanimously to send the proposed upzoning back to City Council for possible ordination, there was clearly much that they and other speakers at this meeting saw as deeply problematic.
 Money matters in any election, but nowhere is that more evident than in Cambridge, where 100s of millions of dollars—and the very shape of our neighborhoods—are at stake in zoning and upzoning decisions. As Cambridge Day article titled “Candidate slate vows to ‘Repeal’ zoning…” observes that “Many of the top-earning candidates this race, such as Tim Flaherty and incumbent Marc McGovern, are staunchly pro-new housing and buoyed by contributions from real estate developers.” by Jane Petersen (October 12, 2025). That’s not just a passing observation. It’s a reality check and a warning. While developer-driven politics have long been a problem in Cambridge, this year the imbalance is sharper—and more consequential—than ever. In December 2021, our City Council passed a local “Pay-to-Play” / Developer Contribution Limit designed to keep city contracts, zoning approvals, and campaign money from mixing. Under this rule, any business entity—defined broadly to include individuals, corporations, officers, and related parties—can give no more than $200 annually to municipal candidates or committees if they have, or are seeking, city contracts, special permits, or zoning changes. Any higher contribution disqualifies them from those deals. The ordinance does not cover unions, and that has become a major loophole. Read more at State and Federal Communications. Even more troubling, some donors appear to be stretching—or outright ignoring—basic state laws about residency and campaign reporting. Several individuals who live outside Cambridge have listed Cambridge addresses on donation forms or spread donations among family members to skirt contribution limits. According to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF), From August through September 2025, one well known local developer who now lives in a nearby state donated $1,000 each to Flaherty, Simmons, and Wilson—each time listing a Cambridge address for these donations. Not only does this violate the spirit of the Pay-to-Play ordinance, it could disqualify him from seeking city contracts or special permits. Yet such actions have gone unchecked. Another major donor, and long linked with a local business group —has multiple projects before city boards. He and his wife do not reside in Cambridge but they often list their Cambridge properties as their homes. They along with other family members have given $7,000 this election cycle to incumbent candidates Councillors McGovern, Simmons, as well as new comer Tim Flaherty. The business entity (which includes construction and real estate management) controls numerous local commercial properties and mixed-use sites that regularly come before Cambridge commissions for redevelopment approval. These are not abstract “contributors.” They are developers actively shaping the physical and financial future of our city. This pattern—of individuals with personal and business-linked contributions having a direct financial stakes in city policy—points to a deeper problem: the quiet but powerful influence of outside developers and real estate families in determining who governs Cambridge. Candidates like McGovern, Simmons, and Flaherty, heavily funded by these networks, will wield immense influence over zoning, density, and the approval of multimillion-dollar projects if elected. As of October 4, 2025, OCPF campaign finance filings show that a huge portion of money in this election comes from outside Cambridge—and from building trade unions whose contracts depend on new construction (Cambridge Civic). Consider these figures: · Tim Flaherty (Ind.)— 73.1% of funds from outside Cambridge, 7.9% from unions · Marc McGovern (ABC) — 66.3% outside, 17.7% from unions · Denise Simmons (ABC) — 52.8% outside, 20.5% from unions · Sumbul Siddiqui (ABC) — 41.5% outside, 17.6% from unions · Burhan Azeem (ABC)— 35.2% outside, 6.4% from unions · Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler (ABC) — 36.5% outside, 18.7% from unions · Ayesha Wilson (ABC & CCC) — 45.1% outside, 15.4% from unions · Patty Nolan (IND) — 38.6% outside, 6.3% from unions · Cathie Zusy (CCC) — only 4.5% outside, 0.1% from unions — by far the most locally funded leading candidate The building trades dominate labor giving: Laborers ($7,500), Ironworkers ($3,500), Elevator Constructors ($2,500), Sheet Metal Workers ($2,500), Bricklayers ($2,000), Painters ($2,000), and smaller sums from Insulators, Operating Engineers, Pipefitters, and others. That’s $29,100 from the building trades alone—two-thirds of all union money in the race. By contrast, non-building-trade unions such as educators and social workers gave less than half that amount combined.  Other numbers tell an equally stark story. Nearly three-quarters of campaign funds for some candidates come from outside Cambridge. Two-thirds of union contributions come from the construction trades. The money shaping our city’s politics is not local, not grassroots, and not neutral. It’s organized—and it expects something in return. Cambridge’s Pay-to-Play ordinance was supposed to protect against exactly this kind of influence. Yet we’re watching the same system reassert itself through loopholes, residency games, and coordinated family donations. Developers, real estate interests, and outside unions are flooding the election with money that has one goal: ensuring a City Council friendly to their business. Some IE Pacs, Most importantly the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group also take outsize donor contributions from outside the city ($62,776.49) - also with an intent to influence politics. See chart below at (Cambridge Civic).  We can—and must—do better. This is the year to draw the line.
