A five-year progress review of the Affordable Housing Overlay

October 2025 marked the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO). This landmark zoning provision supports the production of affordable housing. The AHO provides an as-of right permitting path with more flexible dimensional standards for new 100% affordable housing.

The Affordable Housing Overlay

provisions (AHO), Section 11.207 of the Zoning Ordinance, were first adopted in October 2020. The AHO was created to support the development of affordable housing by allowing for incremental increases in density and height and relaxing other zoning requirements for developments that are fully affordable to income-eligible residents.

Five (5) years after ordination, the Housing Department shall provide to the City Council, Planning Board and the Affordable Housing Trust, for its review, a report that assesses the effectiveness of the Affordable Housing Overlay in increasing the number of affordable housing units in the city, distributing affordable housing across City neighborhoods, and serving the housing needs of residents.

The report shall also assess the effectiveness of the Advisory Design Consultation Procedure in gathering meaningful input from community members and the Planning Board and shaping AHO Projects to be consistent with the stated Design Objectives. The report shall evaluate the success of the Affordable Housing Overlay in balancing the goal of increasing affordable housing with other City planning considerations such as urban form, neighborhood character, environment, and mobility.

The AHO also created a new approach to community and advisory review to provide a process for public discussion and comment on proposed AHO developments while allowing AHO developments to obtain building permits without discretionary approvals. Section 11.207.11 (b) states that the Housing Department shall provide a Five-Year Progress Review of the AHO.

Section 11.207.11 (b)

This report provides an overview of the impact and effectiveness of the AHO on its stated goal of producing affordable housing that is compatible with Cambridge’s affordable housing and urban design objectives. Specifically, this report provides an overview of the AHO’s effectiveness in increasing the number of affordable housing units in the city, distributing affordable housing across city neighborhoods, and serving the needs of Cambridge residents.

This report also describes the effectiveness of the advisory design consultation process in “gathering meaningful input from community members and the Planning Board” and “shaping AHO projects to be consistent” with “stated Design Objectives.” The AHO provisions adopted in 2020 were updated in October 2023 and again in February 2025.

Where useful, notes are made to indicate the impact of the two subsequent amendments to the AHO which both expanded the heights allowed under the AHO and changed aspects of the required review processes. 49 Sixth Street, East Cambridge, 46 units — Status: under construction. Background The AHO addresses major challenges faced by developers.

By providing an as-of-right path to developers of affordable housing, many affordable housing developments which once might have taken years to receive permits, or may never have been pursued due to the uncertainty of discretionary permitting approvals, became feasible. In addition to addressing the unpredictability of discretionary permitting processes, the AHO allows greater heights and other flexible development standards to facilitate affordable housing development.

Incentives for fully affordable housing have been expanded with each amendment, first in October 2023 and again in February 2025. While AHO projects can move forward without discretionary permit approvals, the AHO requires a design review process, which includes multiple opportunities for input from the community and the Planning Board to encourage good design and development outcomes.

The adoption of the AHO by the City Council in 2020 followed several years of discussions among City staff, elected officials and community members on how best to increase production of affordable housing in Cambridge.

The Affordable Housing Overlay allows HRI to pursue and acquire

properties that would otherwise be financially infeasible to develop as affordable housing, because we know the height and density we can build on any given site. In addition, the by-right nature of the zoning gives non-profit, mission-based developers, like HRI, a clear roadmap for the community process and City reviews. This predictability streamlines our design development and financing, and helps our projects move faster.

HRI acquired our first AHO project, 4 Mellen, in mid-2022, and we will complete construction by the end of 2026. The AHO makes an accelerated development timeline possible, and reduces the wait time for desperately needed affordable homes.” — Sara Barcan, Executive Director, Homeowners Rehab, Inc. Increasing Production of

Affordable Housing

AHO’s Effectiveness at 16 affordable housing developments were proposed under the AHO in its first five years. Additional AHO developments in the pipeline will advance in the coming months and years. The 16 developments underway will produce more than 1,000 new permanently affordable homes for low- and moderate- income residents. This is a significant increase in affordable housing production activity from prior years. The pipeline of new 100%-affordable housing has never been so deep.

For comparison, in 2015, there were two active new affordable housing projects underway. The robust pipeline of new affordable housing is directly attributable to the AHO and City funding dedicated to creating new affordable housing. The AHO has allowed affordable housing providers to compete with market-rate developers and successfully obtain sites they would not have had access to prior to the AHO.

The size of the AHO projects underway range from a small 4-unit affordable homeownership development to a 278-unit redevelopment of a large public housing complex. The average size of an AHO project, to date, is just over 70 units. As we report on progress of the first five years of the AHO, one of these developments has been complete and is now occupied, five are in construction, four are preparing for construction, and the remaining six are at various stages of the AHO process, as shown in the table below: PB #

AHO Development