MIT's Volpe Rezoning Petition Looms as Grad Students Ask For More Housing

CAMBRIDGE, MA - A petition to increase graduate student housing at MIT got a boost last week, as the Cambridge Ordinance Committee voted to recommend it with support of the full City Council. Now, MIT is saying they may add 950 graduate housing units, according to one Cambridge City Councilor.

Filed in August by MIT organization Graduate Students Apartments Now, the petition calls for the creation of 1,800 new units of graduate student housing prior to the construction of commercial space at the Volpe site in Kendall Square.

In January, MIT purchased the 14-acre John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, planning on renovating the space into a mixed-use expansion of the Kendall Square neighborhood.

In June, MIT filed a mixed-use rezoning petition for the parcel. MIT Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz wrote a letter to the City Council proposing 40 percent of the site be designated for residential use, with the creation of up to 1,4000 units of new housing. That petition is set to expire on Oct. 31.

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Those plans call for approximately 1,120 market rate units and approximately 280 permanently subsidized units, following the city’s anticipated 20 percent inclusionary housing set-aside rate. Twenty percent of the affordable housing would be three-bedroom or family units. The project also includes approximately 1.7 million square feet of office and proposed retail space.

Volpe Center rendering / Courtesy of MIT

According to the MIT petition, the buildings would range in height from 170 to 500 feet. It also touches on open space, parking and traffic mitigation plans.

Initial plans released in February by MIT would also replace Eastgate graduate housing and adding 250 units, add a new headhouse and include an update for the Kendall MBTA stop.

City Councillors Dennis Carlone and Lelands Cheung chair the Cambridge Ordinance Committee. Last Monday, only five of the nine council members were present at the meeting, voting 3 to 2 in favor of the graduate housing petition.

Carlone said the (likely) final Ordinance hearing on Volpe will be held on Tuesday in Cambridge at 2:30 p.m.

Carlone said MIT is now saying they will add 950 grad units.

"I will propose amendments to design guidelines that will help humanize the development," he said. "My aspirations for the site is that it becomes the best new urban design place in the nation that welcomes all to be there. (Think Rockefeller Center as an attraction for visitors, residents and workers.) There is no reason it cannot be of that quality and enhance all of Easter Cambridge."

City Councilor Janet Devereux said she supported the move to send the graduate housing petition to the full City Council.

"I think many people want to see MIT's petition approved," she said. "I think we have some concern when we talk about applying the grad housing petition to MIT's. It's really not an appropriate way to do it."

Devereux said a way to get around that may be to have MIT sign a letter of commitment stating they would adopt the conditions set for by the student group.

Doug McPherson is an MIT grad student studying urban planning and last Thursday joined dozens of students as they spoke out about the need for graduate housing in a public comment period that went over an hour.

McPherson said only a third of MIT grad students currently live on campus and as enrollment has expanded, housing options haven't.

Therefore, he said, students have expanded housing searches into Boston, Cambridge and Somerville, driving up market rents.

“We commend the administration for having the boldness to allocate real resources towards addressing the housing needs of its graduate students through the Volpe petition letter of commitment. The pledge, shared with the graduate community in an e-mail this afternoon, to permit a new 500-bed graduate residence by 2020 and commit to an overall addition of 950 new beds is not just good news for students; it’s a message to the people of Cambridge that MIT is not apathetic to the effects that its growth is having on the already fierce competition for affordable housing," he said.

McPherson said concern still remains that the 950-bed commitment falls somewhat short of the projected 1000-1100 shortfall in graduate housing according to surveyed student preferences in the newly-released Graduate Housing Working Group interim report.

According to the report’s findings, the percentage of off-campus graduate students expressing a preference to live on-campus doubled between 2014 and today.

McPherson said this underscores the impact of rising rents on students, and suggests that the current shortfall is likely to grow in the years it will takes to bring more units online.

"We believe it would be prudent for MIT to consider these factors and revise up its commitment to at least meet the working group’s recommendations," he said. "We are concerned about the current state of unmet student demand for on-campus housing, but we are even more concerned about how the scarcity of affordable apartments may be exacerbated by the completion of the Volpe project. However, we reiterate our previous statements that we are not against development at Volpe or anti-development in general. We simply believe developers—in this case MIT—who have the capacity to mitigate the concerning impacts of a project should do so."

Devereux said if MIT did provide more graduate housing it would be a "win-win" for the city and the university.

"It would satisfy the need of the students and have an impact on the demand for affordable housing in Cambridge," she said.

What's Next

Devereux called the Volpe Project "an opportunity the city has been waiting for."

"It's exciting," she said. "We've waiting a long time to see this land unlocked to create additional value and knit together the Kendall Square area."

Devereux said negotiations are moving quickly, but said she was certain City Council would work to make sure Cambridge residents see more housing, jobs and tax revenue grow as the project continues.

"We're looking at all of the impacts, through traffic and environmental studies as well as a serious look at density in the area," she said.

If MIT"s petition expires on Oct. 31, it can be refiled and submitted to the Council without prejudice, Devereux said. But, because of the timetable and public meeting requirements, it likely wouldn't be able to be heard until early January of 2018. By which time, many of the current City Councilors may be gone.

Cambridge city councillors Nadeem A. Mazen, Leland Cheung, and David P. Maher each announced over the summer that they would not seek reelection this November.

Courtesy Photo / MIT