MIT Dormitory, Cambridge, MA
Mr. Boyes-Watson laments difficulty with permit process for new housing. Is it the need to get permits at all, that is a problem, or only some of the process? He does not explain. He does not suggest that any part of the process is corrupt, or can be ignored with due consideration. He does not mention why developers want to build in Cambridge with all of the problems getting permits. Do the high prices of real estate have anything to do with it? Is building in Cambridge a good investment? Is blaming "we in the community" for "loading up housing construction with more and more obligations and fighting each project that is proposed" misguided blame? How much influence do "we in the community" have over decisions by the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals?
Are official requirements too high for low income housing? Shoddy construction, no heat and hot water would lower costs and allow more poor people to live in the city. Allowing flop houses for single room occupancy would get rid of, or at least mitigate the homeless problem. Standards are too high. Look at places like the Sudan, Jordanian and Syrian refugee camps, Gaza, asylum seekers in Italy, for low cost housing of millions who are refugees. The same standards could be used in Cambridge to increase housing and to reduce the homeless problem. Look at the large tent Harvard University erected on city owned land on the overpass near the Fire Department headquarters, which Harvard calls Science Plaza. A great place for low cost housing near a major transit hub. 20 stories of low income housing would go well there. Then there is Cambridge Common where a fifty story building could easily be built, even closer to major transportation and shopping.
[From article]
I can categorically state that it is hard, very hard, to obtain permits to build housing. In my opinion is far too hard, in fact so hard that despite the strong desire of developers to invest in housing in the city not enough new housing is being permitted and built here. This throttling of new housing supply means that well-to-do, moderate-income and low-income folks are all competing for what is a too limited, too static resource.[. . .]
This is a problem of not permitting enough housing, period. Every unit is very expensive to get permitted and built, so the new housing is, inevitably expensive.
[. . .]
It is disingenuous to suggest we are powerless to slow the rise of housing costs in Cambridge. Those who have control can and should address the rise in housing costs by permitting more housing to be built. We in the community cannot behave like Marie Antoinette and bemoan rising housing costs while loading up housing construction with more and more obligations and fighting each project that is proposed. It is hypocrisy.
Guest column: Permit more housing in Cambridge to slow rising costs
By Mark Boyes-Watson
Posted May. 5, 2015 at 10:49 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle
By Mark Boyes-Watson
Posted May. 5, 2015 at 10:49 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle
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