Cambridge Planning Board sends concerns to council on petition to equalize rules for religious uses

The Cambridge Planning Board on July 8 transmitted a set of comments to the City Council on a zoning petition that would place religious uses on the same dimensional footing as residential uses in parts of the city, but stopped short of recommending adoption. The board’s action followed legal presentations, a petitioner presentation, and public comment about neighborhood impacts and legal risk.

The petition, filed by Mushla Marazzo et al. with Lubavitch of Cambridge among its proponents, would amend parts of the Cambridge zoning ordinance (as referenced in the petition and Table 5.1) to remove gross floor area and floor-area-ratio limitations for religious uses; allow conforming additions to nonconforming structures for religious uses; and permit religious uses to be treated like residential uses for dimensional limits, including allowing buildings up to six stories (up to 74 feet) without triggering inclusionary-housing requirements in some cases. It would also change notification and open-space provisions as applied to religious uses.

The board’s nut graf: members said the petition raises planning questions about neighborhood impacts and “intensity of use” that they want the City Council and city departments to weigh alongside the legal analysis the law department provided and the proponents’ arguments.

Megan Baer, city solicitor, summarized the law department’s written opinion for the board, describing two principal legal frameworks that shape the issue. “The Dover Amendment” (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40A, §3) prevents local ordinances from prohibiting religious and nonprofit educational uses while allowing municipalities to impose reasonable dimensional regulations. At the federal level, she explained, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) prohibits land-use rules that impose a substantial burden on religious exercise unless the government shows a compelling interest and uses the least restrictive means. Baer said those protections mean courts assess claims on a case-by-case basis and that municipalities have limited but important tools to craft zoning that can withstand challenge.

Baer noted Cambridge once had special state legislation (adopted in 1979) that altered how the Dover Amendment applied locally; that changed after the city’s multifamily zoning revisions removed a 1,200-square-foot-per-unit lot-area threshold, so staff expect to bring additional zoning amendments to clarify institutional-use regulations in light of the city’s multifamily zoning.

Petitioners’ counsel, Patrick Yerby of Time, Time and Davis and Duffy, and Christopher Hall, said the amendments would reduce litigation risk by putting religious uses on similar dimensional terms as residential uses. “This would remove a lot of those opportunities and smooth that process,” Hall told the board, adding the petitioners do not intend to remove all neighborhood protections. During the hearing petitioners said they expect to drop proposed changes to two footnotes that would have exempted religious uses from neighborhood notification and certain permeable-open-space requirements; they said forthcoming final language would keep those requirements in place for religious uses.

Members of the public urged caution. Deborah Epstein (36 Bank St.) told the board she was “dumbstruck” to learn the city solicitor had discussed legal questions with the petitioner’s lawyer and urged the board to seek more legal research about municipal wins under RLUIPA. Alan Jocelyn (36 Bank St.) and other residents pressed the board on “intensity of use,” arguing institutional buildings may have far larger peak occupancies than residential buildings of similar size; Jocelyn said, “When you build a 40,000-square-foot institutional or religious assembly building ... it can house as many as 2,000 patrons.” Helen Walker, Heather Hoffman and others urged the board and council to consider municipal tools to protect neighborhoods and to review possible constitutional (Establishment Clause) implications.

Board members asked detailed questions. Several members, including Ted Cohen and Dan Anderson, focused on whether the city could address impacts such as shadowing, traffic and noise through conditions or a special-permit process rather than an as-of-right allowance to six stories for religious uses. Jeff Roberts, director of Zoning and Development in the Community Development Department, clarified that the city’s inclusionary-housing requirement applies to developments that create at least 10,000 square feet of residential use or at least 10 dwelling units, and that the petition’s wording needed clarification to ensure inclusionary rules would still apply where intended.

After discussion the board voted unanimously (6–0) to transmit comments — not a positive or negative recommendation — to the City Council. The motion, made by Planning Board member Ted Cohen and seconded by Ashley Tan, asked the council to weigh the planning concerns the board identified (notably intensity of use and neighborhood impacts), the legal issues outlined by the law department, and to consider a possible special-permit option for increases from four to six stories so that impacts could be reviewed and mitigated where necessary. The board also supported the ordinance committee’s direction that staff and petitioners should not remove neighborhood notification and permeable-open-space provisions from final petition language.

The Planning Board additionally approved its meeting minutes for April 15, 2025; that motion, made by Diego Macias and seconded by Ted Cohen, passed by roll call vote 6–0.

The City Council referred the petition to a second reading June 30; final ordination is scheduled for a council summer meeting on Aug. 4, 2025. The Planning Board noted it will continue related zoning housekeeping work to align institutional-use regulations with the city’s multifamily zoning changes and plans further discussion on potential zoning revisions this summer.

The board’s action was procedural: it did not adopt zoning but asked the council to consider planning, legal and permitting options before final ordination. The Council will receive the Planning Board comments and the law department memo as it prepares for the August action.

(Reporting: This article summarizes remarks and testimony from the July 8, 2025 Cambridge Planning Board continued public hearing on a zoning petition related to religious uses.)