Attend meetings in Cambridge from Feb. 6-12: Police issues, lab limits and a new school name
Cambridge city staff and elected officials have a range of police issues to discuss Monday. (Photo: Marc Levy)
Police issues, cannabis fees
City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. Policy orders responding to the Jan. 4 police killing of Arif Sayed Faisal in Cambridgeport have flooded in, and some staff responses to related issues – including that the Police Review and Advisory Board, which investigates some civilian complaints against police, hasn’t been filing required quarterly reports of its actions, and that the City Manager’s Office hasn’t been forwarding police department’s inventories of weapons and other equipment. (City Manager Yi-An Huang took office in September; the last inventory arrived before him, in June.) Councillors also want action on a long-delayed police Procedural Justice Dashboard showing data on traffic stops, arrests and citations.
Questions around why police couldn’t defuse the confrontation with Faisal. who was holding a knife during a mental health crisis, have inspired calls for an independent review of Cambridge Police Department policies and practices around deescalation methods and better nonlethal responses – one of which was used during the encounter with Faisal to little effect. Huang is asked to take immediate steps to get body cameras on city law enforcement, and Finance Committee co-chairs are prepared to talk about body cameras in the context of budgeting.
With another horrific killing after a traffic stop fresh in mind from Memphis, Tennessee – that of Tyre Nichols, dead Jan. 10 after an attack by officers three days earlier – there’s a new call to explore getting armed police out of traffic enforcement. This is the third try, after a July 27, 2020, order was paused over legal concerns and one Sept. 14, 2020, went no further than a Public Safety Committee hearing.
In non-police issues, city staff agree that an annual city “impact fee” on cannabis businesses should no longer be added to host community agreements and will be taken out of existing HCAs, responding to a council vote in March; and have a Law Department response about the council’s two-year bar on considering “repetitive” zoning petitions, which has come up most recently around a pair of proposals that could limit where labs open in the city (and are being discussed Tuesday in a joint committee hearing). Councillors want staff to be determine the best ways to promote bicycle safety, with a focus on expanding the distribution of bike lights; and to look at the state of mental health resources available through the city’s public health system and Cambridge Health Alliance.
The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
King’s replacing Mona Lisa
License Commission, 10 a.m. Tuesday. King’s Famous Pizzeria Roast Beef & Seafood is set to move into 1621 Cambridge St., Mid-Cambridge, where the Mona Lisa Restaurant closed a few weeks ago after 17 years in business. The pizza and grill thrived when students from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School were able to come get slices over the course of the day, but the Covid pandemic saw revenues plunge, and neither a Mayor’s Disaster Relief Fund grant or crowdfunding effort led by lawyer Anthony Galluccio could save proprietor Mohamed Omara’s business. King’s – there are King’s also in Salem and Gloucester – is ready to serve to 11 p.m. weekdays and to midnight on weekends in a 2,200-square-foot space with seating for 24.
While that approval is expected to be rote, evidence is being reopened in the case of Fresh Pond Auto Sales in regard to how many vehicles should be allowed in its showroom at 307 Fresh Pond Parkway, in the Alewife neighborhood – a case that’s been brewing since 2017, before the business opened. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Lab-limit plans combined
Joint meeting of the Economic Development & University Relations Committee and Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration Committee, 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. These committees run by city councillors Paul Toner and Dennis Carlone look at two similar plans that could set limits on large labs opening in places such as Central Square, Cambridge Street, Broadway in The Port and North Massachusetts Avenue. The idea is to encourage the construction of housing and retail, proponents say. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Charter Review Committee
Charter Review Committee, 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. This group remaking the city’s 80-year-old governing document debates having a city manager vs. strong mayor, examines elections and opens public comment to residents’ ideas. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Vassal Lane school name change
School Committee, 6 p.m. Tuesday. Along with some subcommittee reports – including one that looked into a student proposal to grant gym credit for participating in theater – there’s a superintendent’s report due on renaming the Vassal Lane Upper School to avoid honoring someone whose family enslaved people. The committee meets in the Dr. Henrietta S. Attles Meeting Room at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, 459 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Town-gown reports
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. It’s town-gown report time, when the board checks in on what Lesley and Harvard universities, the Hult International School of Business and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are doing in, for, with and to the city. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Affordable Housing Overlay
Housing Committee, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city councillors E. Denise Simmons discusses potential changes to Affordable Housing Overlay zoning, which is meant to make 100 percent affordable housing easier to build citywide. Changes could include “relaxed dimensional requirements” along certain major streets and in some squares; and “additional height when green area open space is protected or expanded.” The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Alewife Zoning Working Group
Alewife Zoning Working Group, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The final meeting of the working group includes results from a transportation analysis; final zoning recommendations; and updated planning by Denver company Healthpeak, which in 2021 and last year spent an estimated $616 million amassing some three dozen acres for life-sciences uses – inspiring an area lab-building moratorium and this zoning work. Watchable by Zoom video conferencing.