Cambridge voters deserve representation rooted in community, not in campaign checks from Maine or Belmont. We deserve candidates who answer to residents, not developers. We deserve transparency and integrity in our local democracy. Before you cast your vote, look at the campaign finance filings. Ask who funds your candidates. Ask who benefits from their votes. Democracy is local—or it isn’t democracy at all.  The story that Cambridge officials love to tell is that our tax rates are low. But that’s an illusion.
The City’s own FY2026 tax-rate memo—tucked inside the Oct 6 City Council packet—tells a very different story. The memo from the City Manager agenda Item #1 is HERE; the meeting discussion is found HERE. You can watch the Oct 6 meeting discussing this here: HERE. This year’s proposed taxes are as follows: +The residential tax bill: Condominiums 13.3%; Single-family: 10.2%; Two-family: 9.2% Three-Family: 8.5%. The rate of inflation is 2.9% so this amount is triple rate of inflation. +The commercial tax bill: 22% tax rate increase while we have a 11.5% decrease in commercial value. This is due in part to high office vacancy rate in Kendall Square. On the other hand, if local businesses values are flat they will be hit with full 22%. On average it is 8%. Partial Source of the Current Problem: We have over built. There is too much lab and office space available here and in Boston. If you want to understand how the tax system of this really works, take a few minutes to read the excellent memo included in the agenda packet for this year’s tax-rate hearing. It explains how Proposition 2½ affects both residential and commercial rates, and how the City calculates the “split” between them. But reading it is only the beginning. What’s missing is a real public conversation about how these moving parts—assessments, rates, exemptions, and budget priorities—fit together, and what they mean for residents.* Why We Need an Honest Explanation: People who don’t understand how these pieces link together—budget, assessment, rate, exemption—can’t fully understand why their bills are what they are, or how the City decides who pays more and who pays less. We now have two weeks before the final vote. Please set aside some time to read the memo. It’s worth it. What the Numbers Show: According to City Manager Yi-An Huang’s FY2026 tax-rate memo, Cambridge’s operating budget stands at $992.2 million, supported by a property tax levy of $678.9 million, up 8% from last year. The residential tax rate this year is projected to rise 5%, to $6.67 per $1,000. A median single-family home, now valued at $1.84 million, will owe about $8,876 in FY2026—$821 more than last year. Condominiums rise by about $224, to $1,926. But this is only have the story. In fact, the assessed value is the single most powerful driver of your tax bill—far more than the rate itself. In the city assessed values of commercial properties overall have fallen 11.5%, while residential values have increased 2.6%. Assessments: The Hidden Engine. The hot market for Cambridge properties and the recent upzoning has had a major impact. State law requires every Massachusetts city to conduct full revaluations every three years. The two years in between rely on “sales analysis”—looking at recent transactions in each neighborhood to estimate annual appreciation. Those percentages are then applied by property type: single-family, two-family, three-family, or condominium. So when developers pay inflated prices for lots—often justified by upzoning or luxury redevelopment—those inflated sales feed directly into the algorithm that sets assessed values for nearby homes. Even if your property hasn’t changed, your assessment almost certainly has. That’s why one should challenge the City’s claims that massive upzoning will not affect neighboring values. It will, and it does. Here Developers Win, Residents Pay: Meanwhile, the infrastructure we all rely on—electrical, water, and sewage systems—is under growing strain. Utility bills are rising steeply, but the investors and developers driving Cambridge’s demolition-and-luxury boom aren’t being asked to shoulder those costs. The City keeps approving large new projects without requiring meaningful infrastructure contributions or even basic parking, which leaves more cars circling residential streets. Growth, we’re told, will “pay for itself.” But it never does. Instead, residents pay higher