Create critically needed open space in The Port through converting Margaret Fuller parking lot
Dear Cambridge residents and government:
We would like to bring to your attention a key community-building opportunity in The Port neighborhood that we fear may soon be lost: the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House parking lot on Eaton Street. We have recently learned of plans to sell and develop the MFNH parking lot. (“Margaret Fuller House gets loan of $200,000, will look at deals providing for it in long term,” Dec. 26, 2018.) In light of this, we urgently request that the city consider buying the lot with the ultimate goal of converting it to a public park (which could potentially bear Margaret Fuller’s name).
The reasons for our request are as follows:
1. The parking lot is the center of our community – an established safe space for kids, a meeting place for the community and a location for community events and activities (including The Port Pride Day and Thanksgiving food pantry).
2. The Port is one of the densest neighborhoods with the least public amenities in our prosperous city.
3. The Port has one of the highest percentages of young residents in the city.
4. The Port lacks safe open space – public and private – compared with other neighborhoods in the city.
5. The Port lacks tree canopy and consequently faces an increasing risk of heat islands.
6. Extending the small Margaret Fuller playground would support the neighborhood in general and the MFNH in particular, providing better open space for their children’s programming.
There is a recent precedent for our proposal: the city bought land in West Cambridge to be used as public open space (“Council okays $18M to buy school’s 4-acre field, expecting some affordable housing will be sited,” Dec. 21). The Port has at least as much need for public open space as West Cambridge, and this is one of the few remaining open spaces in our neighborhood. We understand that the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority and the city are considering building additional affordable housing on the parking lot site, which is a goal we all support. But locating this particular project in the lot makes little sense from a neighborhood planning point of view because The Port already has one of the highest percentages of affordable housing in the city, and this housing project could easily be shifted to the School Street site (around the corner, closer to Main Street). The School Street site is already owned by the city and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and isn’t used for anything. Locating the housing project there would allow for additional affordable housing in the area without a permanent impact on the MFNH’s mission to serve the community and while keeping the parking lot available to all.
Our proposal could be summarized as follows: Have the city buy the parking land as open space, pay MFNH a fair market price to alleviate the financial constraints forcing them to sell the land, and build a quality green space that would serve both the mission of the nonprofit and the surrounding neighborhoods in an equitable, balanced manner.
Please seriously consider our neighborhood needs. We ask to be equally served as other neighborhoods in the city.
Signed by neighbors of the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House: Dennis Benzan, Theo Carr, Saúl De La Guardia, Anna and Irene Ferri, Dorothy Gaydosh , Daniel and Katinka Jeffs, Matthias Kollosche, Ilona O’Connor, Daniel Roachford, Elba Santiago, Sheila Colon, Lydia Vickers, Brady Walker and Mark White
What is clearly needed is a comprehensive planning approach to development in the port/area 4. There are several development possibilities already in play. The abandoned Windsor St building, the vacant lot at School and Cherry St., Squirrelwood on Market St., affordable homeownership plans for the lot on Windsor and Broadway, the abandoned six unit building on Main St which was given to the city as part of a zoning deal with MIT, the Redevelopment of the 120 Norfolk property into 55 – 60 units of housing for those facing recurring homelessness, the CRA redevelopment of the social service buildings on Bishop Allen Drive, MIT developments on Main Street in the port, city owned parking lots in Central Square etc. etc.
I am always fascinated by rhetoric around building affordable housing. The sentence begins with “we support affordable housing……” closely followed by the “BUT, our neighborhood has built more than our fair share.”
There is no limit to the amount of affordable housing that should be built in the port/area 4. We remain in an affordable housing crisis!
The signatories of the opinion piece make no mention of existing adjacent and nearly adjacent open space that is often under utilized on Pine Street and Columbia Street. We do need to look at all surface parking lots in the neighborhood that could provide open space, not just the MFNH lot.
We need to understand the role of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority in the neighborhood. We need to find a way that the voices of all our neighbors can be heard, especially the voices of the underserved and the historically disenfranchised because of race, gender, income, immigration status, language etc. I hope that those who signed this opinion piece can join with others that have worked tirelessly on the many open space and development issues now underway in the port/area 4 in order to bring about a comprehensive and viable plan which can address the aspirations of those most in need.
This appeal for greenspace in the Port speaks to the needs of the community.
Cambridgeport is amass with buildings and very little breathing room. This is not an issue of NIMBY. The lack of greenery and open space in a largely middle- to low-income community is a quality of life issue. Why should those in poorer, congested neighborhoods have to bear the responsibility of housing for others who are low income?
There are a lot of unoccupied buildings in Cambridge that the city either owns or can purchase for low-income residents without giving real estate developers yet another strangle-hold on the city.
Always keep in mind that once we lose a parcel of open space we NEVER EVER get it back. All the things Alys said about economic/environmental justice are essential to understand before making this kind of decision.
As far as 4’s notion of Cambridge doing a comprehensive planning study of the Port, I say why waste the money. Cambridge does these all the time and puts them on the shelf and continues to do business as usual, which now includes “transactional zoning”. K2,C2, Alewife, ECAPS, even a city-wide plan. Where are they now? On file…