Jackson Gardens is public housing in Cambridge owned by a private company controlled by the Cambridge Housing Authority — one of the rare safe spots as the authority pursues a forced, drastic change to its legal and financial structure. (Photo: Google Maps)

Hundreds of public housing tenants are hearing for the first time about the Cambridge Housing Authority’s plan to drastically change the legal and financial structure of the system that houses them. Many are frightened and angry, despite assurances that their rent, rights and everything else important will stay the same.

Meanwhile, authority officials have worries of their own, racing against an uncertain deadline as they embark on an equally uncertain strategy to finance $300 million in needed construction updates in the face of shrinking federal aid. Without the money, they say, many aging developments will crumble to the point where the authority can no longer operate them. The agency has already stopped doing all but ordinary maintenance tasks because of cuts in federal aid.

The authority plans to transfer almost all its housing to private companies affiliated and controlled by CHA. Legally, more than 2,100 apartments would no longer be public housing. Tenants would get federal rent vouchers that would preserve the status quo for them while giving the authority almost double the public subsidy it now gets. Private ownership would also let the authority tap into private investment, both loans and special tax credits for investors in low-income housing.

It’s an ingenious strategy to get around the federal starvation of public housing — but far from a sure thing. For example, what if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development doesn’t give enough rental subsidy vouchers to cover all 2,108 units that will be transferred? If the number is close, the authority might use existing rent vouchers to fill the gap, reducing the total supply of affordable housing units in Cambridge, CHA officials said. (They promised to hold public meetings if the gap is “substantial.”) Or, if the number isn’t close, the authority might not transfer all its housing, or simply abandon the plan.

What if Congress starts to make significant cuts in the rental assistance program, similar to those for public housing? That could happen, although federal lawmakers seem to have greater respect for programs that help private landlords and the banks that lend to them, officials said.

Popularity could be a problem

Perhaps the most important uncertainty stems from the popularity of the strategy. Housing authorities across the country are applying to transfer an estimated 16,000 public housing units to the more generous rental assistance subsidies, CHA Executive Director Gregory Russ told city councillors at a Jan. 31 briefing. What will HUD do when it realizes how much its obligations will balloon?

Matthew Schwartz, president and chief executive of the California Housing Partnership, which has advised many housing authorities on financing strategies, said converting public housing to project-based vouchers can be “a powerful financing tool to revitalize older public housing properties if handled appropriately.” But given the current HUD budget, Schwartz said, “there is unlikely to be enough funding to enable all authorities who are interested to take advantage of this tool. This may lead HUD to change its policies regarding who can access these replacement vouchers.”

“It could be a good thing for Cambridge, but it’s not a sustainable national policy unless Congress decides to place a premium on fixing up older public housing and appropriates more short-term money, which Congress declined to do the past two budget cycles and appears unlikely to do in 2012,” he said.

The question is when federal officials will kill the strategy, not if, Russ said, so “There’s some urgency to this.”

“A lot of anxiety”

So the authority is continuing its effort. Its board approved the plan Jan. 23 and submitted it to the federal government, where it faces a series of regulatory hurdles. A team of CHA administrators has been traveling to individual developments to present the plan to tenants.

At each site, they unfurl a screen and present a 20-minute PowerPoint show outlining the benefits and, yes, the risks of the change, along with the ways CHA intends to minimize the risks. Many tenants aren’t persuaded.

One recent evening at the Pisani Center on Washington Street, the management headquarters for the Washington Elms and Newtowne Court complexes, one woman interrupted at the mention of bank loans: “Yeah, the banks steal from everyone!”

Questions and angry comments continued at the end of the PowerPoint. “Section 8, it is so bogus,” one tenant said, referring to the federal rent voucher program. “What happens if they decide to cut that program?” another said. “Where will we go?”

“If they mortgage it, I’m homeless,” another tenant said. Said another: “They will put college kids in here.”

One tenant at an unnamed development sent a panicky e-mail to Elaine DeRosa, head of the anti-poverty agency Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee, saying she feared she would be forced to buy her apartment. Other tenants called the authority with the same misinformation, along with fears that low-income housing would disappear.