taxes, higher water and sewer bills, and higher electric costs, while congestion and noise increase. On February 10 the City Council approved more a massive city wide upzoning but infrastructure needs were never addressed and those who benefitted financially so much from this were never asked to pay for these increased costs. This November, the City will likely approve a massive upzoning of Mass Ave and Cambridge Street. We have no supporting infrastructure upgrades for this either, and neither investors nor developers are being asked to contribute to these costs. A Crucial Fiscal Choice Ahead : In two weeks, the Council must decide whether to approve the full 22% commercial tax increase—or shift part of it onto homeowners. That’s not a minor technical adjustment. It’s a fundamental choice about who carries Cambridge’s fiscal weight. If we do that, city staff have said that the residential tax increase could exceed 20%. That’s not an academic exercise; it’s a major policy choice about who carries Cambridge’s fiscal weight. Moving forward, residents need to weigh in much more strongly on these questions. Every year at this time, the bill for all the City’s programs comes due. Some councillors continue to push for expanded services without fully acknowledging that someone—us—has to pay for them. So as campaign season unfolds, ask candidates where they stand on fiscal planning. Ask whether they believe in moderating budget growth, or if they think residents should absorb ever-higher costs. It’s a question that rarely gets asked but always matters most. The Bigger Picture: Finally, let me dispel two of the most persistent myths in Cambridge that we have low taxes and that rising home values are good news for homeowners. They’re not! A higher assessment only means higher taxes. The only way it becomes real money is if you sell your home—or take out a cash-out refinance at today’s high interest rates. Also higher taxes means higher rents on one’s tenants, because these costs are always passed down. Our homes are homes, not speculative assets. Treating them otherwise has been one of the great mistakes of our era. It’s Time to End the Tax Illusion It’s time for the City to stop treating the annual tax-rate hearing as a formality and start treating it as public education. Every homeowner deserves to understand exactly how assessed values, rates, and exemptions combine to determine their bill—and how the City’s policy choices shape those numbers. Until that happens, we have to do the explaining ourselves. Read the memo. Ask questions. Demand transparency. Our homes—and our trust—deserve nothing less. What can we do about this? 1. Write to each of the current councillors as well as those running for election and ask them what they will do with respect to the increasing tax allotments. Ask each candidate how they plan to ensure tax fairness and transparency—not just affordability rhetoric. 2. Insist that they begin work now to dramatically lower the city budget (start making plans for 15% -20% reductions as our universities and other businesses have done. 3. Ask why it is that a city of 6.8 square miles has a budget that is nearing $1 billion a year ($992.2 million)? QUICK FACTS: CAMBRIDGE TAX FY 2026 •Residential tax rate: $6.67 per $1,000 of value (+5%). Residential exemption: $510,208 (≈ $3,403 savings for owner-occupants) Typical residential tax increase: 10–15%. But assessors will also be looking at the increased value of your property due to recent sales, and that is the assessed value you will be taxed on which likely will lead to an even more dramatic rise in the amount of taxes you as a property owner will have to pay. Further possible impact: If the Council shifts part of the commercial increase to residents, homeowner taxes could rise 20%+ • Commercial rate: $14.07 per $1,000 (+22%) Who is hit hardest by the “22%” commercial increase? The memo says hotel values “marginally increased.” When your assessed value goes up and the rate jumps 22%, your bill tends to rise more than 22% (roughly low-to-mid 20s). Retail & restaurants. The memo says they’re “slightly down in value.” That still means a noticeable bill increase, but less than 22% (often high-teens), because the lower base partially offsets the higher rate. Any commercial parcels whose FY26 assessment stayed flat or rose (individual cases): with no offset from a lower value, they feel close to the full 22% (or