Several affordable housing developers have spoken in support of the AHO amendments (thank you to David Hattis for transcribing and submitting them to public comment)
“I’m here to speak in favor of the proposed AHO amendments…The AHO has already been a very valuable tool in our shared goal of creating quality affordable housing in Cambridge. However, it is not sufficiently leveled the playing field as we compete with private developers for the infrequent development opportunities here in the city. In previous hearings I’ve identified sites that we’ve missed out on, some of which I believe we would have secured if the AHO allowed for more height and density along the lines of those that are proposed in the amendment.“
--Carl Nagy- Koechlin, executive director of HRI during public comment on June 12th
“To Carl’s point, we are looking at additional sites all the time and now that we can take the AHO into account and will hopefully you know be able to do so in a way that is even more robust, we do think we’ll
be more competitive. We haven’t yet been able to harness it for a new site acquisition but we feel like these changes will be immensely helpful in the future”
--Sara Barkan Executive Director HRI during the Housing Committee meeting on February 8th
“The language would provide, as councilor McGovern referenced at 116 Norfolk St at Jefferson park, a better outcome both in terms of the possibility of additional units, but also the possibility of maintaining or adding to the open space. So for example under the current Affordable Housing Overlay at 116, we were able to add 25 units as part of a 3.5 story addition and we were able to maintain 44% open space. Under the proposed language, we would have been able to increase the unit count by 4 to 9 units, but also by adding to the unit count increase open space by 48 to 50%. And I know from the comments that we received from the community and through the process there was a lot of support to make those tradeoffs to provide additional green space and the addition of the added height at 116 Norfolk St in that instance was supported by the community but we had the limitation of the affordable housing existing regulations that kept us to the height that we were able to achieve with the addition”
“And at Jefferson Park the AHO limited all the buildings to 4 stories, and that meant that the footprint of each building was slightly larger than it needed to be to maintain the unit count that we were seeking, and it left us with an open space of 31% which was slightly higher than the requirement, but not by a whole lot. And under the proposed language we would have been able to vary the heights of certain buildings and particularly focusing on the back end of the site, we could have potentially seen one 6 or 7 story building in that design and that would have helped us shrink the sizes of all the bounds of the buildings on the site. And also based on the work that our architectural team did we would be able to add potentially up to 16 more units and also see an increase in open space. And as councilor McGovern referenced, shrinking the buildings and having only one building instead of three buildings having elevators would have ended up with a project that was less expensive on a square footage basis”
“And then looking ahead towards a new building on Cambridge St adjacent to our existing Millers River structure, the proposed amendment would allow us to build to a height comparable to the existing building on the parcel and also double the amount of affordable housing in that building on that location. And what’s unique and special and important about that new structure is you know we have reserved our ability to connect to the existing Miller’s River building, and that would allow us to introduce or connect the two buildings and allow us to introduce an expansion of elevator service to the entire complex. Folks who may have been in the building realize that we have three hundred units of housing served by just two elevators and by adding on to the existing Miller’s River property you know at a higher height level than the current AHO would allow, would allow us to actually not only provide for new affordable housing but also help us with you know just vertical transportation in the existing building as well.”
--Magaret Donelly Moran, Director of Planning and Development Department at Cambridge Housing Authority, during the February 8th Housing Committee meeting