“There is a lot of anxiety,” Bill Cunningham, an outreach worker for the Alliance of Cambridge Tenants, told city councillors at a CHA briefing Jan. 31. “People are mistrustful … We are trying to calm people down.” The tenants’ group shares that anxiety about preserving Cambridge public housing long term if Congress continues trying to dismantle the program, he added.

Wondering about Plan B

Cheryl-Ann Pizza-Zeoli, voucher co-chairwoman of the tenant group, and other affordable-housing advocates praise Cambridge for its efforts to protect tenants. “If the housing authority does nothing, the risks are greater,” Pizza-Zeoli told tenants at one CHA presentation. “Other housing authorities have done things we wouldn’t want to happen here, things like time limits [on occupancy] and flat rents not set according to income.”

At the City Council briefing, former housing committee chairwoman Marjorie Decker called the plan “the most significant thing that’s happened to public housing since the inception of public housing.” Decker indicated she supported the plan; the council does not have to approve the change.

Not all tenants have reacted with fear and fury. At the Millers River development on Lambert Street in East Cambridge, tenants were calm — yet asked pointed questions.

For example: “If this doesn’t work, what is Plan B?” said one man, drawing this blunt reply from authority Planning and Development Director Terry Dumas: “If this doesn’t work, we’re going to be faced with choosing what units we’re going to keep and what we won’t keep.” After the presentation, the questioner, who refused to give his name, observed: “There is no Plan B.”

Margaret Moran, a CHA planning consultant, was hoarse and fighting a cold as she led a tenant meeting Saturday at the Corcoran Park development on the Belmont line, her sixth presentation in nine days and the second at Corcoran Park, to counteract rampant rumors after the first. “This is not an attack from the housing authority on public housing,” she said, and her answers seemed to reassure the 30 tenants.

“I really appreciate the time and effort you have taken to calm our fears,” one woman said.

Moran emphasizes her personal commitment to low-income housing at every meeting; she also doesn’t sugarcoat the risks of the fundamental legal and financial changes the authority proposes. At this Saturday meeting she mentioned for the first time her fear that federal officials will end the option before Cambridge can act.

“My biggest concern is that, after we’ve put everyone through this [turmoil], at some point HUD is going to say, ‘This is going to cost a lot more money. It doesn’t make sense.’ They will close the door on us,” Moran said.

“Our Linear Park neighborhood is rare, special, a real community. Once lost, it’s gone forever,” said Charles Teague, a resident who plans to present the zoning proposal, called the Bishop petition, and show off a sophisticated 3-D model of how the neighborhood would be affected if the zoning fails.

But the effects of the current zoning are already obvious, Teague said, in the size of such projects as the ones intended to replace Fawcett Oil (104 apartments) and Cambridge Lumber (20 condominiums) and the way developments crowd the former rail path known as the Linear Park. (“Everybody loves the park. They love it so much they’re killing it,” he’s said, noting towering homes that block out light and crowd the path with plastic fencing, air conditioners, generators and apartment trash.)

Cutting the allowed density by 30 percent, formally removing commercial uses from the area and protecting the Linear Park must be in city law to counter a wave of development that could bring more than 1,400 announced housing units to the area in addition to the 333 that have been built in the area in the past five years, Teague said.

The Bishop petition was introduced in September, died without council action and was reintroduced this year. Residents see it as safety and traffic concern, because of the many small and even one-way streets they fear will be flooded with cars when new residents arrive, as well as a quality of life issue changing the cozy neighborhoods they chose to buy or rent in.

“The intensity and density is becoming overwhelming,” Brookford Street resident Merhi Sater said last month. “Our streets are becoming a nightmare.”

City Hall is at 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square.

They won the delay, with five councillors declining to take the order off the table for a vote.

A week ago the property owner was the one seeking a delay, but on Monday he was ready to go. He urged the council to vote and let him “take what is ultimately my responsibility” to repair relations with some 40 households surrounding him opposing his plan for reasons roving from the safety of children playing in the street to whether his seeking a second curb cut was an assault on the very nature of democracy itself.

“I want nothing more than to repair relationships in the neighborhood,” property owner Eric Griffth said. “But this has been before the council since October.”

Councillor Tim Toomey made the same argument, but only David Maher and Ken Reeves agreed with him in at least wanting to discuss the matter. Craig Kelley was absent, and Leland Cheung, Henrietta Davis, Majorie Decker, Denise Simmons and Minka vanBeuzekom blocked the effort.

