Cyrus Dahmubed, a lifelong Auburndale resident and urban designer, says he’s running for one of the two Ward 4 at-larges seat on the Newton City Council to preserve the city in which he grew up and to make it more affordable and accessible for all generations.

“I can’t think of a single kid I grew up with who still lives here. They simply can’t afford to,” he said. “At the same time I see seniors beginning to realize they can’t afford to live here, so it becomes a question of who is the city for?”

Dahmubed’s priorities, if elected, would include preserving and diversifying the city’s housing stock, expanding commercial opportunities, and building a far more accessible and robust transportation network.

Shaping space

Dahmubed was raised near Auburndale’s village center, the Cove and the commuter rail. All three have shaped the lens through which he began to understand how a city operates, noticing the interconnectedness between natural systems, transit and village centers which were constantly “in dialogue with each other.”

This formative understanding steered him into a career of shaping urban environments. Having previously worked as an associate and director of research at Utile, a Boston-based architectural design firm, he led work on spatial inclusivity and modern design responses to changing patterns of living and working in multifamily households.

Since 2020, he has partnered with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute on its Center for Healing, Teaching, and Learning in Dorchester.

Beyond project work, Dahmubed co-led Utile’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiative, has edited several architecture-based publications, and taught design and architecture classes at Wentworth, Boston Architectural College, and MassArt.

He is active in various professional ethic committees and national conferences, and has received considerable industry recognition and numerous awards for his tireless civic engagement and leadership efforts.

Dahmubed also serves on the Boston Children’s Chorus Board, and has chaired its Governance Committee since 2021.

This mix of neighborhood roots, professional practice and community action is the backbone of the policy perspective that Dahmubed hopes to bring to the city council.

Village vitality and climate change

As the youngest candidate in the race for the Ward 4 seat, Dahmubed believes that he brings a unique perspective shaped by distinctive generational challenges.

When it comes to housing, this perspective underpins his argument that the old “American Dream” trajectory of buying a house young and being able to settle down in a stable community “isn’t going to work anymore” in the current moment.

His plan to tackle housing concerns revolves around a set of practical interventions. He promotes the idea of taking a look at unused manufacturing and industrial plots around the city and perhaps re-zoning these areas to fit commercial, residential or mixed-use needs.

Citing form-based codes and expanded by-right zoning, he emphasizes a system which promotes mixed-use and diverse development, allowing the market to more handily meet resident and commercial needs.

To Dahmubed, the preservation and creation of low-cost housing is directly tied to any of Newton’s sustainability efforts. “Our housing affordability problem, and our climate change and resilience problems are not separate issues. They are deeply tied together.”

This is especially so in the context of existing buildings. He strongly believes in the benefits of renovating rather than demolishing and rebuilding. Putting it quite simply, “there’s no building more sustainable than one that already exists.”

He believes that renovation, adaptive reuse and careful preservation of existing buildings would allow Newton to meet housing and commercial goals without sacrificing environmental responsibility.

He contrasts this with new construction, which he says is comparatively far more wasteful.

“If you’re replacing a building with something that’s basically the same, putting that building ‘in the dumpster’ is really terrible environmentally,”

At the same time, he wants high performance standards for any new construction, so that any future developments contribute to Newton’s net-zero goals instead of undermining them.

Dahmubed also places village centers and small businesses at the center of his housing and growth strategy.

He says that he has developed, “from what I can tell, a first of its kind small business preservation plan designed around models on inclusionary zoning and inclusionary retail that encourage the preservation of small businesses and village centers.”

The plan would also look to deal with any practical concerns that businesses may face with any new construction or renovations, such as where businesses could continue operations if their building was temporarily inaccessible. This would ensure that business can “keep operating and actually making good money during the period of construction, and then return to their community.”

A big theme of Dahmubed’s plans for a commercial resurgence is cutting unnecessary red tape, arguing that the city must rework approval processes so new developments and established businesses are not strangled by tedious bureaucracy.

“We need to take a really deep look at our approvals process, and make it more streamlined and predictable,” he said, again mentioning the benefits of by-right zoning to ensure clearer pathways for businesses to move into the city.

He illustrated the costs of not doing so with a local example–Lavender Café in West Newton–which faced an arduous process of opening due to confusing and slow approval systems. “This kind of circuitous, expensive process is not the kind of process that gets small businesses open and people through the doors.”

Funding the future

On city finance and school funding, Dahmubed considers himself pragmatic and equity-minded.

“Government basically has two levers that it can pull on. It can tax, and it can grow tax.” His approach would be to pursue the latter when possible, but acknowledge tough tradeoffs when needed—especially as it relates to a possible Proposition 2 ½ override.

“We have to fund schools,” he said, pointing to the fact that school funding was a non-negotiable for him. However, he clarified that he would pair any necessary overrides with targeted protections for vulnerable residents.

He proposes safeguards for seniors on fixed incomes, especially those who are still paying mortgages on houses below Newton’s median single family house value. These residents, in Dahmubed’s opinion, deserve exemptions or tax freezes in the case of any override, so they won’t be disproportionately burdened.

And he insists investment must precede reward. “If we start the work to prepare for an opportunity when it is already at the door,” he warned, “we’ll have missed the opportunity.”

A city accessible

Transportation has long been a focus of Dahmubed’s personal work, and it’s a pillar of his platform.

He recalled meeting former State Representative Kay Khan at the Cold Spring Park Farmers’ Market two decades ago, and she spoke to him and his father about her work to rebuild Newton’s commuter rails stations—work that has yet to come to fruition—but today, with that work incomplete, Dahmubed warns that continuing to kick the problem down the road has had a real human cost.

“If you get off at Auburndale, West Newton, or Newtonville station and you look at the staircase and you’re pregnant, a parent with a stroller, or you’re someone who has mobility needs, you just think, ‘Oh my God, I cannot go here,’” he said.

Khan, who pushed for those accessibility renovations up until she retired last year, has endorsed Dahmubed for City Council.

His own proposed remedy to these issues of accessibility and transportation is twofold. He plans to press the MBTA to deliver station accessibility plans for all commuter rail stations in Newton, not just the Newtonville Station which has been a target for renovation due to having the “greatest growth capacity and potential.”

This could be done in tandem with zoning for new growth around the stations, he mentioned, pointing out how the city could make these station upgrades more appealing for the MBTA by drawing in more ridership.

For last-mile or bus options, he favors strengthening the available regional system over incorporating private shuttles.

“I tend to lean away from the private shuttle option, we have a regional public transit system and we should be further working with the MBTA to develop this,” Dahmubed said.

He also proposes targeted pilots prior to any implementation, and testing if certain busses could be made free to see how ridership and road congestion is affected.

Active transportation and sensible street design are also integral to Dahmubed’s vision for mobility in Newton. He’s an active bicyclist and stresses that when it comes to such modes of transportation, “safety comes before speed and also comes before comfort.”

That motto guides his support for further investment in bike and pedestrian infrastructure and for a better coordination of related services.

Dahmubed emphasizes accessibility and responsiveness in his own office as well. A self-proclaimed “digital native,” he wants to implement more efficient means of communicating with constituents. In his opinion, this ranges from regular video updates, to more usable and refined online city resources.

He hopes to pair this with active in-person outreach like walking or biking tours to foster a deep sense of community connection and trust.

“This all just comes down to care,” he said.

Newton’s election will be Nov. 4.