Grand Junction path, grad student housing lead MIT’s Volpe community benefits offer
State Rep. Mike Connolly speaks Friday at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student housing rally. (Photo: Our Revolution)
There’s a lot on the table as city councillors gather Tuesday for a final review of MIT’s proposed remake of the federal Volpe center in Kendall Square, with a sweetened list of community benefits dropped Monday that goes a long way – depending who’s doing the math – toward filling contentious graduate student housing needs.
Along with the known 1,400 units of housing and 2.5 acres of open space that will appear in Kendall Square over Volpe’s 14 acres, with government research being done in a much smaller footprint alongside it, there would be several other big-ticket items, said Israel Ruiz, executive vice president and treasurer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Included in the packet are long-awaited access rights allowing the creation of a Grand Junction multi-use path, along with $8.5 million for design and construction.
The institute’s development arm committed also to spending $25.5 million on a Volpe community center, $8.5 million for transit improvements to ease the traffic expected from the creation of a neighborhood and $1.5 million to support a job connector program aimed at letting all residents take advantage of the square’s innovation economy.
“We look forward to explaining these new and expanded commitments to the council,” said Michael Owu, director of Real Estate at MIT Investment Management Co., promising an in-depth conversation at a 2:30 p.m. Tuesday meeting of the Ordinance Committee at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. It will be the fourth committee hearing on the Volpe plan, referred to as Planned Unit Development Overlay District or and PUD 7 in municipal parlance, leading to a likely City Council vote before the petition expires at the end of October.
Council discussion
Councillor Nadeem Mazen had a different idea Monday, though, proposing that more time be taken to make sure everyone understood the proposal and new commitment letter and had a chance to explore all the options on open space – planners had previously suggested 7.5 acres of open space would result when Volpe was remade – and graduate student housing.
“There’s a couple of things that came up in public comment and a couple of things the council has not yet delved into in depth that necessitate a little more conversation,” Mazen said. “This is a marathon, and we’ve got one mile left. If we can do it in a couple of weeks, great.”
But the City Clerk’s Office had confirmed a pathway to refile the petition to allow for extra time and conversation, with approval coming Dec. 18 instead of Oct. 30, Mazen said, “and if we need that time, we should take it.”
Jan Devereux said she was intrigued by the idea of taking more time, which seemed worthy on a project “of this scale,” but the idea wasn’t popular among the other councillors, ranging from Craig Kelley’s blank skepticism to Tim Toomey’s rebuke of delay on bringing 280 units of affordable housing to the city, as well as movement on the Grand Junction pathway, a pet project.
Public comment
The public’s comments on the Volpe plan and new community benefits offerings were also mostly positive, and residents who spoke looked forward to seeing a dead zone in the city turned into a vibrant, active space. Neighbor Andrew Lau referred to the current Volpe site as “a fenced-in void,” and Kendall business owner Michael Davies said he tired of seeing essentially “a parking lot – a barely filled parking lot.” Resident Jonathan Blount said he hoped the new homes, including 20 middle-income residential units, would reinvigorate Little League teams playing with fewer and fewer kids.
About one-fifth of the 25 speakers on Volpe were wary, with transportation and graduate student housing questions persisting even for people who liked the plans otherwise.
On Friday, dozens of members of an institute student group called Graduate Student Apartments Now rallied on campus and marched to City Hall to rally for 1,800 new graduate student apartments to be built, including 700 for families, citing a survey that suggested that much was needed not only to help 6,800 graduate students at MIT, but residents of Cambridge whose housing prices were soaring because of the competition.
The institute houses about a third of its grad students, but “the addition of 950 new beds will allow the institute to house more than 50 percent of its current graduate student population,” Ruiz said Monday, referring to numbers described in the community benefits letter.
The math perplexed some.
“I don’t know how we get to 950 graduate student ‘new’ housing as a quid pro quo for this zoning when 250 of those dorm units are already in process and 133 of them may already have been converted. That seems like 500,” said Carol O’Hare, a lawyer.
