We need your help to bring more homes to Cambridge!

Following years of community process and planning, North Mass Ave and Cambridge Street zoning petitions to allow more housing are back before the Ordinance Committee for the 3rd time, on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 at 5:30 p.m.  

Please voice your support for these reforms (see talking points and links below) as one significant way to incentivize more housing where we should have maximum density and height--on major corridors near transit and small local businesses. This will be the most important housing vote in the foreseeable future, so we really need your support!

Unfortunately, local housing opponents will be continuing their misinformation campaign from the election, suggesting buildings up to 18 stories will be allowed anywhere as-of-right. In fact, mixed use buildings of that height are only allowed directly adjacent to the Porter Square MBTA station and even then, only if they provide a plethora of community benefits and the PUD is approved by the Planning Board. The required benefits include active ground-floor uses like retail or a restaurant, significant public open space, and urban design requirements. 

If the Council votes at the Ordinance Committee meeting to approve these zoning petitions, the petitions will be forwarded to the City Council for approval, with a first reading on Monday, December 8 and a second reading for final passage on Monday, December 22.

How Did We Get Here? 

On October 21, the Planning Board unanimously recommended these zoning changes, which will allow more housing along the two corridors. The Community Development Department's recommendations come after years of community process, including numerous public meetings, open houses, and charrettes, as well as many months of meetings of a working group consisting of local community leaders for North Mass Ave and Porter Square. 

On November 13, City Council discussed the proposals at Ordinance and voted to hold the upcoming December 2 meeting to continue discussing the petitions and solicit more community input.

What You Can Do

Voice your support for sending these recommendations on to the full Council and counter the misinformation and opposition Councillors are sure to hear in volumes at the meeting:

• Please email City Council (you can bcc ABC at [email protected]) 
• Sign up to speak at the meeting (sign-up opens a few days prior to the meeting): PUBLIC COMMENT SIGN UP FORM

More info about the meeting here.

Here are some key points for emails/public testimony:

• • The North Mass Ave zoning came out of the Mass Ave Planning Study. A working group, including many stakeholders and local leaders, met over the course of a year. The proposals which informed the zoning petition had broad support from the working group. Cambridge Street zoning proposals similarly resulted from the Our Cambridge Street community process that supported more height to add housing along this corridor.

• • It has been a common refrain during other rezoning processes that we should be zoning our corridors and squares for more housing. Projections for housing growth during the multifamily process still expected most growth to be on corridors and in squares. To unlock this needed housing, we need to move forward by passing these zoning changes.

• • Despite housing affordability being by far the most important issue identified by residents in the City’s annual scientific survey, we remain behind on our 2030 housing production goals on any rezoning scenario the city has proposed. Rezoning our corridors and squares will help put us on a better track for both total housing production as well as increased affordable housing via Inclusionary Zoning.

• • Northern Mass Ave has a lot of one-story retail—very poor land use given our housing shortage.

• • People who live on our transit corridors and near T stops are less likely to own cars and will drive less. This helps us allow for housing growth without congesting our streets.

• • The proposed zoning reduces CO2 emissions by allowing residents to live in these environmentally friendly and resilient new homes and to drive less than they would if transit-oriented homes were not built and they had to live further away.
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  • Additionally, like all new multifamily in Cambridge over 12,000 sq ft, these residences will be subject to the stretch energy code, all-electric and built to the very high Passive House standard of efficiency.

• • Having more customers in the immediate area will help sustain more local small businesses and keep these corridors vibrant.
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  • While we do have a few quibbles with the proposed zoning, including the lack of information as to the cost or structural feasibility of the proposed upper-floor stepbacks and the continued special permit requirement for buildings that should be permitted by-right to avoid costly litigation. That said, overall, we strongly support the new zoning and urge the Council to pass it in the strongest form possible.

Thank you for your advocacy!