The property owner and his lawyer, James Rafferty, gave the council a public letter that tried to answer some of the neighbors’ fears, promising to limit use of the proposed driveway to guests staying in his in-law unit and accepting a condition saying the city could take away the curb cut at the property owner’s expense if his 53,667-square-foot lot, straddling the block from Raymond to where the curb cut is proposed in a cul-de-sac called Wyman Street, became anything other than a single-family home. (The property’s zoning allows nothing except a conversion to senior housing. Fears that the land could become a corporate headquarters, retreat center or academy were “baseless,” Griffith said.)

A supporting voice spoke up as well — Stephen Fitzsimmons, who lives in one of three homes on tiny Wyman Street and addressed several points, including that he sees children play in the cul-de-sac perhaps 10 or a dozen times a year and that the impact of traffic on their play is less than has been suggested: When a car arrives, they get out of the way. After the car parks, they play more.

Although Griffith has been saying for weeks that he has been trying to work with his neighbors to find agreement on the driveway, “We were not aware the property owners were willing to negotiate,” Avon Hill Street resident Margot Welch said. “We the neighbors have not had any input into this yet … there are now a list of conditions we hope we can talk about with the owners.”

There had been a meeting the previous night at which neighbors agreed they’d like to find a compromise, Welch said, asking for a delay to “just give us a chance to respond as a neighborhood” to Griffith’s proposals.

State Rep. Alice K. Wolf

The MBTA’s proposed fare increases and service cuts will hurt riders, the environment and economic growth. Yet, imagine, this is only a one-year fix.

It is time for the Commonwealth to have a plan for putting the T on stable financial footing for the long term. No more magical thinking. There are no easy answers.

When we moved the MBTA to Forward Funding in 2000, we in the Legislature — along with the governor — made a fundamental mistake by requiring the T to fund over $3.3 billion in state debt in addition to the debt already on the T’s books. More than half of the state debt was for Big Dig-related projects. In addition, growth in the sales tax, the source of revenue tapped in the 2000 reform, has fallen short of projections. So since 2000 the T has struggled with a crushing debt burden, inadequate revenue and increased operating costs.

We, as a commonwealth, must invest in our public transportation systems for the sake of our residents and the health of our economy. This can’t just happen in the State House. We need consensus from the people of Massachusetts for the Legislature to act. When Rep. Carl Sciortino, D-Medford, and I filed legislation in 2007 and 2009 that would have provided the T with additional revenue through a gas tax increase, opposition from the public undermined support in the Legislature and eventually killed the bill.

Through this debacle we learned that it is important for those of us in the Boston metropolitan area to work harder at public outreach and education across the Commonwealth. There are a lot of misconceptions out there based on inaccurate or outdated information.

Forward funding and the 2008 transportation reforms have had a positive impact on T operations. I just read that the T may have the most advanced automated customer systems in the country. Furthermore, many management and labor issues that were of concern a few years ago have been addressed.

Everyone in Massachusetts benefits from public transportation, whether we rely on it for our daily commute, spend less time in traffic because there are fewer cars on the road, breathe a little easier due to reduced motor vehicle emissions or recognize its economic benefits for business and tourism. Seniors, teens, disabled and low-income residents can get around because of the T. We have to look past our individual frustrations and regional disputes to focus on the common good.

It will take a dedicated revenue stream to address the T’s unsustainable debt, maintain a state of good repair for T assets, improve overall MBTA service and meet the needs of residents in other regions. Two options that have been proposed are increasing the gas tax or tolling Interstate 93, but both options have major detractors. How come the Middle East oil cartel can make decisions that increase gas prices a dollar or two and people buy it, but we can’t raise the gas tax a much more modest amount without a public rebellion?

The era of magical thinking must end. Public transportation is essential for all of us around the state, and all of us have to pay for it.

Alice K. Wolf is the state representative from the 25th Middlesex District in Cambridge. She is the House chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs.

It’s not quite fair to call it the $11.4 million curb cut, but the lengths to which lot owner Eric Griffith will go to get it for the use of occasionally visiting in-laws makes it begin to seem like the value of his property (assessed at that amount) hinges on it. This is the second time he’s asked for a delay from the council.

