Public Objections to MIT Development – In Context with a Bad City Government
1. Town Gown Meeting, February 7, 2006.
2. City Council Zoning Policies.
3. Which Councilors are Guilty?
4. A Vote to Destroy on or Near Memorial Drive.
5. What should have and could have passed.
6. Summary.
1. Town Gown Meeting, February 7, 2006.
At the Town-Gown presentation by MIT to the Cambridge Planning Board, the thing clearest was the enormity of MIT’s projects, ongoing and massive.
One public comment was telling. The speaker was concerned that MIT was doing so much construction right at the sidewalk, no grass, no trees, just right at the sidewalk.
When I spoke, I put the matter in perspective. The reality is that the City of Cambridge, through its City Council and Planning Board, has done a lot of massive zoning changes in recent years.
2. City Council Zoning Policies.
The zoning changes have been horribly complicated and were described as being oh so good.
The reality is that the documents routinely have undisclosed fine print buried in the horribly complicated fine print. One of the most common pieces of fine print wipes out requirements for yards around buildings. The Cambridge City Council by its long and repeated passing of these outrages clearly speaks on where it stands on the environment: strikingly against. Grass and trees for the benefit of the public and the streets are not a priority of the Cambridge City Council in these repeated zoning changes. And then, of course, they have their sycophants running around praising their concern for grass and trees.
3. Which Councilors are Guilty?
It would be nice to say that eight of the nine are guilty because Craig Kelley, as a city councilor, has yet to vote on a zoning change and the others are consistently guilty.
Trouble is that Kelly for years has been part of the organization running around pushing the destructive zoning policies of the Cambridge City Manager.
4. 2003: A vote to destroy on/near Memorial Drive
The most recent such initiative was the upzoning in 2003 of the north side of Memorial Drive west of Western Avenue and of the Kerry Corner / Cowperthwaite-Grant area.
The 2003 upzoning was highly distressing because responsible zoning was very much possible.
The difference between what passed and what would be responsible on Memorial Drive would have been negligible from the developer’s point of view, but very, very important from the point of view of the public and the environment, and very, very important from the point of view of an environmentally destructive city government.
The City Manager’s people wrote a zoning proposal which they had the nerve to call a “neighborhood initiative.” They hurt the neighborhood with the support for their package from Mr. Kelley.
Development on Memorial Drive as proposed by their upzoning changed yard requirements from requiring yard to requiring no yards, construction to the sidewalk on Memorial Drive.
The developer, Harvard, forced through a change which was less environmentally destructive that the initiative pushed by Kelley and company. Harvard’s zoning actually required some yards, but less than were required before the zoning change.
5. What should have and could have passed.
Trouble is the zoning was exactly the same density as zoning I have gotten passed on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge and which regulates about half the new construction between Harvard and Central Square, residence C-2B.
The development department fought C-2B and fought the very meaningful requirements which we added to C-2B. C-2B requires meaningful yards with meaningful protections for neighbors. We got those changes in C-2B by vote of 8 city councilors in 1998. Residence C-2B is best known for the Inn at Harvard in East Harvard Square
C2-B requires meaningful height limits, 45 feet (4 to 5 stories), quite a bit less than required in Harvard’s zoning.
There is also fine print in the C2B which is normal in most of Cambridge’s residential districts. This fine print provides major incentives AGAINST putting up flat, solid wall buildings. Another of the standard accomplishments in these very complicated packages is to get rid of these requirements as well.
Developers count building square footage above pretty much anything. If the neighborhood had been properly advised, they would very strongly have preferred C-2B, the Inn at Harvard zoning. The reality is that there would have been no incentive for the city council to do the harm they did to their area had the neighbors been properly advised. They were not properly advised. The neighbors and the Charles River got royally shafted by the 2003 Riverside downzoning.
Craig Kelley repeatedly provided public support for this zoning change.
6. Summary.
I agree with most people. Construction at the sidewalk is outrageously irresponsible.
The difference between me and the general public is that I understand how the Cambridge City Council and the City Manager’s people are really shafting people who want responsible development in Cambridge and on the Charles River.
Cambridge has severe problems.