Graduate student figures
Kelly Blynn, an organizer with the grad student group, read a statement during public comment that commended MIT’s administration “for having the boldness to allocate real resources towards addressing the housing needs of its graduate students … We are, however, concerned that the 950-bed commitment falls somewhat short of the projected 1,000- to 1,100-bed shortfall.”
The need “is likely to grow in the years it will takes to bring more units online. We believe it would be prudent for MIT to consider these factors and revise up its commitment to at least meet the working group’s recommendations,” Blynn said.
Of the promised units, 250 are under construction and due to open Dec. 31, 2020, and another 200 to be converted or created will be provided or permitted for construction by that date, according to the institute. But the largest chunk, of 500 wholly new beds, will only have received their permit by then.
Peace,Sanity,And Security Be Unto You,
From day one, that is shortly after the Volpe Center was pimped out for sale, I have always felt, and documented many of times on official municipal records, that the regional federal sellers are guilty of excluding the local, etc., homelessness mosaic and sector, from housing opportunities in and on federal surplus, vacant and underutilized properties.The exclusion transpired when the regional federal entities involved failed to alert and notify, the local homelessness mosaic and sector, that suitable properties were available at the Volpe Center to be used towards ending and eradication Homelessness. They failed to honor first the Title V federal mandate pertaining to this.
In light of the recent MIT students concerns, I still hold that by law the neglected homelessness sector and mosaic, have first priority and refusal rights, to the federal surplus land at the Volpe Center and anywhere else. Everything on federal,state, and local laws that supports the rights of the homelessness sector and mosaic, and other faith base entities to the abandon Volpe Center properties,etc., are in jeopardy and has been for quite sometime. Excluding the homeless from there rights to be housed is a violation of federal and other laws.
Now this sophisticate plot to erect barriers to keep the homeless from securing housing, is now involving the student population at MIT. I warn them that they are being falsely led into this, to the delight of the guilty parties that have negated the homelessness sector and mosaic from day one, knowing that the federal and other laws were in place to allow homeless housing on vacant federal land and facilities.
In closing I would like to share with you all an article that will enlighten you on the efforts and endeavors, of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, and some recent examples of their struggle to secure the rights of the homelessness sector and mosaic, when it come to their rights pertaining to excess and surplus, federal properties. Perhaps we will have to invite the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty to come to Cambridge and represent the homelessness sector and mosaic, in regards to the Volpe Center, etc., and settle it once and for all at the Cambridge,MA city hall.
THE Article is as follows(Appeared on NLCHP Website/ http://www.nlchp.org): http://www.nlchp.org
Enforcing Title V, Law Center Succeeds in Making Unused Federal Property Available to Homeless Service Organizations
By Faraz Siddiqui, Sidley Pro Bono Fellow
This month, the Law Center and a local partner achieved another first in their efforts to enforce Title V of the McKinney-Vento Act. Under Title V, homeless service providers get priority access to unused properties held by federal agencies. Before it can dispose of any such property, the government has to hold it for 30 days to see if any homeless service providers are interested in the property and, if so, give them the property for free.
But there’s a catch—or several catches. First, the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has to determine that the property is suitable for homelessness services. Second, the agency that owns the land, often the General Services Administration (GSA), has to determine that the property is available—that is, that other federal agencies do not have a need for it. Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requires homeless service providers to go through a long and onerous application process. It is no surprise then that only a fraction of organizations that apply for suitable and available properties end up getting the property.
In Colorado, HUD recently determined that a certain federally-owned property near Denver was not suitable to be used for homelessness purposes. This frustrated the interests of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), a local homeless services provider who had their eyes set on this property. CCH contacted the Law Center for help in challenging HUD’s “suitability” determination in court. Working with a pro bono partner firm, Morrison Foerster, the Law Center helped support the legal challenge, and CCH obtained a temporary restraining order preventing GSA from selling the property until HUD reconsidered its suitability designation. Then, in late September, HUD revised its suitability determination, opening the door for CCH to apply for this property.
Yours In Peace,Security, and Sanity,
Mr. Hasson Rashid
Alliance of Cambridge Tenants(ACT)
Cambridge Continuum of Care(CoC)
Human Service News and Information TV Program (CCTV)