It began as an earnest attempt to get low income housing built in Cambridge Referendums were held, working committees formed and proposals drafted all with the goal of providing affordable housing for those punched in the city's tight housing market. But when legislation requiring real estate developers to provide the necessary units was put before the city council two months ago it went off like a political bombshell Tenant groups mobilized, the Chamber of Commerce issued a call to arms and divided city councilors shifted uncomfortably in their seats as the battle lines were drawn.

Since then, supporters of the bills have traded charges with opponents over who exactly caused the current shortage. The two largest landowners in the proposals thus leading to a new round of sparring in the traditional town-gown conflict. In the meantime, the prospect of urgent housing relief gets buried in layers of political conflict.

Currently, the council is weighing two separate but similar changes to zoning laws. One is sponsored by Councilor David E. Sullivan of the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) and the other by William Noble of the Cambridge Rent Control Coalition.

Under the Sullivan proposal, builders of complexes containing more than seven apartments must set aside a quarter of the units for low and moderate income tenants. For commercial and institutional facilities of more than 10,000 square feet, such as Harvard might build, developers must provide one unit of housing for every additional 10,000 square feet. The amendment also allows builders the option to pay a cash sum equivalent to the value of the units instead of building the apartments themselves. The coalition proposal differs by requiring more units be set aside in residential construction and it demands the developers themselves build them.

If and when the changes come to a vote (they expire if not acted on before March 4), the three other CCA councilors are expected to throw their weight behind their colleague's less restrictive proposal. Additional support will come from Cambridge Mayor Leonard Russell, who, according to local observers, agreed to back inclusionary zoning a year ago in return for the help Sullivan lent him in his quest to be mayor. Ordinarily, changes in the zoning laws require six votes on the council with former Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci possibly holding the swing vote.

Unlikely

But under state law, if owners of 20 percent of the land affected opppose the changes, the measure needs seven votes to pass--something supporters say would be next to impossible to secure. At the council meeting a week ago, the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce submitted a petition which they say has the requisite number of signature. At the top of the list of opponents were Harvard and MIT.

"The University is not unalterably opposed to a public policy vehicle of inclusionary zoning, says Jacqueline O'Neil', the University's assistant vice president for state and community affairs, "but what has been proposed is very rigid and stringent."

According to supporters, the measures would case the housing crunch caused by, ironically enough, too much building. For more than a decade the city has linked arms with private developers to attract companies to depressed areas like East Cambridge, Kendall Square and Alewife. Now with construction zipping along, the city finds itself having to grapple with the strain on the housing stock caused by the employees of the newly arrived firms. Increased demand has sent rents skyrocketing, even in controlled units, with the average monthly cost of an apartment doubling since 1970 and with existing units going to those who can pay the most. As evidence of the shortage, the Cambridge Housing Authority points to the 1300 applicants on the waiting tries to find affordable places for those with modest incomes.

Demand Raises Rents

Now is this simply a temporary market imbalance, say city officials. Many of those on the waiting lists have been there for years and are being placed at a rate of less than one hundred a year. City employees with the Community Development Department say an additional 4000 units will be needed by the end of the century. If current trends continue, only about one thousand will be built. The end result, they say, is that those who can afford to pay the inflated will find apartments and the lower income groups will be forced to leave unless the city steps in.

"The working people of this city have been attacked on two fronts by university expansion and commercial development." Vellucci said at a recent council meeting. "A whole lot of family houses have been taken away by people hanging around the universities."

Fears of possible gentrification haunt the advocates of the proposals. Many of them see the rapid influx of larger businesses as an instruction that threatens to destroy the city's diverse social fabric threeatents to destroy the city's diverse social fabric. They worry that uncheeked development will replace a Cambridge made up of construction workers and professors, the wealthy on Brattle Street and the ethnic neighborhoods to the east with while dollar professionals attached to the universities and high-tech firms. Only more affordable housing they say, can keep low, and moderate income people in the city.

"New employees will find places to live at the expense of current residents," says Sullivan, "and this will change the face of the city in drastic ways. This is a deliberate social policy to preserve diversity."

But Sullivan and others are gambling on the notion that the new requirements imposed on building will not adversely affect construction and dampen the current commercial boom. They figure that developers will still want to take advantage of Cambridge's prestigious address and companies will continue to prize access to university brain-power and facilities enough to bear what Sullivan estimates is a modest three percent increase in costs.

"Cambridge isn't being developed because it's cheap, it's because it's Cambridge, and that won't change," says Sullivan, adding "I don't think Fortune 500's will be driven from town."

Russell agrees:" They say they would go elsewhere, but I don't believe it, Cambridge is the place to be in the 80's."

Development Freeze?

