ABC Action Fund Platform
2 min readJul 3, 2019
Our vision:
ABC AF believes Cambridge should make inclusion and equity a priority. That means building more homes — particularly affordable housing — to welcome people to every neighborhood of our high-opportunity city, while protecting tenants against displacement.
ABC AF believes Cambridge should be a climate leader, promoting not just climate resiliency policies, but also new housing and transit that reduce the amount of pollution that the city and the larger region emit.
By welcoming new residents, Cambridge will nurture dynamic, exciting urban life, and create healthy racial, ethnic and economic diversity.
To achieve that vision:
- Cambridge should increase housing supply by allowing more density than what current zoning allows (particularly in areas well-served by public transit).
- Cambridge should increase spending on affordable housing by at least $20m over the FY19 level for the next 5 years.
- Cambridge should make it easier to build affordable housing in every neighborhood by passing the Affordable Housing Overlay that would allow more 100% affordable housing projects to be built as-of-right.
- Cambridge’s zoning should no longer require the builders of new housing to include one parking space per unit, needlessly making housing more expensive, and encouraging people to buy and use cars who otherwise would not.
- Cambridge should abolish single-family zoning and other exclusionary restrictions, by establishing citywide minimum zoning that allows triple-deckers.
- Cambridge should protect tenants from displacement through policies such as providing mediation services, lawyers, and subsidies to fight evictions; strengthening condo conversion controls; and lobbying for state legislation for additional financial resources and stronger legal protections.
