Cambridge Housing Committee Votes 5-0 to Advance Zoning Overhaul Removing Kinship Rules

CAMBRIDGE — March 6, 2024 — Cambridge Housing Committee advances zoning overhaul that would remove kinship-based residency limits. The committee voted 5-0 Wednesday to forward the proposal to the full City Council, recommending that current language treating households of four or more unrelated people as lodging houses — a more restrictive land use category — be replaced with a housekeeping-unit standard rooted in how residents actually live together rather than their family relationships. Jeff Roberts, director of zoning and development at the Community Development Department, told the committee the current definitions are "somewhat old" and "internally inconsistent" and that while kinship provisions are "rarely if ever enforced," they create uncertainty that can make tenants vulnerable. Acting City Solicitor Megan Bayer noted courts weigh permanency, shared access, and joint household activities — not profit status — when determining whether a group constitutes a single housekeeping unit. Lyndon Heumann of Cambridge's LGBTQ Plus Commission urged staff to clarify the retained phrase "single non-profit housekeeping unit" and to address potential ambiguity in the lodging house definition around households where members hold individual leases. The committee also unanimously forwarded the reappointments of Elaine DeRosa for a five-year term and resident representative Victoria Berglund for a five-year term on the Cambridge Housing Authority Board of Commissioners.