more if the assessment rose). Who’s hit least? Offices & labs. The memo notes “all classes of office as well as the lab sectors decreased.” With a lower FY26 assessment, the higher rate is applied to a smaller base, so bills rise well under 22%—often single-digit to low-teens depending on how much the value fell. Why the differences in commercial rates? Cambridge uses one commercial rate (FY26 $14.07 per $1,000, up 22% from FY25), but assessments moved in different directions by use type. Net bill change ≈ (rate change) × (new assessed value), so the assessment trend is what makes the 22% hit uneven. This year the commercial rate is scheduled to jump a striking 22%, to $14.07. This 22% figure isn’t applied uniformly. Office and lab spaces, already under strain from vacancies, will see moderate increases. Restaurants and small retail establishments are among those hit hardest, even as they continue to recover from years of pandemic and post-pandemic challenges. Yet our small businesses and local restaurants bear the brunt of the “commercial increase.” Those properties that lost the most commercial value will have that 22% tax-rate increase applied to a smaller base, meaning their tax bills will go up far less than 22%. By contrast, most residential properties went up in value, so the same 5% rate increase will translate into a larger percentage jump in actual bills. *The tax you pay has two equally important parts: the assessed value and the tax rate. Those two are multiplied to calculate your bill. For owner-occupied residential property, there’s also a residential exemption—this year worth $3,403—that reduces the final amount owed. So, yes, Cambridge’s tax rates are low compared with many nearby municipalities (and with the rest of the Commonwealth), but our assessed values are not. That’s the part the City seldom emphasizes.  Above image: based on Massport rendering on what Porter Square along north Mass Ave would be allowed. Cambridge City Council is pushing for a massive upzoning of two of our main corridors—Massachusetts Avenue from the Common to the Arlington border and all along Cambridge Street—that would radically transform these neighborhoods and displace much of what makes them livable. Who will benefit: investors and developers, most of whom do not even live in Cambridge. READ: the Proposed Zoning Language: HERE This out-of-scale zoning proposal comes before the Planning Board on Thursday October 21, 2025. The Ordinance Committee meets on Monday Oct 30 @ 5:30 PM for Public Comment. It will come back before them on Nov. 13 (after the election) with no public comment. We could call this one the "Cambridge Canyons Luxury Housing Gentrification Upzoning Plan" Under two current proposals, the existing one-, two-, and three-story homes and small local businesses that define these streets could be replaced with buildings ranging from 8 to 15 stories (100–175 feet) on Cambridge Street and up to 12 and 18 stories (and possibly higher) along Massachusetts Avenue from Cambridge Common to the Arlington border. In play is well is raising the heights even higher for Affordable Housing (AHO. Image having a home or apartment in a common 2.5 story residence that sits beside one of these massive structures. In addition to no required parking (and attendant gridlock) we will also see a loss of local businesses, and serious impacts on adjacent neighborhoods (see photo), not only in terms of difficulty with deliveries and plumbers, electricians, and contractors willing to work on one's home, but also, loss of trees, sizable heat island impacts, and attendant noise. Information source: CDD statement of June 17, 2025 at the joint meeting of the Housing and Neighborhood/Long Term Planning. See also the cover letter for the Cambridge Street and Mass Ave Zoning Petitions presented to City Council 9/11/25. Their September 2025 proposal allows up to 18 stories in Porter Square if one includes some ground floor retail and open space (which can include roof decks - so not green space for trees). This proposal also allows up to 12 stories with ground-floor retail along mass Ave from Chauncy/Everett St to the Arlington Border. Along Cambridge St., heights rise to 15 stories at Lechmere, 12 stories near Webster/Windsor, 10 stories in Inman square and 8 stories all along Cambridge St. elsewhere. Below: Porter Square and south to Everett and 18 story heights at Porter Square.
