In a marathon meeting Monday night, the Cambridge City Commissioners could not agree on how to move forward in their effort to regulate group homes better and failed to pass either of two proposed versions of an ordinance clarifying the criteria for issuing facility permits.
For more than two years, city staff have wrestled with an outdated Unified Development Code, leaving them to navigate a murky landscape of zoning requests and often spending hours researching each application.
The proposed Ordinance 1257 represented a painstaking effort to modernize the city’s regulations, aligning them with federal Fair Housing Act mandates and state laws that classify most group homes as equivalent to single-family residences.
Assistant City Manager Brandon Hesson, who has been deeply involved in the revision process since 2023, described the existing code as a “nebulous and weird” inheritance from 20 years ago.
“We were doing a lot of zoning determinations,” Hesson told The Spy after the meeting. He explained that the influx of applications, up to a dozen a week at one point, forced staff to improvise since everything from small assisted living setups for the elderly to larger recovery residences for people in addiction treatment fell under the vague umbrella of group homes, with no distinctions for size, purpose, or oversight.
“Our code was potentially not as compliant as we’d like,” he added, noting the need for multiple consultations with the city attorney to clarify boundaries on specific cases.
The ordinance sought to cut through this ambiguity by introducing four distinct categories: small and large group homes, small and large halfway houses, recovery residences, and assisted living facilities.
Rather than expanding regulations, the measure would have narrowed them to the legal minimum, shifting most oversight to state licensing bodies. “We’re trying to be as restrictive as the law allows,” Hesson said, describing the city’s approach as operating at the limit of what federal and state rules permit. The updates were intended to help Cambridge avoid the gray areas that allow loopholes to be exploited by operators of such facilities, many of which are integrated into residential communities.
As commissioners opened the floor to public comment, the discussion moved from legal language to human stakes. Civic groups like the Cambridge Association of Neighborhoods (CAN) warned of the risks of clustering too many facilities in close proximity, citing potential disruptions to quiet residential areas.
“We have to be conscious of the security and safety of the residents and the neighborhoods,” CAN member Alison Kennedy testified. “My concern is whether there is a vetting process in place for private companies coming here to set up shop.” Others voiced concern that unchecked growth in group homes could affect property values and strain public safety resources.
Meanwhile, staff from assisted living homes for the elderly offered heartfelt accounts of their facilities as sanctuaries for aging and dementia-affected residents — “places of love” and care for the vulnerable.
The contrasting testimony underscored a core challenge rooted in state and federal law: the legal framework does not distinguish between a halfway house supporting people in recovery and a home providing care for older adults with mobility challenges.
A proposed amendment requiring a 1,000-foot buffer between facilities was meant to preserve neighborhood integrity but risked unintentionally limiting homes for the infirm under rules aimed at controlling the density of halfway houses.
Advocates for recovery housing emphasized that individuals rebuilding their lives after addiction deserve the same access to stable housing and community life as anyone else. Research indicates that halfway houses located in residential areas help residents reestablish routines in a supportive setting and do not increase crime rates.
Proponents of the ordinance, including Commission President Sputty Cephas and Commissioner Shay Lewis-Sisco, urged passage, arguing that fine-tuning could come later.
But Commissioners Brian Roche, Frank Stout, and Brett Summers called for further review, citing a recent federal appeals court ruling from California that could strengthen cities’ authority to impose spacing requirements.
In the end, amendments stalled, and the measure was tabled for the Planning Commission’s December agenda, leaving staff—including Planning Director Brian Herrmann—to continue processing permits under the old, uncertain framework.
Hesson acknowledged the frustration. “We’ve been working on this for two-plus years, and it’s hard to dig out from under what we had. The commissioners have had it for just a couple of weeks.”
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