Attend meetings on Starlight Square’s future, developer ‘linkage’ fees, better parks and more
These are just some of the municipal meetings and civic events for the coming week. More are on the City Calendar and in the city’s Open Meetings Portal.
Better parks and open spaces
Our Parks, Our Plan pop-up events, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Monday, and 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. The city’s “Our Parks, Our Plan” team invites discussion of its draft goals and vision and how they will lead to better parks and open spaces. Cantabrigians are invited to share ideas or talk with the project team about park and open space goals. The Monday session is at Greene-Rose Heritage Park, 155 Harvard St., The Port; the Tuesday session picks up on Cambridge Common, near Harvard Square.
Citywide urban design guidelines
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The board gets a presentation on citywide urban design guidelines; hears an extension request from the life-sciences company IQHQ for a development at 36-64 Whittemore Ave., North Cambridge near Alewife; and talks about how to run meetings in a post-pandemic period. (The board’s met virtually since the Covid lockdown period starting in March 2020.) Televised and watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Library social worker visit
Meet and greet with the library social worker, 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Library social worker Marie Mathieu talks about her role, takes questions and schedules one-on-one sessions to help with issues such as feelings of isolation; aging in place; finding child care resources; and connecting with local organizations. This session will be at the Cambridge Public Library Collins Branch, 64 Aberdeen Ave., West Cambridge.
‘Linkage’ fees move forward
Ordinance Committee, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city councillors Marc McGovern and Quinton Zondervan takes back from the Planning Board the issue of a potential jump in real estate “linkage” fees that could be a serious shock to the system, going to $33.34 a square foot from the current $20.10 – money that must be paid by developers of big, nonresidential construction to fund affordable housing. The new rate would be significantly higher than those in Somerville ($13.98) and Boston ($15.39), but both are studying increases, according to the Community Development Department. Watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Pedestrian panel takes a walk
Pedestrian Committee Meeting, 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday. The committee has a walking meeting of the Harvard Square and Porter Square areas, starting from Brattle Plaza, Harvard Square.
Permitting for Starlight Square
Board of Zoning Appeal, 7 to 11:45 p.m. Thursday. Starlight Square – an outdoor complex for Covid-safe entertainment, shopping and meeting – met some neighborhood opposition in March as it sought to move from operating under a pandemic-era emergency order to more traditional permitting. Instead of getting the hoped-for full season of programming, the Central Square Business Improvement District operating Starlight Square was permitted through Aug. 1 and now must show it’s worked with neighbors to address concerns about noise. Watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
It’s a shame the incentive zoning conversation lacks any nuance. First the study they’re using is from 2019 and doesn’t factor the incoming recession or the impact of covid. Second the talking points being thrown out mention labs as being the driver of displacement … that is likely true. However the incentive zoning methodology is based on the notion that uses more likely to hire lower wage employees put more of a burden on housing and thus restaurants (for instance) are more of a burden on the city than labs! Boston maybe thinking about raising their fee but their threshold begins at 100k sqft. Raising linkage without considering the impacts on all other uses is a mistake, one that has driven nearly all (nexus study 2019) development towards lab use. We should raise the threshold for linkage to at least 50k and exempt existing square footage and then you could raise the fee to whatever you wanted to without taking one single dollar from the housing trust and ensuring that developers build more than just labs.
First comment was too awesome to approve?