 These proposed plans remove all parking requirements, guaranteeing overflow onto already congested residential streets. What the city calls “vibrant mixed-use development” will, in reality, mean widespread demolition, speculative investment, and the loss of long-time renters, small business tenants, and more affordable housing. By contrast, 4- and 5-story buildings—like those in Paris, Brooklyn, or historic Cambridge--create the most livable urban scale, offering sunlight, walkability, and community connection. The new zoning would erase that balance and canyonize our main corridors, replacing human-scaled neighborhoods with luxury towers (gobbled up by investors, many of which will remain empty. Equally troubling, these rezonings limit design review to the Planning Board for only the largest of structures and come with no legal avenue of appeal. Only very large projects—those over roughly 20,000 square feet of nonresidential floor area—require formal Planning Board design review, meaning many projects will proceed “as of right.” Residents and small business owners would have no recourse even when new construction threatens to displace or impact them. The timing is also deeply misguided: Cambridge already faces a glut of empty offices and reduced housing demand due to university and biotech cutbacks. What do the City's own 2025 Design Guidelines Say about this Possible Upzoning? Cambridge’s Citywide Urban Design Guidelines (2025) make clear that new development should complement and enhance the city’s established character rather than replace it through sweeping upzoning. As the plan states, “each square and corridor segment has developed its own unique character over time, one that can and should be complemented and enhanced when opportunities arise….” (Citywide Urban Design, p. 42). The document repeatedly insists that growth be measured and context-sensitive, affirming that redevelopment “should accommodate greater densities than the surrounding neighborhoods” only where it “strengthens the mix of uses and incentivizes sustainable transportation choices” (ibid., p. 46). This approach reflects a principle of design review grounded in compatibility—not density alone. Page 121 of Shaping Our City 2025 underscores this: “The design of residential buildings is fundamental to Cambridge’s rich and varied character. New residential projects, particularly mid- and high-rise residential buildings, should be sensitive to existing neighborhood character and respect the privacy and quality of life of the residents of abutting properties… [and] enrich Cambridge’s public realm through the arrangement, rhythm, and scale of elements such as structural bays, windows, entrances, roof shapes, dormers, and the detailed assemblage of materials.” The guidance is explicit that large developments must be broken into smaller volumes and employ “step backs, or mansard, gambrel, hipped, or gable roof profiles to enclose habitable upper stories,” so as to “enhance compatibility with the typical scale of Cambridge’s residential neighborhoods” (ibid., p. 121). Likewise, the Envision Cambridge framework—on which these guidelines build—warns that “development patterns in the middle and late 20th century did not prioritize a consistently high-quality public realm,” and that the City’s current approach “pushes private development to make a positive contribution to the public realm” (Envision Cambridge, pp. 182–183). Together, these policies affirm that any upzoning must be contingent on demonstrable conformance with neighborhood scale, public-realm enhancement, and architectural continuity, ensuring that Cambridge’s corridors evolve without erasing the urban and social fabric that defines them. Source: Shaping Our City 2025 CDD Planning Report “Citywide Urban Design” HERE TERMS: Setback: the distance a new building must be set back from the sidewalk at ground level. Step back: the pushing back of floor massing at a higher story to help the building to fit into the neighborhood better. The proposed step backs of only 13 feet is way to high to address neighborhood impacts. And for many proposed designs there are no setbacks required. DETAILS: Cambridge Street Zoning Petition (8-15 stories allowed) --For 6 story buildings and lower: NO Open Space required --If there is a yard within 85 feet of Primary Street: NO setback required --13-15 story buildings require NO setbacks on the Secondary Street, side or rear. Massachusetts Avenue Zoning Petition (12-20 stories allowed) --For 8 story buildings and lower: NO Open Space required --If there is a yard within 85 feet of Primary Street: NO setback required ----13-15 story buildings require NO setbacks above 100' on the Secondary Street, side or rear. We have learned that possibly 25 story buildings will be allowed for "Affordable Housing" projects, so that they can compete with commercial and luxury housing developers. Why is the City not required to complete