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.
Invitation to the Moth Ball
Cambridge Moth Ball, 7 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. As part of National Moth Week, residents are invited to learn how to attract, photograph and identify moths, explore them up close and share the data and photos with researchers. No previous mothing experience is required. Bring a picnic (and take your trash with you) and dress like a moth if you’d like (though long sleeves and long pants are recommended). At Kingsley Park near the Water Department facility at 250 Fresh Pond Parkway, in West Cambridge at Fresh Pond Reservation.
Matignon land, Chip City opening
Board of Zoning Appeal, 6 to 11:30 p.m. July 25. The board hears a request from the Archdiocese of Boston to subdivide property in North Cambridge where the 75-year-old Matignon School closed in June 2023. The change allows some land to be sold to the Benjamin Banneker Charter School and the rest to stay with the church and continue to be leased to the International School of Boston. The subdivision will create nonconforming setbacks that need a variance. (Some of the property is landfill, and much of the property also crosses over into Somerville.) Something a little more fun is lower on the agenda: Permission to open a Chip City cookie shop in 1 Brattle Square as a “formula” business in a Harvard Square Overlay District meant to favor small, locally owned businesses. This store will be a kind of dessert twin to the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream shop that came before the board in March for the same reason and won its exemption. The 715-square-foot shop could open this month, said the New York chain’s co-founder and chief executive, Peter Phillips, in May. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Envisioning Mass. Ave. of 2040
Massachusetts Avenue Planning Study community meeting, 6 to 8 p.m. July 25. The study working group holds its third and final community meeting, this time hearing Community Development Department recommendations for the planning area south of Porter Square – though ultimately work will shape what the avenue will look like in 2040 between Alewife Brook Parkway and Cambridge Common. The goals are to make the avenue more inviting, allow for more housing, provide more neighborhood amenities, support small businesses and improve the sidewalks and walkability. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
A stronger
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