We write as a coalition of Eastern Cambridge residents and organizations who participated in a 14-member task force that engaged in a public, collaborative process with BioMed Realty over more than nine months to negotiate terms for its proposed rezoning and lab development at 320 Charles St. The city’s practice and precedent under contract zoning is for a developer to work with the most affected neighborhoods for mitigation negotiations, which is exactly what we did. What message would a last-minute major change to the agreement say to community members and developers who negotiated in good faith?
While East End House is a member of our coalition, it neither led nor held a vote in the formal decision-making process. The agreement regarding the scale of the building and type of community benefits – including impact mitigation payments – was negotiated and endorsed by the full coalition after many public meetings. Our members also engaged actively with our fellow neighbors and project abutters, including residents in Linden Park, and held several formal and informal conversations with them. As a mitigation benefit, the coalition and our neighbors identified East End House as the operator of a critically needed new community social services and recreation center, which emerged as the petition’s top funding priority.
We urge the City Council and city manager to uphold the terms of this hard-won agreement and reject efforts to reduce funding for the proposed East End House facility at the eleventh hour – particularly after two unanimous 9-0 council votes in support of the project.
Here are the key elements that defined this multipronged, coalition led effort:
Inclusive and transparent process: A 14-member coalition of East Cambridge stakeholders negotiated openly and in good faith with BioMed Realty for more than nine months. A representative from the Linden Park Neighborhood Association in the Wellington-Harrington Neighborhood participated as a nonvoting member of this coalition. The process involved dozens of public meetings open to all and that were publicized formally in the wider community through notices and Cambridge media starting in October, and was guided by principles of transparency, equity and accountability. The coalition members, in turn, had several separate meetings and conversations with their neighbors to solicit feedback.
Neighborhood-driven priorities: The community prioritized funding for a new East Cambridge-based social services and recreation center run by East End House as the most meaningful mitigation for the local effects of the proposed development. While East End House will operate the center, it did not lead or control the negotiations. Decisions were made collectively by the coalition, representing the interests of the neighborhoods most affected.
Direct local impact justifies local benefits: East Cambridge has absorbed millions of square feet of commercial development over 25-plus years, along with its attendant negative impacts (noise, traffic, displacement, loss of open space, etc.), while the real estate tax benefits, including an estimated $3 million-plus in annual tax revenue and an almost $10 million contribution to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund from this project are shared citywide. This rezoning provides an opportunity to reinvest directly in the most affected community by providing a purpose built facility that, in fact, will benefit all of Cambridge.
Precedent for developer-directed benefits: Other recent zoning agreements include BioMed’s recent building of a performance arts space with programming by Global Arts Live, which cost tens of millions of dollars and demonstrates that developer-directed community benefits negotiated with affected neighborhoods are well-established. A similar public, transparent process led to that East Cambridge community space, and no one suggested that arts nonprofits in other areas of the city should be funded instead.
The $20 million is essential to the project’s viability: The East End House facility project depends on the full $20 million commitment to proceed. The nonprofit will still need to raise an additional $10 million. In the spirit of compromise, $1.8 million of community benefits originally targeted for Eastern Cambridge causes was redirected to nonprofits in other parts of the city by the council before the upzoning was moved out of Ordinance Committee by a 9-0 vote May 20. Any further reduction in the funding threatens to derail the entire project, leaving a vital community service without a future home.
Conclusion
You heard from staff and community members about the critical role East End House plays in our lives as a beloved multiservice center serving across generations and across the city. Any effort to alter or reduce the agreed-upon funding for East Cambridge’s highest-priority community benefit upends the result of a long, collaborative process conducted in good faith.
This project represents a rare and powerful alignment between a private developer, community residents and the city – delivering real benefits where the need and impact are greatest. As Cambridge Day reported a councillor’s remarks after the second 9-0 vote in favor of the project, “This is a good example of something other developers should look at. When you work well with the community and you compromise and you’re open and transparent and fair and deliver on your promises, as BioMed has always done, things go smoothly. Play games and goof around, it gets more complicated.”
Rather than unraveling this success, we encourage the council, city manager and nonprofit sector to begin a broader, forward-looking conversation about meeting citywide nonprofit needs – without sacrificing community-led solutions already negotiated and agreed to.
Thank you for your consideration and continued commitment to community sensitive development.
Bob Simha, chair of the 320 Charles Street Task Force and vice president of the East Cambridge Planning Team; Matthew Connolly, president of the Linden Park Neighborhood Association; Abigail Lewis-Bowen, secretary of the East Cambridge Open Space Trust; Susan Lapierre, chair of the East End House board of directors.
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Who appointed the coalition members? Do they have formal authority to decide where city money is spent?