a comprehensive housing and economic needs report before supporting radical speculative upzoning such as this. Without it, this upzoning risks becoming a developer windfall that sacrifices the scale, sunlight, and diversity that make Cambridge unique.Cambridge Street Zoning Petition --Lots limited to 6 story buildings: NO Open Space required --Side or rear yard, within 85 feet of Primary Street: NO setback required --Note: Lots with buildings 13-15 stories require NO setbacks at Secondary Street, side or rear Massachusetts Avenue Zoning Petition Details --Lots limited to 8 story buildings: NO Open Space required --Side or rear yard, within 85 feet of Primary Street: NO setback required --Upper Story Step back from Primary Street: 13 feet above 100 feet [Compare to Cambridge St stepback @75feet.] --Upper Story Stepback from Secondary Street: 12 feet above 100 feet [Compare to Cambridge St stepback @75feet.]   The February 10 upzoning passed by the Cambridge City Council is already having sweeping effects across the city — accelerating demolitions, encouraging oversized luxury developments, and placing enormous pressure on the very boards and commissions charged with professional guidance on new building design, infrastructure needs, neighborhoods, and environmental sustainability. This week, one of the pro-upzoning councillors pointed out that if the longtime head of the Cambridge Historical Commission, Charles Sullivans refuses to approve demolitions or major new buildouts, he will be fired. This chilling statement underscores how the upzoning has weakened the city’s professional oversight structure, putting Sullivan and other appointed commissioners in an impossible position — unable to exercise independent judgment or apply core design standards without fear of political retaliation. Indeed, one of the most experienced members of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission also resigned this week following developer pushback for a demolition and luxury redevelopment on Ellery Street and other contentious cases. A meeting of the commission scheduled for this week has been canceled because they are unable to find a quorum. Few if any residents are signing up to join these commissions for fear of retaliation as has sometimes happened in recent years. And Mid-Cambridge is luckier than some of the other parts of the city because with a Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD) at least there is a body of experts looking at what is being built and how it is designed. This is not true of North Cambridge and many other parts of the city. And the pro-development majority on City Council is pushing hard to end NCDs all together across the city. After major pushback concerning plans for a demolition and luxury redevelopment on Ellery Street and other contentious cases, one of the most experienced members of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission resigned this week out of frustration. Demolishing existing, naturally more affordable homes to make way for larger, high-end buildings, while also removing mature trees and the ground space needed to survive, is both socially unjust and environmentally destructive. 👉 Click the button below to view the visually rich report, sent anonymously by a concerned North Cambridge resident, documenting the local impacts of these policies in vivid detail.  This visual report of this image-rich document shows the neighborhood-level consequences of these policies. In North Cambridge, within just a few blocks of the Cohousing community, at least a dozen new buildings are planned or underway — most rising three to six stories high, without parking, and often in FEMA-designated flood zones (see page 8). Each image tells part of the same story: homes at 96 and 124 Jackson, 98 Clay, 57 and 58 Cedar, 79 Rice, 57 Madison, and 315 Rindge are already marked or cleared for demolition. Modest, affordable homes are being replaced by dense luxury blocks that strain infrastructure, reduce the tree canopy, and erode the scale and livability of our neighborhoods. The project at 124 Jackson Street typifies this wave — a six-story, 74-foot-high building totaling nearly 60,000 square feet, with about 30 units, only six designated as affordable. These projects are reshaping Cambridge one parcel at a time, often with little regard for flood risk, neighborhood input, or design quality. The closing words of this report remind us what’s at stake and how we must respond: “We always support the neighbor most affected.” — Larry Adkins, Riverside Neighborhood Association “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” — Benjamin Franklin If Cambridge residents hope to preserve our city’s human scale, diversity, and environmental health, we must do the same — stand together, stay informed, and speak up before the damage becomes irreversible.   On November 4th, Cambridge voters have the chance to amend our City Charter.
