City Council Agenda Highlights (6/26/17)

The agenda for the Cambridge City Council’s meeting on Monday, June 26, 2017, is posted online. This is our last regular meeting until August 7th, though we will continue to hold committee hearings through the summer. I will hold office hours on Wednesday mornings at coffee shops in various neighborhoods around the city, starting July 12th (the locations are listed on the calendar portion of this website).

City Manager’s Agenda

#1 Report on the Community Garden Program: This memo comes in response to a policy order I sponsored this spring that asked for an update on the community garden program after a number of residents contacted the Council to request that we expand the program. There are presently 14 gardens (a few are closed for renovation this year including those at Fresh Pond and Sacramento St). All but 4 have waiting lists. The materials attached with the memo include a map of garden locations and the policies for determining who gets a plot and how frequently plots turn over.

#5 Criteria for evaluating success of “pop-up” bike lanes: When we implemented “pop-up” separated bike lanes on two short sections of Mass Ave last year we asked the staff to evaluate them to help inform and shape future interventions. This memo describes the criteria being used (safety, operations, and maintenance) and says that data collection and analysis are ongoing.

#7 Suggested changes to Street Performance Ordinance: Back in the fall of 2015 Councillor Mazen held a committee hearing on ways to revive the Cambridge tradition of street performances and busking. Performers complained that Cambridge charges a fee ($40) for a license, whereas Somerville and Boston do not charge and that there are other barriers to entry. (See 2015 committee report.)  Almost two years later, the Arts Council is suggesting a number of changes to the Ordinance, including reducing the fee to $20 for students and waiving it altogether for homeless of indigent persons. The Arts Council is also adding a new full-time staff position this year (Community Arts Administrator), who will be tasked with increasing the number and variety of street performers. The allowed noise level would remain 80 decibels from 25 feet and no more than 10 decibels over the measured background noise. All of the proposed changes will be referred to the Ordinance Committee for further discussion.

#8 Additional information on short-term rentals regulations & inspections: The City Solicitor has answered a few questions we asked regarding the proposed ordinance. Existing STRs would only be grandfathered if they were operating legally prior to the first public notice of the ordinance (“transient accommodations” are illegal in many areas of the city now). The staff estimate that the total number of potential “owner-adjacent” units is 2,481. Almost 70% of them are in 2-family houses, so restricting the right to Airbnb an owner-adjacent unit to 2-family houses would not make a significant difference to the housing supply. Many of these units probably would not become more than very occasional STRs to fill gaps between longer-term tenants, especially given the rather long list of fire and safety inspection requirements that is being proposed here, It is estimated that about 1,000 STRs would require inspection and that it could take two full-time inspectors six months to do.

#9 New Home Rule Petition for Gold Star Pool relocation: The state legislature “disfavored” our original Home Rule Petition related to relocating the Gold Star Mothers Pool on the site of the new Cambridge Street School complex, because it appeared to undercount and reduce the total amount of open space. So we are reapplying using a different calculation that includes all of the pool area and pool house. This request to re-file appears to be something of a technicality and does not requiring changing the design of the pool facility, which will be larger and more attractive than the existing one.

Calendar:

Charter right #1 — Episcopal Divinity School policy order for housing: We did not get a chance to discuss the policy order at last week’s meeting because it was “charter -righted.” The order suggests that the City buy the entire 8-acre EDS campus to construct affordable housing. However most of the historic campus land is not actually available for sale or redevelopment. Lesley University has an ownership interest in several of the buildings that it intends to continue (200 Lesley students live on the EDS campus along with their library, a dining hall, classrooms and offices). The land that may be available (about 61K sf) is the site of six EDS faculty houses on St Johns Road, a cul-de-sac tucked behind Berkeley St.

Unfinished Business #10 — Running Bamboo Ordinance: The “duty to confine” bamboo plantings comes up for a vote.

Unfinished Business #11 — Short-Term Rental Ordinance: While technically this could be ordained on Monday we have scheduled one more Ordinance Committee hearing on July 5th to debate a few loose ends before voting at our August meeting.