Griffith’s latest step, along with claimed attempts to keep meeting with neighbors and win them over:

“We’ve been asked to request that this matter be deferred for one week so that we can put in writing our intention to use this driveway for passenger vehicles and that we will direct any service or landscaping vehicles to use the driveway on Raymond Street,” owner Eric Griffith said.  The lot is 53,667 square feet, straddling the block from Raymond to where the curb cut is proposed for a cul-de-sac called Wyman Street.

Griffith hoped Avon Hill residents opposed to his curb cut request would change their mind, but construction of his gigantic single-family home and the auxiliary unit has been going on for four years. Neighbors’ nerves are frayed and their suspicions aroused. Forty have signed a letter to the council against the curb cut, and several have railed against it at council meetings.

Griffith has said his 13 nearest neighbors didn’t oppose the curb cut — ostensibly the same 13 identified by the city’s Inspectional Services Department as the ones needed to sign off on the project for its own departmental approval. If the application is approved by Inspectional Services, it is sent on to Traffic and Parking, then the Historical Commission and the Department of Public Works. If approved by Public Works, the application goes to the City Council for its approval. The council has it now.

“There have been some irregularities to this process,” Avon Hill resident Margot Welch told the council Monday.

Griffith’s application included only four names, not 13, Welch said. A look at the file in confirms her testimony.

The four signers included Griffith himself and two opponents of the curb cut — Lowry Pei, of Bellevue Avenue, who confirmed Wednesday that he signed in support July 5, but changed his mind after Welch spoke with him; and Judith Parker, who lives on Wyman Street directly across from where the curb cut would go. She filed a letter Aug. 18 saying she was against the driveway but, giving the sense she was resigned to it, hoped Griffith would discourage frequent use of it.

“I would strongly recommend that you place a ‘Private Driveway’ sign at the entrance to discourage others from using it,” she wrote Aug. 18.

She seemed resigned to it, as her letter says, “since the commission has accepted your curb cut.”

Parker didn’t respond to a message left Wednesday asking what she meant by “the commission.” The woman answering the phone at Parker’s home thought it referred to one of Avon Hill’s historical groups, which would have to be the case: City rules say those signed forms from neighbors must be included in an application “to receive a review from Inspectional Services” and start the approval process, and the last of the four signatures in the file belongs to Griffith, dated Sept. 5.

Inspectional Services signed off on Griffith’s plan Sept. 22; the Historical Commission on Sept. 28; Traffic and Parking on Oct. 5; and Public Works on Oct. 19, according to the file.

Griffith has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached for comment. In November he declined to speak on the issue beyond remarks made during public meetings, saying he preferred to speak with the opposing Avon Hill residents privately.

It’s ironic that Marc Levy chides the Avon Hill neighbors for inaccurate (only slightly) statements when his own fact checking is so lame. (let’s talk about what “pretty much opposite” really means … yawn …) A few interviews beyond using Bliss Austin Spooner as a sole direct source would have yielded a more balanced — and  more interesting — story.

Spooner’s kids may not use the Wyman Street dead end, but other kids do. Griff, our young neighbor, learned to walk there not long ago. My grandkids play dodgeball, capture the flag and make gigantic glycerine soap bubbles with their friends there. Next time I will invite Ms. Spooner’s kids to join in. But where, exactly, does she live? She said she lived 100 yards from the curb cut — I can’t see a house that is 100 yards from the requested curb cut except the abutters, Ms. Welch, Blue’s B&B and myself — did you check that? Perhaps another aerial map would help you.

And how about some quotes from the 40 people who signed the letter to the city councillors last week or the petition some months ago? How about some words from the abutters who have not been consulted by Mr. Griffiths, which may be a procedural irregularity with regard to Avon Hill Conservation District Commission guidelines.

Mr. Levy, I invite you to stand on my porch (not even 100 yards from the proposed curb cut) and see what 28 cars plus do to traffic and parking on the street every weekday morning. Not that we take exception to the nursery school — they are good neighbors and we all try accommodate, especially in trying winter circumstances, by using Wyman Street for this short period of congestion. Maybe Mr. Griffiths should take a page from their book on how to be a good neighbor.

