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.
Institutional encroachment
Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration Committee, 10 a.m. to noon Thursday. This committee run by city councillors Cathie Zusy and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler looks at whether to bring back something like the Dover Amendment, which regulated development by institutions such as universities or religious groups in residential areas. That exemption from 1979 and 1980 was ended Feb. 10 when the City Council enacted a Multifamily Housing Ordinance to encourage the construction of homes, only to see a religious group seize the opportunity to also expand nonhousing uses. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Lord Hobo space is filling
License Commission, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Commissioners hear from restaurateurs at Food & Drinks who seek to serve, well, food and drink at 92 Hampshire St., the former Lord Hobo location in The Port. The intertwined but divorced brand and location have been confusing the neighborhood and former fans since the pandemic, but the address at least is moving to a new kind of confusion: It’s hard to google. Also on the agenda is Gato Exotico, Mexican food at the CambridgeSide mall in East Cambridge from the creators of Harvard Square’s Wusong Road that we wrote about here; Minara, seeking to serve food at 361 Huron Ave. in Huron Village, the former Magic Beans baby gear and toy store; and the Goog Palace and Bar, seeking to serve food and drink at 11 Broad Canal Way, Kendall Square, filling the space occupied by the Commonwealth restaurant from 2013 to 2023. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Update on sewer improvements
Combined Sewer Overflow control planning update, 6 p.m. Thursday. Heavy rainfall can still cause sewer systems to overflow and pollute our rivers, but Cambridge, Somerville and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority are working on plans for sewer improvements that will reduce the pollution. This meeting will share the latest results of studying combined sewer overflow reduction and the effect on water quality in rivers. Plans will be discussed via Zoom videoconferencing.
Talking good kennels, bad dogs
Ordinance Committee, 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. This committee run by vice mayor Marc McGovern adjusts city law to align with state law on regulations for dog kennels and what city officials can do if a dog is determined to be vicious or potentially vicious. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Trio of superintendent finalists
Special meeting of the School Committee, 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. Members interview superintendent finalists David Murphy, the interim superintendent in Cambridge; Lourenço Garcia, assistant superintendent for Revere Public Schools; and Magaly Sanchez, chief family advancement officer for Boston Public Schools. A final decision on the hire is expected Oct. 6. The committee meets in the Dr. Henrietta S. Attles Meeting Room at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, 459 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Watchable online, including by Zoom.
A stronger
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The City of Cambridge already brought back the Dover Amendment by getting rid of its hard-won exemption from it. The question is whether an exemption is still desirable and, if so, whether a home rule petition asking for one has a snowball’s chance of passage. Given that the main reason for the exemption that we could still revive any time we want was to stop the loss of housing to institutional expansion, partly by requiring its replacement, and the fact that the cries of housing crisis continue unabated, one would have thought that the City Council would have spent at least two or three nanoseconds considering the point before tossing the exemption into the flames, but one would have been wrong.