We want to thank the many Cambridge residents who participated in the efforts to limit the size of the proposed Forest City biolab building at 300 Mass. Ave. and to protect the affordability of 168 apartments for current and future tenants in nearby Auburn Court and Kennedy Biscuit apartments at University Park.

While we lost the fight to limit the biolab to the size allowed under current zoning, we contributed to an important affordable housing victory. Neighbors’ letters, phone calls, and testimony at City Council meetings, along with more than 500 signatures on our “Keep Cambridge Livable” petition, altered the terms of debate and helped secure the housing victory. 

In exchange for the zoning change allowing a much taller and bulkier building than current zoning allowed (see Cambridge Day), Forest City was forced to ensure, through a letter of commitment, that the affordability of 168 housing units it had previously developed in University Park will be extended for the 52 years remaining of its ground lease from MIT, and that rents will be limited to 30% of a tenant’s income. The affordability provisions of many of these apartments would have expired far sooner, forcing out many tenants. And the important 30% restriction is new. 

The changes were negotiated among tenants, City Councilors, Forest City, CEOC, and Cambridge-Somerville Legal Services.  However, bringing Forest City to the table depended upon the mobilization of hundreds of residents belonging to the Area 4 Coalition, the Alliance of Cambridge Tenants, the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Essex Street Neighbors, and the Cambridge Residents Alliance that helped bring the hidden issue of expiring affordability to the fore. On the City Council, it was Councilor Minka vanBeuzekom who at the hearing last July called attention to the danger that many of the apartments in University Park would lose their affordability long before the 75-year lease was up. (This of course was well known to Forest City, who owns the buildings and wrote the leases). 

It is worth reviewing the community efforts that brought Forest City to the negotiating table. In the late spring, responding to criticism of their failure to build affordable housing on the Mass. Ave. site, Forest City proposed to build a 14-story tower filled with mostly small market-rate apartments in the park next to the firehouse in Lafayette Square. A robust mobilization of neighborhood residents opposed to the tower influenced the City Council and the tower plan was deleted. 

In August, after multiple meetings packed with neighbors and tenants testifying, and at least four Councilors - Marjorie Decker, Craig Kelley, Denise Simmons and Minka vanBeuzekom - considering voting against it, the amended Forest City petition was not approved, and expired. The revelations on the expiration of affordability at University Park contributed to this outcome, and set in motion the negotiations that led to the letter of commitment filed with the city last week. 

Earlier last year, neighborhood residents’ determined efforts around other development proposals also yielded significant results. The city had publicly presented plans showing half of Newtowne Court public housing torn down and replaced with a higher-rise, mixed-use, mixed-income development. Strong tenant and neighborhood outcry forced the city to back down and state that the Newtowne Court idea was “off the table” for now. 

We remain deeply concerned about the scale of the biolab to be built at 300 Mass. Ave., with its potential for increased noise, pollution, traffic congestion, and parking problems. Though Millenium may prove a good tenant, they are owned by Takeda Pharmaceuticals and subject to global economic pressures.

Our opposition to the Forest City up-zoning was part of a continuing effort to protect Central Square and the rest of the city from excessive and unplanned development by large realty corporations, whose fundamental goal is maximizing their return from our valuable land, rather than ensuring the best interests of the community. The Cambridge Residents Alliance will continue working for a livable, affordable and diverse Cambridge.

Lee Farris, Jonathan King, Shelley Rieman, Nancy Ryan, Barbara Taggart and Charles Teague

Executive Committee of the Cambridge Residents Alliance