I would be delighted to move into the congregate senior housing that may follow the Griffith family’s residency. If you believe that, I have a bridge, you might want to buy. But it is a complete misstatement of fact and an outrageous and misleading notion.

Mr. Levy, make an effort, do your homework, please!

Sincerely,

Lisa Blout, 86 Avon Hill St.

Editor’s note: Quotes from the 40 people who have signed letters and a petition on this topic were included in the post to which Blout responds and in a Nov. 1 post. In fact, Bliss Austin Spooner has been the only person quoted as supporting the curb cut, and all quotes came from direct testimony to the City Council during public comment periods at meetings.

While it is unclear what is referred to as “a complete misstatement of fact and an outrageous and misleading notion,” the post referred to a senior housing conversion because, aside from single-family detached homes, it is the only use for property listed in city law as being allowed in A2 zoning.

As Bliss Austin Spooner said during public comment, she lives at 48 Avon Hill St., which Google Maps shows as being 348 feet from Lisa Blout’s home — indeed, more than 100 yards from the proposed curb cut on Wyman Street. Interestingly, Bliss Austin Spooner’s home is about 112 yards from the proposed curb cut as the crow flies (but a 163-yard walk).

Wyman Street, where a curb cut to a driveway has been proposed, is not quite opposite a nursery school on Hillside Place. (Image: Google Maps)

Considering the rhetoric like they get to hear on a proposed driveway up on ritzy Avon Hill — about the meaning of democracy, the future of a historic neighborhood and thinking of the children — it’s little surprise city councillors are thinking of delegating responsibility for them.

But councillors will still have to decide whether to grant a second one to the owner of a gigantic home and in-law unit going up at 79 Raymond St., a lot so large in straddles the block to 9 Wyman St., which has drawn more than the usual level of anti-curb cut bombast over the course of several council meetings. Indeed, it was Avon Hill resident Margot Welch who told councillors Monday that the curb cut plans were not just about “the long-term retention of the character of the neighborhood,” but compelled the question, “Now and in the future, what do you want democracy to be, and not just look like?”

There have been some dodgy assertions made before about the curb cut request, which would add a fourth driveway to a short, dead-end street that some say is like “a little pocket park … where children play,” and Monday brought some fresh concerns from Avon Hill residents that deserve a bit of fact checking:

“The benefit of the curb cut to [owner Eric Griffith] is far and away [greater] than to Mrs. Judith Parker and other neighbors, including the children attending the Cambridge Nursery School and their parents. Cambridge Nursery School is right opposite — the entrance is pretty much opposite to Wyman Street,” said John Cobb, of Avon Hill Street.

As is clear from an overhead view from Google Maps or a similar service, Wyman Street is not “right opposite” the 6 Hillside Place nursery school but might be considered “pretty much opposite.” They are on opposite sides of Avon Hill Street, separated by the width of a house with a generous amount of yard. Not that it much matters. As neighbors and a former president of the school describe it, 26 families drop off and pick up their kids from the school every day and use Wyman Street as parking. In all the testimony before the council no one has explained why those couple of dozen cars are not a threat to “the children and their parents,” but any car using a fourth Wyman Street curb cut is.

“What might be afoot? A commonly expressed concern is that this 24,932-square-foot structure, to be called home by a couple and a child, may not always be so. Sooner or later, neighbors fear, it will be called corporate headquarters or retreat center or academy or something like that. So what? Unlike single-family homes, corporate headquarters have a lot of … services that demand many heavy vehicles for maintenance, landscaping and catering to users’ creature comforts,” said Joan Friebely, another Avon Hill Street resident.

In November, Friebely said the council should think of the proposed driveway as serving nine single-family homes because the 53,665-square-foot lot could have squeezed nine in if Griffith hadn’t decided to instead build one big house and an in-law unit. (Similarly, she worries about landscaping trucks serving a 53,665-square-foot lot that she fears would change use, but it’s not clear why more landscaping trucks would be needed for what would still be a 53,665-square-foot lot.) Now her argument is that the curb cut should be rejected because at some indeterminate point in the future it could serve more than a couple and their child.