There are many serious issues facing the City — none of which are addressed by these changes. The charter review process was long, expensive and so mired in disagreements that the committee itself couldn’t reach consensus. While the proposal does remove the Mayor as the Chair of the School Committee (a good thing in our opinion) overall it strengthens the City Council at the expense of Cambridge’s long-standing and successful commitment to professional and apolitical management. Under these changes, Board appointments (which recently became paid positions) can devolve into a spoils system for Councillors to use to reward supporters. With over 50 Boards, touching on every aspect of life in Cambridge (from aging to the Library system, from traffic to zoning), we deserve dedicated and serious appointees, not patronage. There are many ways the City could be made to deliver better results for its residents. Sadly, this Charter Review takes us backwards with little to show in return. We advise a NO vote.  Demolitions are one of the clearest signals of development pressure. They erase existing homes or commercial buildings and set the stage for new projects, reshaping affordability, neighborhood character, and embodied carbon in the process. Looking at Cambridge’s demolition permit data, two years stand out: 2024 and 2025. The Harvard Crimson earlier reported on this as well (9.1.25) but without going more deeply into the data. According to Cambridge Historical Commission Executive Director, Charles Sullivan, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of properties that have come before the Historical Commission to review for possible demolition. You can find the data on the 244 demolition permits below: In 2024 the city recorded forty-seven demolitions, the highest count in recent years. The surge reflected both pent-up demand and the anticipation of zoning changes that would reshape redevelopment possibilities. By contrast, 2025 has not slowed down. Through late September there have already been thirty-three demolitions, showing that activity remains elevated even if slightly below the record pace of the prior year. Month by month the story is visible: a wave of demolitions swept through the fall of 2024 as projects lined up ahead of the City Council’s upzoning vote; the winter months saw a dip, as colder weather often slows construction logistics; and the spring and summer of 2025 brought a steady renewal of demolition activity. A dashed line in the monthly trend marks February 10, 2025, the date of the upzoning vote. Before that date, demolitions accelerated in the lead up; after it, the pace continued at a slightly lower but still steady level. What kinds of buildings coming down tells an even clearer story. From September 2024 through September 2025, single-family and two-family houses (SFH/TFH) made up the largest share of demolitions. These scattered losses, one or two units at a time, were by far the most common. Multifamily teardowns were fewer, but when they did occur the impact was greater, eliminating far more homes at once. Commercial demolitions added another layer, concentrated along Cambridge’s corridors where whole blocks are being prepared for redevelopment. The pattern holds across the periods: in the lead up to the zoning change, SFH/TFH demolitions dominated, and after February 10 they continued to do so, with overall counts dipping only modestly. What we see in the graph below is the sizable increase in single-family and two-family homes in large part because these bring the greatest financial return to investors and developers in Cambridge (with investors increasingly paying cash, and coming from outside the area and the U.S. itself). In short the upzoning has NOT benefitted our own Cambridge residents in need of homes. We note that commercial buildings are also not facing the same degree of interest as the residential units.  The largest number are found in zip code 02138 (West Cambridge, Neighborhood Nine, Strawberry Hill, Baldwin, and parts of Riverside and Mid-Cambridge) which also happens to be the largest part of the city geographically. One can get a sense of the distribution by zip code in the graph below. While some of these are sizable additions to homes, many others are full demolitions. And since the largest financial remuneration in Cambridge comes from LARGER single family homes, post February 10, we are seeing a sky-rocketing of this number in 02138. In the lead up to the upzoning, from September 2024 through December 2024 as investors realized what was likely to happen, we see sharp rises in numbers in 02138 and 02140, with a short hiatus in the dead of winter, but to rise significantly too in 02138, 02139, and 02140 in February through May 2025 in the core upzoning decision making period. In short, the upzoning has led to the purchase and demolition especially of existing single family and two family homes to build larger ones nearly to the property line, eliminating earlier green spaces and trees. This is made clear in the graph below.  Residents in these neighborhoods have been deeply distressed to see this happen. Many have contacted Councillors who have provided no support or help. The impact on these neighbors is huge, not only in asbestos particles during demolitions and noise, but also in terms of their own greatly increased property values, which mean that neighbors will have to pay sharply increased property taxes, causing real hardship to seniors and others on fixed incomes. Neighbors try to band together but to little impact.  As this neighborhood flier expressly notes: "The City Council calls this affordable housing. What a joke. It is a developers' windfall."
