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Thursday, March 28, 2024

082913i-Dennis-Carlone

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Harvard-educated longtime resident Dennis Carlone has aeen in private practice as a planner, architect and urban design consultant since 1978. His clients have included the cities of Cambridge, Boston, Chelsea and Lawrence and the towns of Plymouth and Winchester, as well as private and public institutions. His projects include the nationally recognized East Cambridge Riverfront Project, as well as the original NorthPoint Urban Design and Broad Canal & Environs plans, which have guided the transformation of more than 40 acres of formerly underutilized industrial land on the Charles River into mixed-use developments.

He was an early advocate for sustainable planning and design and has an extensive urban housing background, including creating 500 units of affordable housing.

Carlone was elected to the council in 2013, serving as chairman of the council’s Transportation and Public Utilities Committee and co-chairing the Ordinance Committee, and reelected in 2015, and was a driving factor behind the citywide master plan now being developed.

Top priorities:

bullet-gray-small Implementing the community-oriented master plan for the future of Cambridge. This master plan is essential to the coordination of development in the city and through its implementation, helping stabilize land values and protecting local residential and small business communities.

bullet-gray-smallReview all options to overcome Cambridge’s current housing crisis.

bullet-gray-small Implementing “Vision Zero” street safety plans for city streets to better allow the movement of pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles throughout the city.

Compiled from the candidate’s words in publicly available sources.


Endorsements:

bullet-gray-smallCambridge Residents Alliance: “Dennis Carlone was first endorsed by the Alliance in 2013 and again in 2015. As an architect and urban designer who understood that Cambridge’s exponential growth required a master plan, he initiated, fought for and secured the comprehensive Envision Cambridge study now underway. He guided passage of the plastic bag ban and a 50 percent residential space requirement for new development in Central Square, and added dedicated affordable housing funding to the city budget. As co-chairman of the Ordinance Committee, he has worked with neighborhoods for human-scaled buildings and led the effort to increase a ‘linkage’ requirement that must be paid by developers.”

bullet-gray-smallOur Revolution Cambridge

bullet-gray-smallOur Revolution National

bullet-gray-smallDemocratic Socialists of America

bullet-gray-smallNadeem Mazen, retiring city councillor


Dennis Carlone, despite often being in a minority council position alongside Jan Devereux (who is running again for a seat) and Nadeem Mazen (who is not) has managed to drive an incredible amount of conversation and policy on the council. That includes launching a citywide development master plan and raising linkage fees charged to large real estate developers after the council had let them limp on far below market rates for more than a decade.

Four years ago this page suggested that Carlone’s “experience, intelligence and demeanor” made him an essential voice for the council, and nothing has changed. He has continued to demonstrate independence, honor and integrity, as well as an admirable willingness to work with people whose smears in the past went beyond an appropriate level of political rhetoric. Especially in a city where development can be adopted too quickly, his offering of alternatives and well-informed, reasonable voice is integral, and when he speaks truth to power – such as pointing out that the long-gestating light ordinance is incomprehensible even to an expert in planning – it seems unfailingly to be in the public interest, rather than for political gain.

Carlone’s initiative on getting the city working on a new master plan despite administrative inertia and resistance from his peers is enough to cement his political legacy, but returning him to the the council surely means more good things for the city.


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Dennis Carlone for City Council, 2015

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Dennis Carlone for City Council, 2019