Either way, the lot she worries about is in A-2 zoning, which allows only single-family, detached homes. The lot borders some B zoning, which allows single- and two-family detached homes and, by the granting of a special permit, townhouses. (Both zoning types could also allow, according to the city’s table of use regulations, conversion for “elderly oriented congregate housing.” So the risk is that Griffith is building his home and in-law unit so he can convert them to senior housing.)

If Friebely and others would rather fight a curb cut now than a radical change in zoning in the future, it may say more about their perception of the City Council’s priorities than Griffith’s. Either way, their arguments include some clunkers.

The passionate, outspoken opponents of the curb cut do not include the 13 neighbors living closest to the lot, Griffith told the council, and Jan. 9 heard some of the first testimony from a supporter: Bliss Austin Spooner,  yet another Avon Hill Street resident, who said her home is about 100 yards from the curb cut proposals “riling up my neighborhood.”

“I grew up on that street, so I kind of remember the days they talk about of children playing in those areas. Those days are gone,” Austin Spooner said. “In fact, my children are the only children practically on the whole street. They certainly live the closest to the [proposed] Wyman Street curb cut, and I’m not worried about my kids and I don’t think kids should be the reason it’s approved or not. I’m in complete support of the Wyman curb cut.”

“I know you’ve heard a lot about these curb cuts,” she said. “Honestly? They’re not a big deal.”

For the Planning Board and all concerned it meant revisiting old, unresolved business. In addition to the Bishop petition about crowding the park, the Teague petition meant to stop lights from glaring into neighbors’ homes and yards has been refiled, and an apartment building project that became a poster child for North Cambridge density fears returned as well.

(Image: Charles Teague)

The building, the former Ellis School and North Cambridge Catholic High School at 40 Norris St., was bought in September 2010 by a Somerville developer who hoping to fill it with between 33 and 37 apartments. But neighbors rebelled at the doubling of people and cars on the small street, and a slow municipal process has whittled the plans to 25 units.

On Tuesday, Somerville architect Jai Singh Khalsa showed proposed three-level apartments of “very dramatic space” and rattled off details of libraries, master suites and loft areas as well as noting the site’s proposed 27 parking spaces (including slots for visitors and a Zipcar), 25 bike spaces and an equal number of basement storage areas, 1,037 square feet of common area and ground-floor business or live/work space. Wary neighbors said the latest round of changes arrived without giving them a chance to weigh in adequately, and Planning Board members decided to bump the project to its Feb. 21 meeting while gathering more written comment.

Neighbors “are still very much concerned with the density of this project,” resident Young Kim said — perhaps using it as a proxy for the 1,400 units estimated to be on the way in addition to the 333 that have been built in the area in the past five years.

Among the proposals was replacing the Fawcett Oil site with 77 units of housing — down from 104, attorney James Rafferty reminded the board and packed audience — but the plan hasn’t even been filed. During public comment about the Bishop petition, board chairman Hugh Russell had to ask speakers repeatedly to stop commenting on the Fawcett plans. (Rafferty said the project, expected to be filed within the next four months, was almost completely within Bishop petition zoning rules.)

But the site is at the center of a multistreet traffic triangle defined by Massachusetts Avenue, Route 16 and the linear park, a tangle of small streets, massive roadways, illegal turns and already lengthening rush-hour traffic jams. Charles Teague, whose name is on the glare petition but who gave presentations on both citizen-written zoning proposals, testified to counting 54 illegal turns within 45 minutes by drivers trying to avoid getting trapped in traffic.

“The intensity and density is becoming overwhelming,” Brookford Street resident Merhi Sater said. “We are adding traffic after traffic. Our streets are becoming a nightmare.”

Among several people commenting on the effect the density would have on the character of their neighborhood was Gary Dmytryk, representing a 42-unit condo association at 2440 Massachusetts Ave., who said that some residents “even think the Bishop petition is too high” in the development it allows. Councillor David Maher, who dealt with the petition as mayor last year, is proposing in a policy order to be heard Monday that a hearing on it be held at 4 p.m. Feb. 8.

Teague petition looks at lights

There was also plenty of citizen support for the Teague petition, but Teague’s attempt to find simple language defining intrusive lighting and an easy test for city inspectors to follow didn’t win over the experts. There was even concern about the language from an expert who was also a citizen: Glenn Heinmiller, of the Cambridge-based Lam Partners Inc. architectural lighting design firm.