Not so, says David Clem, one of the real estate developers spearheading the opposition. A former city councilor. Clem computes that when the costs of construction delay--caused by the new permit process--are added in. Sullivan's three percent increase in costs becomes 15 percent. And that, he says, would freeze development.

"These ordinances will stop development," he says, "They will send a salvo to the development community that Cambridge is not interested in the private sector."

Both at public hearings and in the press, angry builders charge the city with poisoning what has been up until now a productive working relationship. After being courted for years by a city eager for development they now find themselves socked with restrictive requirements that in short amount to an unfair tax.

"What is really being proposed is a law on development, a tax on going ahead with construction," says David Barrett, Senior vice president of Boston Properties Adds Trinity Group's Thomas G. Digiovanni '78 another Cambridge developer, "Mr. Sullivan is looking to business to solve the problems the city can't solve itself and by implication blaming the business community for the problems that exist."

Sullivan denies that the proposals tax developers. He say they merely seek to make developers responsible for the extra load they put on the housing stock. He compares linkage to current regulations requiring developers to provide parking or those forcing factories to control pollution.

"Development is causing demand for housing and developers should have to meet that demand," says the councilor. "No one should have be able to realize the benefits of the Cambridge location without assuming some of the cost."

Imminent Lawsuits

But the law, it would appear, is on the developers' side. Under the state constitution, cities that require special building permits must in turn grant density bonuses or other forms of zoning relief, something the current proposed fail to do. The city solicitor office issued a report last week recommending a vote against the amendments on the grounds that they will embroil the city in a host or lawsuits. Supporters of the bills contend, however, that increases in density would arouse the opposition of neighborhood groups worried about the quality of life in their areas.

Developers also bristle at the charge that they singlehandedly produced the housing crisis and try to shift the blame for the shortage on the city's restrictive rent control policy. Indeed, much of the controversy surrounding inclusionary zoning and linkage centers around this perennially volatile issue. Under city rules, rental units built before 1970 are regulated regardless of whether a yuppie or a blue collar worker occupies it. The 16-year-old rent control ordinance currently blankets 17,000 units, or 40 percent of the housing stock.

If the system targeted controlled units to those who needed it, developer, say, the lines at the housing authority would shrink and they would not have to provide extra housing at gunpoint. Those who could afford to pay market rates would then be forced to do so and residential builders would meet the demand. But now, with the present policy, middle-class tenants take up space low income families would have. With a dearth in housing money coming from Washington collers and builders claiming that low income housing is not profitable, nothing is getting built.

"The failure of rent control is that there is no needs test," says Clem. "Regulated units are being passed from friend to friend," Adds David Hughes of the Chamber." When 17,000 units are not turning over or don't become available to those who need them rent control is not accomplishing its purpose."

Major Overhaul Needed

Developers say they are willing to join forces with the city and search for a solution to the housing problem, but only on the condition that reforms in rent control also be put on the table. And anyone acquainted with Cambridge politics knows that is a tall order.

For the city's social progressive coalition rent control is the sacred cow, the cornerstone of their platform. Councilors like Sullivan are vehemently opposed to any changes which would weaken the current to any changes which would weaken the current policy. Sullivan resists the notion that rent control should benefit only lower and moderate income groups, saying it should protect everyone from the inflated rates that would otherwise be caused by Cambridge's excessive housing demand.

But there are those who would say that the CCA's interest in rent control has become less altruistic over the years and more blatantly political as every other November rent control beneficiaries back the endorsed CCA city council slate.

"It's no longer an issue of equity. It's politics pure and simple," says developer DiGiovanni. "Three or four councilors have the tenant vote locked up.

"The council is not prepared to make the hard political choices of targetting limited resources to those who truly need them," says Clem.

Although a defeat of the current proposals may be regarded by developers as a political victory it would leave unanswered the urgent question about what to do for those on the housing authority, waiting lists. And while both sides call for a joint city--developer effort to combat the problem, the sad result of the past two months' fighting may be that tempers are too heated and feelings too bruised for any such partnership to occur.

But not all hope is extinguished. Last week city planners proposed an alternative that may be a rallying point for both the city and developers. In a report to the city council, the agents recommended that the city change its density requirements to 80 percent of their current levels. If developers wanted to increase the density of their projects to what they have now they would have to contribute either money earmarked for housing or the actual units themselves. The firms would put up part of the money with the city kicking in the rest. All at once this statistics the legal requirements that the city offer developers incentives, calms neighborhood tears of overbuilding and lessens considerably the financial burden on builders.

Still, the business community will continue to insist that rent control be modified. And changes may be in the cards. Observers say that reforms could be one of the major focuses of councilor Saundra Graham's upcoming conference on housing.