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.
Candidate certifications
Election Commission, 3 p.m. Monday. Nomination papers that allow an appearance on the Nov. 4 ballot for City Council and School Committee were due back Thursday with no fewer than 50 and no more than 100 certifiable signatures of registered voters; now commissioners will go over certifications a final time to make it official who has made the cut. At Election Commission offices, 689 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square.
East Cambridge project benefits
City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. Among items for the only full council meeting in July and August is a vote on the so-called East Cambridge Community Enhancement Zoning Petition, which would let BioMed Realty put up a four-story lab building at 320 Charles St. in East Cambridge; there’s a negotiated community benefits package that has become controversial because improvements are focused on the surrounding neighborhood rather than the city as a whole. The zoning expires Aug. 18, so this is the council’s last chance to vote unless a special meeting is called. The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Ellery Street project
Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission, 6 to 10 p.m. Monday. A project made possible by multifamily zoning voted through in February comes to the commission for continued review. The proposed development at 60 Ellery St. is a 29-unit, approximately 24,000-square-foot building of five studios, 17 one-bedroom homes and seven two-bedroom homes. Twenty percent of the building’s square footage will be allotted as affordable housing, likely four or five units. Some have expressed concern about how the structure will affect the historic nature of the neighborhood. We wrote about it here. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Airbnbs; housing on Wendell
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. The city looks to get tougher on short-term rentals handled through platforms such as Airbnb, which it began regulating in 2017 only to find its regulations were likely being scorned by many of the people running them: An Oct. 21 report cited 168 registered rentals in Cambridge, a fraction of the at least 515 available properties that could be found in online searches. Changes proposed here to the city’s laws would sharpen definitions and clarify compliance needs with safety codes, require documentation upon request by the city and add enforcement mechanisms such as fines of up to $300 a day for violations. Also on the agenda: A Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. 95-home affordable housing project at 28-30 Wendell St. in the Baldwin neighborhood, former dorms and tennis courts bought in June 2024 from Lesley University. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Spears Funeral Home project
Historical Commission, 6 to 10:30 p.m. Aug. 7. Commissioners consider a demolition request for the A.J. Spears Funeral Home at 124 Western Ave. and an attached house at 132 Western Ave. for construction in the Riverside neighborhood of a building with as many as 60 apartments, 20 percent of which are required to be set aside for affordable housing. The buildings went up in 1856 and 1860. We wrote about the housing proposal here. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
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four game-changing 6-story housing projects in neighborhoods on the agenda in the dead of summer when no one is around… again.