Attend meetings on long-brewing proposals; school district vaccine mandates; a pet project
Katlyn Coveney’s wish to care for recuperating dogs at her home has another municipal hearing scheduled Wednesday. (Photo: Board of Zoning Appeal materials of June 10)
Condominium conversion law
Housing Committee, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday. This committee run by city councillors E. Denise Simmons and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler will discuss a proposed condominium conversion law advanced (though not for the first time) at the June 28 council meeting. It seeks to reduce, slow or even prevent tenants from being displaced when rental units go condo. Televised and watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
School district vaccine mandate
School Committee special meeting, 5 p.m. Tuesday. Members expect to discuss and vote on recommendations for the coming year from interim Cambridge Public Schools superintendent Victoria Greer and on other business related to Covid-19, including approval to enter into bargaining with unions to mandate coronavirus vaccines for school district workers. Televised and watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Three long-simmering projects
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Three long-simmering projects appear on this board agenda: a mixed-use building at 1043-1059 Cambridge St., Wellington-Harrington, planned to activate the site of two long-closed businesses – the University Monument gravestone seller and a warehouse of Automatic Cone – with 18 residential units and 4,564 square feet of ground-floor commercial space; a 68-room, six-story independent hotel, replacing an empty lot, the former Kendall Hair Co. and former Emma’s Pizza at 34-40 Hampshire St., Kendall Square; and a 29-unit micro-studio apartment building above 544 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, which displaced The Studio@550 dance space. Televised and watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Rezoning for recuperating dogs
Ordinance Committee, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city councillors Dennis Carlone and Marc McGovern will conduct yet another public hearing on a single case of a resident hoping to provide postoperative care for one recuperating pet as a home business – a matter that has now been before the Board of Zoning Appeal, the full council and the Planning Board. The committee may adopt amended language and send the measure back to the full council for another vote. Watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Galeria, Mayflower, landmarkings
Historical Commission, 6 p.m. Thursday. This agenda not only returns a four-story expansion plan begun six years ago for the Crimson Galeria at 57 JFK St., Harvard Square – continued from Aug. 5 over concerns such as how the added height would shadow the neighboring Winthrop Park – but also some other major property changes: the renovation and redevelopment of the famous Mayflower Poultry property into offices, R&D or laboratory space at 621 Cambridge St., East Cambridge; partial demolition of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse Co. building for reuse by MIT, which once thought it would have the 1894 building fixed up and reopened for September 2018; and consideration of landmarking petitions for Mayflower Poultry’s iconic “Live Poultry Fresh Killed” sign (which on Thursday was sold at auction), Central Square’s Cambridge Gas-Light Co. building at 719 Massachusetts Ave. (where a boutique hotel and office plan has drawn opposition), and the Cambridgeport Savings Bank Building at 689 Massachusetts Ave. At least one proponent is unhappy that what arrived as a joint petition for the latter two buildings was split in two by commission staff. Watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
For the record, there was actually *considerable* opposition to the application for a special permit for a three-story addition for a “boutique hotel” on top of the so-called Gas-Light Building in Central Square. The residents of the 100 percent affordable housing behind it at 5 Temple Place would be put in shadow and deprived of light, air, and privacy, in perpetuity. Many residents of that building joined in writing to the Planning Board to complain about these senseless negative impacts. Were this building to have the Landmark status it richly deserves, proposed deformities of this magnitude to an historic building as significant as this one would never have been allowed. Again, opposition was widespread and considerable – judging from the record of the hearing – but was ignored, unfortunately, by the Planning Board. Sad.
Still unclear why, after vaccines have been available to educators for 6 months, we are waiting until a week before school begins to literally discuss whether we should discuss vaccine mandates for staff. Why is the union opposed to this when most members are in favor?
We are seeing teachers infected families in other parts of the country, and we do not need that here!
I find it notable that residents of public housing are speaking out all around the city in opposition to projects that affect the quality of their lives. It used to be that they turned out once a year for CPA allocation time to advocate for the maximum allowable amount for affordable housing and were pretty much silent otherwise. I am glad they have found their voices. We claim to care about their lives, but we rarely made much inquiry into what they thought about what was going on around them. The loud voices ostentatiously claiming to speak for them don’t seem too happy that they’d rather speak for themselves, but I’m thrilled to hear them. How can we make good policy without hearing the authentic voices of the people that policy affects rather than just their self-anointed surrogates?