And this is exactly what is happening. Some progressive cities required developers to return a percentage of the profits to the city to help our existing residents. These examples and the larger numbers of demolitions in play, though, only capture part of the picture. Each demolition can mean a lease cut short, a family asked to leave, tenants displaced while a site waits for financing. Each one is also a blow to Cambridge’s historic character, as nineteenth- and early twentieth-century houses are erased forever. And each one represents a climate cost, releasing the embodied carbon of structures that once stood, even as the city struggles to meet its emissions targets. Taken together, the data shows a city out of balance. The 2024 surge marked a high-water point for teardowns, and 2025 is keeping pace. The February 10 upzoning clearly mattered, spurring developers to act, but so do the larger cycles of investment and speculation that continue to drive this effort. Watching these permits is one way to see how quickly the city’s fabric is being altered, and to underline how urgently Cambridge needs to balance growth with preservation, affordability, and environmental care.  In 2025, Cambridge’s housing market is quietly entering a new phase. After years of steep rent inflation and surging home values, the edges of that momentum are fraying. Rents show signs of leveling — even slight retreat in some segments — while home price growth, once nearly unshakeable, is exhibiting early signs of fatigue. Importantly, the role of outside investors, long a potent force in this market, appears to be under subtle recalibration, responding to shifting fundamentals in Cambridge’s job, institutional, and office landscapes.
The reasons appear to reflect national policy drivers as much as local ones. Cambridge’s rental market is no longer running hot with unbounded upward thrust. According to BostonPads’ 2025 Cambridge Apartment Rental Market Report, the market “has steadied itself out” compared to the previous run; the Real-Time Availability Rate (RTAR) is ~3.78 % year-over-year, and vacancy (Real-Time Vacancy Rate) is ~7.5 % from last year (BostonPads) That means renters have incrementally. Zillow reports that the average rent in ~$30 over the past year and ~$85 in the last month (Zillow) Likewise, Zumper’s data suggest a ~2 % drop in monthly rents and ~1 % decline year-over-year (Zumper) . The broader pattern is that rent growth is no longer accelerating strongly (Redfin). In comparison, on single family homes sales Cambridge’s market also may be hitting natural ceilings (Boston Real Estate Times). So, the rental environment in 2025 may be best described as “plateauing” with occasional soft dips, rather than continuing steep climbs. For renters, that means more negotiation room (especially outside peak months). On the for-sale side, the picture is more mixed, with some signals of cooling after years of torrid gains. According to Redfin, in August 2025, the median sale price in Cambridge was ~$1.2 million, a jump of ~23.7 % over the prior year — but the price per square foot fell ~10.7 % (Redfin). Zillow’s more conservative metric shows average home value up just 1.5 % year-over-year at ~$1,033,323 (Zillow) And the August 2025 data report or Realtor show a median listing price of ~$1.10 million, down ~14.9 % year-over-year, and a median sold price near $900,000, indicating a divergence between asking and final transaction pricing (Realtor) These signals suggest some layers of softness, especially at the fringes of the luxury or speculative segments. Against that backdrop, the role of outside investors in Cambridge real estate remains central. For years, outside investors have played an outsized role in Cambridge’s housing market, competing directly with local residents for properties that promised strong rental returns. Reports from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council show how investor capital and LLC purchases have crowded out traditional owner-occupants across Greater Boston, particularly in high-demand communities like Cambridge where multi-family housing can be quickly monetized (MAPC 2021). Real estate investment platforms like Mashvisor highlight Cambridge’s high occupancy rates and profitability metrics for landlords (Mashvisor 2025) and is Rentastic promoting Cambridge’s strong rental yields and demand stability (Rentastic 2025). In such a context, the competition between residents seeking homes and investors seeking returns has had an impact on rising rents, but as rents level off and vacancies tick upward, the financial calculus for outside investors becomes less certain. In 2025, several stressors are pushing investor expectations toward caution:
Cambridge’s local listing volumes also hint at constraints. Tamela Roche’s aggregated listing data show that as of August 2025, listings (condos, single-family, multi-family) are down relative to prior years (e.g. condo listings: 570 in 2025 vs 678 in 2024; single-family: 128 vs 178). Tamela Roche Lower inventory can maintain upward pressure even when demand weakens, which may delay or mask price declines. What does this mean for prices in 2025 and beyond? The scenario suggests gentle rebalancing:
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