“I totally, totally support the intent of the petition. I’m constantly amazed by what my fellow citizens put up with in terms of light trespass. Obviously a remedy is needed,” Heinmiller told the board. “I’m a little concerned about the language, [which would mean] just about every light in Cambridge would be a glare source and potentially in violation now. Maybe some improvement in this language is required.”

When the board asked for his input on proper language, he called it “a daunting problem” verging on the subjective. “I don’t really have anything for you, to be honest,” he said, having suggested that an alternative to a citizen trying to write law addressing common light complaints would be for the city to write “a proper lighting ordinance.”

Overlay district encourages businesses

One thing the city has been writing: a North Massachusetts Avenue Improvement Study aimed at keeping the area between Porter Square and Arlington a lively mix of housing, services, restaurants and other businesses that encourages people to walk or at least get out of their cars long enough to spend time and money. The result could be an “overlay district” in which parking requirements for restaurants are loosened to encourage outdoor seating and building density can be greater so long as a developer installs ground-floor business space and not just housing.

It “removes the current disincentive to creating mixed-use buildings,” according to the study, by maintaining the allowed size of purely commercial buildings, decreasing the allowed size of purely residential buildings and letting developers go bigger if they include commercial space. The study includes a chart showing the proposed change, with the allowed size of housing-only structures shrinking by 43 percent while housing with retail or office space would be allowed to grow by up to 22 percent.

(Image: City of Cambridge)

This post was updated Jan. 21, 2012, to add Maher’s suggestion for a hearing on the Bishop petition.

East Cambridge’s former Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse is more than twice the height allowed in current zoning, but unlikely to shrink as it’s redeveloped, state officials told residents Wednesday. (Photo: Google)

There has been “overwhelming interest” from developers in redeveloping East Cambridge’s massive white elephant — the 22-story (not counting three basement levels and a mezzanine) former Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse — but there are “no proposals yet,” a state official told residents at a Wednesday night presentation and question-and-answer period at East End House.

Forty-nine developers and potential tenants have come through the aged, asbestos-ridden building over the course of three November and December walking tours, including names well-known in Cambridge: Boston Properties, Cabot Cabot & Forbes, The Bulfinch Cos., even the Cambridge Innovation Center. Nine of those cared enough to take a second tour, according to a state website.

They have until Feb. 6 to answer the state’s request for proposals, and one will be selected by June or July to take on the task of clearing asbestos and rebuilding on the remaining steel skeleton, very likely leaving it towering as high and dense as it is now, said Dana J. Harrell, the acting deputy commissioner of real estate for the state’s Division of Capital Management.

“This is me talking, not a successful developer, but I’ve been at this for almost 40 years now. Any developer is probably going to have substantial demolition on the interior — the asbestos is going to be gone — leave the shell and reskin this ugly thing,” Harrell said. “In terms of taking off some floors, anything is possible. But I don’t believe that’s the case.”

The answer disappointed the crowd of more than 50 people at the East Cambridge Planning Team-sponsored event, several of whom suggested lopping off some of the building’s 200-plus feet to bring it closer to what current zoning says is appropriate for the residential area: 80 feet.

Since city officials have told the state that a several-story parking garage across Second Street could be sold or leased long term as part of the redevelopment, recent City Council candidate Charles Marquardt wants the top several floors taken off the building and basically added atop the parking garage, resulting in a lower skyline but roughly equal density. Another resident merely told Harrell that, by having the courthouse forced on it in the 1970s despite protests, “this neighborhood has a burden. You should consider we’ve had the burden of this high-rise all these years, and this jail, and the traffic from the courthouse. I think it’s good for us to get something in return, some kind of remediation … take half the building off!”

Parking, prisoners and other problems

Parking was another big theme for the night, as residents recounted how special parking permits were handed out to courthouse personnel in excess of the 40 Thorndike St. building’s official 50 spaces, crowding streets that only got worse when the nearby One First condos went up some seven years ago, forcing long-timers to park up to five blocks from their homes — then losing even more spaces as Thorndike Street became metered. While neighbors can pay $100 a month for a berth in the garage, they worried even that would be taken from them with the needs of the redevelopment. The current courthouse has 595,000 square feet of space on 1.37 acres zoned to take everything from homes to lab and office space, retail or even a hotel. Office space is going for $42 per square foot in the area, according to Cushman & Wakefield figures cited by the state, and “view tower” space for up to $55 per square foot, resulting in a developer incentive to maintain the building as is.

