Zoning Centennial
Did you know that 2024 is the 100th anniversary of the Zoning Ordinance? Learn about how the Zoning & Development Division at CDD is reflecting on a century of zoning and how it has guided the development of the city.
Special Event – 100 Years of Zoning in Cambridge
Join us for a panel discussion featuring local experts in zoning history on how land use regulations have shaped Cambridge and the rest of America over the past century.
Tuesday, September 24
6:00-8:00 PM
Cambridge Public Library Main Branch Lecture Hall
449 Broadway, Cambridge
Location Information and Directions
This event will be televised live via Channel 22 within Cambridge.
Information about the panelists:
|
Lester Barber served as the Director of Zoning in the Cambridge Community Development Department for three decades, from 1981 to 2011. He is now happily retired and lives in Cambridge.
|
|
Maureen E. “Molly” Brady is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she teaches property law and related subjects. Her articles have won both the Association of American Law Schools’ Scholarly Papers Prize and the American Society for Legal History’s Cromwell Article Prize for the best work in the preceding year by an early career scholar.
|
|
Amy Dain is an independent consultant in public policy research and writing (dainresearch.com). Her focus is on urban and suburban planning and housing policy. She has worked at many Massachusetts-based think tanks, both in-house and as a consultant. Her reports on zoning policy in Massachusetts include Exclusionary by Design on the history of exclusionary zoning, and The State of Zoning for Multi-Family Housing in Greater Boston.
|
|
John Infranca is a Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School. His teaching and scholarship focus on land use regulation, affordable housing policy, property theory, law and religion and election law. His recent work has focused on the intellectual and legal history of single-family zoning and the role of administrative discretion in land use regulation. He serves as the lead researcher for the Massachusetts Zoning Atlas.
|
|
Charles Sullivan trained as a city planner and has been Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Commission since 1974. He is co-author of A Photographic History of Cambridge (1984), Maintaining Your Old House in Cambridge (1988), and Building Old Cambridge: Architecture & Development (2016). He moved to Cambridge in 1965 and has lived in North Cambridge since 1978.
|
Zoning History StoryMaps
We are creating a StoryMap collection to show how the Cambridge Zoning Ordinance and Map have evolved over time. StoryMaps combine maps with text and images into a multimedia online narrative. Starting with a chapter on the 1924 Zoning Ordinance, these StoryMaps explain how zoning was being used at different points in time, the context that surrounded them, and how it affected the growth of the city. More chapters will be added in the future!
Zoning Archive
We have been gathering and digitizing zoning maps and ordinances from over the past 100 years so that you can look at them online. On this page you can read the Cambridge Zoning Ordinance and Building Code from 1924 and look at the very first Cambridge Zoning Map, as well as major changes to the Zoning Ordinance and Map over time. This is not a complete record of zoning ordinances, and they should not be considered official documents for legal purposes. Official copies of City of Cambridge Zoning Ordinances and Zoning Maps are on file at the Office of the City Clerk.