The main beneficiaries have been large, mostly non-resident, property owners and their employees. While it would seem to most people that the Council would unanimously support neighborhood efforts, this has not been the case. Zoning reform usually requires 7 out of 9 City Council votes. Some councillors, perhaps under pressure from developers, either amend petitions to weaken them or just vote against them. Whether the new council members will vote against the interest of the people who elected them is a good question.
Early indications are mixed.
In the most recent neighborhood effort to control development, the Larkin Petition, a building moratorium for East Cambridge, Area 4 and Wellington-Harrington, was passed by seven votes to two. New Councillors, Jim Braude and Marjorie Decker supported it, as did Henrietta Davis, Kathy Born, Ken Reeves, Tim Toomey, and Anthony Galluccio. The Council's process in acting on the Larkin petition is also a cause for concern. It was written by an attorney with the advice of zoning professionals, neighborhood activists, renters and homeowners. Anyone who has attended grass roots meetings like those of CRGM knows that these do much of the real grunt work of effective planning, and that too little is done by the Planning Board and Community Development Department.