“Our intent is to have the property work in and for the community, particularly at street level,” Harrell said.

Other complaints included the vicious winds whipping around the courthouse, especially treacherous when the grounds around it are icy, and the continued presence of the 375 Middlesex Jail prisoners that remain on the top four stories of the otherwise empty building. They are expected to be moved by spring of 2013, but in the meantime residents call them a nuisance — noisy when watching sports and loudly crude when they see women and children walking below. “They yell out obscenities to everyone walking in the area and, ‘Hey, fat lady,’” said one not particularly fat resident. “Night and day. And I don’t know why they’re allowed to do it. I couldn’t do it as a private citizen.” Another worry: if an even noisier set of occupants replaces them, or rooftop equipment is added that sounds off whenever air conditioning or venting is turned on inside.

The crowd groaned when Harrell denied asbestos playing a role in why the Middlesex Superior and Cambridge District courts left for other cities, and reminded him of the words of Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley as she demanded the state relocate her offices: “I’m not going to play Russian roulette with employees’ health and safety.” When he described how developers would rid the building of asbestos safely, “bagging” the building completely and creating a vacuum so none would escape, they reminded him of recent work where the “bag” tore in the strong winds swirling around the courthouse.

Another bit of skepticism arose with the request of a state guarantee that the chosen developer would finish what they started at 40 Thorndike. “We’ll prequalify the bidders,” Harrell said. “We won’t guarantee … we can’t.”

The answer didn’t sit well with those familiar with the 4-year-old hole in the ground where Filene’s used to be in Downtown Crossing.

Harrell also couldn’t promise the residents a say in which developer was chosen. But Barbara Broussard, a salty and effective moderator who managed to bring the meeting to a close even before its two-hour time limit, extracted a promise that the state would show the finalists’ proposals, without developers’ names attached, before a decision was made. The state officials, including capital management Commissioner Carole Cornelison, say they are scheduling more meetings with other East Cambridge and Kendall Square groups.

Panera Bread baguette is good for a chain, great when it’s hot out of the oven and over-the-top terrific when it’s an example of good customer service. (Photo: Robyn Lee)

I think the Porter Square Panera Bread is here to stay for a while — and I suddenly have warm feelings to hope that’s so.

The eatery, which opened July 6 at what is technically 5 White St. in the shopping plaza, is Porter’s answer to the gourmet-ish comfort food of Au Bon Pain enjoyed by folks in Harvard, Kendall and Davis squares. But it did something for me last night no Au Bon Pain, its one-time kind-of owner, has ever done: won my cranky customer’s heart with great service.

I went in too late Tuesday night and found the basket of baguette (what the company likes to call “French baguette”) empty. I quizzed the workers with some desperation as to whether there might yet be a loaf hiding out somewhere, or even anything like a baguette. But no, the site had been slammed that day and had run out hours ago of an appealing plain bread.

Since Panera is my only local baguette option, I was out of luck. I didn’t even bother checking the nearby Shaw’s grocery store to see if it had any store-made baguette, which is not only the most expensive baguette I know of, but probably the worst I’ve ever tasted. And, if it’s not too old a joke, it usually sells out by the time I go looking.

Wednesday, though, I made it to Panera earlier; was briefly shattered to see the basket empty again; then elated to hear there were loaves just then fresh from the oven, so fresh they hadn’t been slipped into paper sleeves and stocked. I ordered one. “How many?” the manager asked. “Just one,” I repeated, asking the worker at the counter how many he thought I could eat.

But he gave me two — explaining it was to make up for my disappointment the previous night. (I don’t remember crying, just whining.)

Nice going, Panera manager.

I was stunned and delighted, a feeling that lasted through my walk home in the cold tearing off hot hunks of crusty bread, and lingered afterward.

Qdoba lasted there from January 2005 to June 2010, despite how universally its Mexican food was disdained compared with the competing Chipotle chain and certainly the Anna’s Taqueria across the street. With service and product such as this, Panera should be around for decades. And I may buy baguette there every night I can.

(Because we’re past that union problem, right?)