Alewife, Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Highlands, Cambridge Planning Board, Cambridge School Committee, Cambridge meetings ahead, Central Square, Development, Education, Food + Drink, Fresh Pond, License Commission, affordable housing, biotech, drugs, governing, police, politics, race, technology, transportation, zoning
Does the Town and Gown thing not communicate with Longy School of Music? A tiny school, to be fair.
going from 80 Ft to 280 ft in “affordable housing squares” (central, Harvard, Porter) is irresponsible. We don’t have the electrical infrastructure which is being eaten up by BEUDO demands that every large condominium and residential building become 100% electrified. lots are too small for these kinds of towers.
The blanket new “Amendment” for AHO (which was actually the tip of the camel’s nose under the tent), doesn’t take into consideration neighborhood context and it jeopardizes the tourist product in Harvard Sq.
Again, Cambridge is going for one-size-fits all because it is easier instead of identifying potential lots for redevelopment. AND with all the potential building, doesn’t that contribute to green house gases you are forcing middle class, fixed income, elderly, cash poor residents to pay for? This is a regional problem, not just Cambridge’s.
Strictly speaking, License Commission meetings are not watchable; they are only audible. Video is not part of the experience, at least not any time I’ve attended.
I’m surprised to learn that CPD does any traffic enforcement…
On affordable housing – as I have always said. Let us put hi-rises on Cambridge Commons and other city parks, let us knock down all 1 and 2 stories in Harvard Square to put in cookie-cutter hi-rise towers, and let us take up every square inch in neighborhoods so that we can fulfill Cambridge’s commitment to the world – accommodate every single person who has ever expressed interest in living in Cambridge.
We want to make Cambridge so affordable that soon everyone will be able to afford it, but even fewer will want to live in it.
Then the councilors can take their excellent services to the next city that “needs to be fixed.”
I am sorry to say this to the woke ultra-liberal crowd. Not everyone can afford to live in Cambridge. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Must be great to be white and privileged. The sentiment of “got mine, screw you” on housing is disgustingly selfish.
There is more we can do to accommodate newcomers. Cambridge should be a vibrant city, not a country club exclusive to existing landowning residents
@taguscove
This has nothing to do with being White and being privileged. Why do you have to bring race into it. Can’t we be race neutral for a change. Isn’t that what we want our society to be.
People should be able to live where they want, if they can afford to do so. We, who live here, have no obligation to accommodate newcomers.
We already have far too many people living here who are in need of affordable housing. That will keep us going for the next 25 years.
Utopian projects (e.g. affordable housing in Cambridge for anyone who wants it) using the government, is not realistic for many reasons.
Many of us in Cambridge would like to see more affordable housing. However, as EastCamb said so well in his satire on what the city should do,
not everyone can afford to live in Cambridge.
Responding to @concerned43 and @EastCamb: I’ve written comments similar to this in a previous article on the AHO amendments, and I’d be curious to hear your response this time. If we solely concern ourselves to current residents of Cambridge – though I agree with other commenters that this is a myopic perspective – let’s focus on the 7000 people here that are on our affordable housing waitlists, who we need to find a solution for. Let’s also focus on the fact that 49% of Cambridge renters are cost-burdened (citation: http://www.housing.ma/cambridge/report). This is higher than the state average, and a shameful percentage. This 49% of renters – and further, 20% of households who are severely cost burdened – are at severe risk of displacement. Do you agree that we should be taking every effort to mitigate this displacement, including producing desperately needed affordable housing. If you don’t think we should produce new housing, are you in support of city-wide vouchers and rent control in order to help all of these people stay housed in Cambridge amidst increasing rents? If not, why are you not for the production of new, affordable housing?
Re: the heights – I personally have no problem at all with the heights proposed on the relevant corridors. I have a few questions for commenters here: (a) could you point to a building developed by our affordable housing developers that you have an objection to? (b) do you have any objection to harvard towers on harvard st, which by my count is 10 stories? If not, why do you have objections to buildings of relatively similar heights on the corridors in questions that would be 100% affordable?
