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.

There’s been an increase in emergencies at The Middle East in Cambridge’s Central Square, License Commissioners say. (Photo: Marc Levy)

Asking giants for housing aid

City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. The regular council meeting will pause for a hearing to set the property tax rate, deciding how much commercial property is taxed compared with residential; Cambridge has leaned on its commercial base for decades. The regular meeting agenda includes an order to explore asking the city’s biggest businesses and institutions to spend more to alleviate a housing crisis. There is precedent, author councillor Dennis Carlone said, pointing to the $1 billion over 10 years that Google has committed to in San Francisco to provide 20,000 homes “to offset the impact its operations have had on local housing affordability and availability.” There are also two orders looking to further refine how an energy-use reduction law will work for universities and new buildings getting construction permits and certificates of occupancy.

City staff, meanwhile, has language meant to make the rules of building affordable housing under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning more clear and easier to implement, and a resident has filed a zoning petition meant to handle a “lodging house” loophole caused in 2001, when a Housing Committee recommendation was never taken up by the full council. “For the past 22 years the intent of the Housing Committee has been undermined,” resident Allene R. Pierson said, arguing that a recent elimination of parking minimums has created “lodging houses which are simply an in-name-only use classification for hotels and motels” in residential areas.

The city manager is also asked to hold a community process specifically to decide the future of 105 Windsor St., a long-empty building in The Port neighborhood, despite it being part of a larger study, and to ban or limit the sale of the little bottles of alcohol known as nips. That would decrease plastic litter and alcohol-related emergency calls, councillor Patty Nolan said. A policy meant to restrict the sale of nips was passed in 2015 pitched as a way “to reduce the possibility of underage sales,” without any evidence or testimony to be found that there were any going on.

The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Middle East operation at risk

License Commission, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday. The commission holds two disciplinary hearings around summertime charges of serving drunken people at La Fabrica Central and New Republik. An informational hearing for The Middle East sounds even more ominous, because it not only looks at “business practices, the manner in which business is being conducted” and an increase in incidents requiring police and emergency medical response, but calls fordetermination on “whether a rollback of operating hours is appropriate.” Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Changing cannabis permitting

Ordinance Committee, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city councillors Marc McGovern and Quinton Zondervan considers ending the need for sellers of recreational cannabis to get a special permit to operate – which is why a pot shop called the Strain Station looking to open at 110 Fawcett St. in the Cambridge Highlands went ahead and moved to withdraw from the permitting process at the previous night’s Planning Board meeting. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Studying a bridge over tracks

Transit Advisory Committee, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday. The centerpiece of this meeting is a half-hour presentation on a long-awaited “North Cambridge Pedestrian and Bicycle Crossing Feasibility Study,” about plans for a pedestrian and bike bridge over the Fitchburg Main Line tracks near Danehy Park and Fresh Pond Mall. That’s followed by another half-hour presentation on city and MBTA projects, and it’s always good to keep an eye on our flailing regional transit agency. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Landmarks at two project sites

Historical Commission, 6 p.m. Thursday. The commission weighs in on changes to an entrance at the 57 John F. Kennedy St., Harvard Square, Crimson Galeria – the Planning Board wanted input – in the easier portion of the night, then will look at possible landmarkings that could complicate development projects: in East Cambridge, for the little offices at 231 Third St. (built in 1916) and a single-family home at 235 Third St. (built in 1886), where a five-story building of 19 homes is proposed; and in West Cambridge, for 4 and 6 Buckingham Place and 10 Buckingham St., where the Buckingham, Brown & Nichols School is exploring tearing down all or parts of its Kelsey House, Morrison House and Markham Building to update its lower-school campus. The since-renovated buildings date back to 1894, 1884 and 1892, respectively. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.