A Planning Board recommendation to adopt certain elements of the Kroon, et al., "Friends of MAPOCO" Zoning Petition

The Planning Board recommends ADOPTION OF CERTAIN

ELEMENTS of the petition, as described below and in the attached zoning text changes. To the Honorable, the City Council, On December 8, 2015, the Planning Board held a public hearing on the “Friends of MAPOCO” petition suggesting modifications to the zoning provisions of the Massachusetts Avenue Overlay District in the segment between Porter Square and the Cambridge Common. The Board heard a presentation from the petitioners, comments from the public and information from CDD staff.

At a continued hearing on January 26, Board members received additional information from staff and the petitioners, and made the following comments and recommendations. The petitioners raise a number of important issues related to the desired form of future development along one of the city’s main commercial corridors, which currently contains a vibrant ecosystem of neighborhood-supporting businesses, historic resources, institutional buildings and residential communities of various types.

However, the zoning petition suggests general approaches rather than specific zoning text amendments. Some suggestions in the petition, such as revising the urban design guidelines for the area and incentivizing additional public parking, raise important issues that cannot be addressed through zoning changes alone, and may be better addressed in the broader context of citywide planning. Other suggestions do not require any zoning change to address the underlying issue.

Therefore, the Board recommends adopting a more limited set of zoning changes as an interim measure to better regulate redevelopment that may occur over the next few years, prior to the completion of citywide planning work.

As reflected in the petition, the core piece of this approach is to extend the provisions currently applicable in the Business A-2 (BA-2) district north of Porter Square (adopted in 2012 as the North Massachusetts Avenue Subdistrict) into the BA-2 district south of Porter Square, with some slight variations.

While the MAPOCO petition includes the section of Massachusetts Ave. directly south of the BA-2 district (between Shepard/Wendell and Chauncy/Everett Streets), those areas are zoned residential (C-2 and C-2A) and do not allow retail uses, although several non-conforming uses do exist in those districts. Therefore it would not be possible to require retail uses in that portion of Massachusetts Avenue without making a substantial change to the underlying purely residential nature of the base zoning districts.

After consultation with CDD staff, it appears that such a substantial change should only be made after further study.

City of Cambridge, MA • Planning Board Recommendation