Finally, with regard to the 25 stories in our squares – I’m a little more sympathetic to this, but I will say, I personally am quite used to Mass & Main / Market Central, and think these buildings of these heights would be few and far between regardless even under this language. But I regardless think it is likely worth engaging on these points. But, putting that debate to the side for a second, I would encourage those who oppose upzoning to these high heights to look at the lab petition which I also support and am a presenter at tomorrow’s hearing; if affordable housing developers can hope to compete in these areas with both commercial and market-rate housing, they do need these densities. If you don’t support these densities and want less height, then consider supporting petitions like ours
Of course there is no obligation to accommodate newcomers. There are many who support policies and zoning that enable Cambridge to do so. I am proud to do so
@Kavish Gandhi,
You said: ” If you don’t think we should produce new housing, are you in support of city-wide vouchers and rent control in order to help all of these people stay housed in Cambridge amidst increasing rents? ”
I’ve stated time after time that we need new affordable housing.
Rent control is not the answer. Never has been, never will be. It has never worked. I’ve seen it here in Cambridge and where I grew up, in Manhattan. Private ownership of a person’s home should never be used as to address societal problems. If the voters of the city want to provide funds for housing, let them do it. It is not up to an individual to do so.
Finally, rent control has effectively reduced the housing supply. For example, why would a family build a three family house, knowing that the only way they can make it work financially is to have rents that continue to increase over a period of time. Rent control puts a restriction on the increase. It’s why, when there was rent control in Cambridge, landlords didn’t keep their property in good shape. They couldn’t afford to do so.
The housing shortage we have now, in part can be traced to rent control in the 80s and early 90s.
Fortunately it was abolished in 1995. It should not be brought back. Government control of the financial aspects of private property is socialism.
Some in this city (e.g. a few city councillors) might want it. Many others like me find it abominable.
Okay, so you don’t support rent control – I don’t agree that it is “abominable” but that’s not my point, and I’m not interested in litigating rent control here. My point was: if you agree that displacement is a problem, and you don’t support building more housing, then how do you support addressing the cost-burdenship?
Since you’ve now said you do support building housing to address Cambridge’s extreme cost-burdenship, which I documented above, what do you support building? Please provide #’s that support why this would be sufficient to help address our housing crisis. This is the work that has gone into proposals like the AHO and its amendments.
I’m also very curious on your answers to my (a) and (b) questions above.
Also @taguscove fully agree with this, if it isn’t clear. Just playing a hypothetical in my questions to the commenters opposed
Kavish Gandhi,
We’re obviously talking across each other.
I wish you well.
@taguscove
If your comments were directed to me, I am sorry to disappoint you by saying I am neither white nor privileged! I am an immigrant from a developing country and have only been in this country for about 15 years. In that time, I have lived where I could afford, saved what I could, worked as hard as possible, and ultimately bought a small place in Cambridge.
I am not against development. You can see my comments supporting a new building being proposed on 1st street.
But I am against putting random hi-rise buildings in neighborhoods so we can accommodate a few more hundred people. There is no infrastructure to support such development. Most streets are already one-way with room for one car to go by. What will we do next – turn streets into parking lots because now these new developments have no parking requirements and the public transportation system is no better than the developing country I came from?
@kavish
you like to quote a lot of facts on cost-burdened etc. I have a solution for all these people. Apparently, there are a lot. Please move to a place outside Cambridge where your rent will be half what it is. Boom! All of a sudden, you are not cost-burdened. You are welcome!
I could buy a Bentley, complain about being cost-burdened, and start a Go Fund Me to help me out. Or I could buy a Honda Civic to serve the same purpose. Or may reach out to Kavish to help me keep my Bentley?
Your lack of empathy for those who are displaced is pretty appalling – it is not at all equivalent to those buying a “Bentley” beyond their means. These are often individuals or families who hope to stay in the home they have rented for years or even decades. In my day job, I work with families in Chelsea who are displaced there due to rising rents and go through extreme trauma from it. Displaced families from Cambridge are and will be no different. It is false that your rent is half that of Cambridge if you just move across the border to Somerville or Arlington, also, that is just empirically false.
If you’re in favor of turning Cambridge and surrounding cities into rich enclaves where only the wealthy can live, and exiling those who can’t afford it, then go ahead and state that explicitly. Not trying to create a strawman but really that is ultimately what you are saying. I don’t want that to happen, and want the city to take steps to curb the extreme cost-burdenship and cost of living