Applications & Petitions

#2 Volpe zoning: MIT has filed its proposed re-zoning for the Volpe site. Once the new federal Transportation Building is constructed on the northwest corner of the site, MIT is seeking to develop the rest of the 14-acre site into a mixed use “Planned Unit Development” of which 40% of the floor area must be housing (about 1400 units with 20% affordable). Building heights would be 170′ up to 500′. There is a requirement for significant public open space. The proposed zoning will need a thorough analysis, as all the Council and public have seen up to now are conceptual site plans in various configurations. In the coming months there will be an extensive public hearing process at the Planning Board and the Ordinance Committee.

Policy Orders

#2 Monitor the Fern St path: Through the 1% for public art program connected to the sewer separation project, a colorful multi-use path has been constructed on Fern Street to provide a safe connection between Danehy Park and the Tobin School and baseball fields. Within days of the path’s opening, its raised, banked elements attracted the interest of groups of skateboarders. Having participated in reviewing the designs back in 2014, I can say that skateboarding was never mentioned or pictured as a use goal. Near neighbors were caught by surprise, too, and many have expressed concerns about safety and noise from night-time skateboarding. Some welcome skateboarding and don’t feel it poses a conflict with other uses at most times of the day. DPW has placed plastic jersey barriers on the corners to deter the skateboarders from veering into the path of vehicles on Concord Ave and Garden St. After two weeks, the raised elements are already showing signs of wear and tear from the grinding. I sponsored this order to ask the staff to monitor how the Fern St path is being used and to consider adding some skateboarding features in Danehy Park, where the activity would be less apt to pose conflicts with others.

#4 Divest Retirement Board funds from fossil fuels: I sponsored this order to renew a request first made back in 2013 that our Retirement Board divest from fossil fuels. The Somerville Retirement Board recently voted to divest its portfolio. We can, too.

#5 Resolution in support of continuing Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for undocumented immigrants and refugees fleeing war and natural disaster. Many Haitians in Cambridge have TPS visas and soon could be at risk of being deported.

#6 Honor the heroes of the recent Portland hate crime incident: This order would make July 15 a day of commemoration for the three young men who confronted a man yelling racist anti-Muslim slurs at women on a train in Portland. Two of the heroes were attacked and murdered and the other seriously injured.

#7 What new facilities may be needed for DPW and the Fire Dept.? This order asks that we evaluate the facility needs of these two departments. This has been asked many times but is worth asking again as we continue our Envision Cambridge process, lest we make land in the Alewife Quad too valuable serve sorely needed municipal uses.

#8 Improve communication about large events: I co-sponsored this order to hold a committee hearing this summer to discuss improving communication to better anticipate and coordinate large events being planned by local universities and others. The noise disturbance from the Boston Calling festival at Harvard is an example of why such a conversation is needed.

#9 Advocate to reducing airplane noise: After years of complaints to Massport and the FAA neighborhoods in North and West Cambridge are still being subjected to an unreasonable amount of noise from flights taking off from Logan’s Runway 33L and flying over a narrow path set by the RNAV system.

#10 Plan more protected bike lanes: I sponsored this order that asks to add two more protected bike lanes to our network this fall in addition to those already planned in Harvard Sq and on Cambridge St. The order also asks for a timeline for the roll-out of protected lanes on major corridors. This week is the one-year anniversary of Amanda Phillip’s death and we need to keep the momentum going on implementing our Bike Network Plan to honor Amanda and others whose ghost bikes remind us that we must continue to redesign our streets to prioritize safety, sustainability and health.

Committee Reports

#2 Volpe general discussion: An Ordinance Committee hearing was held to discuss the Volpe site planning and working group process. No zoning had been presented at that time, so the discussion was on a conceptual level. MIT’s presentation is included with the report and is helpful in understanding the overarching goals for the eventual re-zoning.

#3 Retail Strategy Recommendations: I chaired this hearing at which the retail strategy consultant presented a menu of policy changes to protect and support local retail and small businesses. The consultant’s presentation is included with the committee report and all the project research is online. I described this strategy work in a guest column I wrote in this week’s Cambridge Chronicle.

Communications from City Officers

#1 Councillor Kelley has shared a memo to suggest we undertake a study of curbside access and freight management. He cites a color-coding system that San Francisco uses to designate how specific portions of the curb may be used for very short-term parking, loading and delivery, passenger drop off, and so forth. Given how blatantly many Massachusetts drivers ignore the existing curbside rules, I wonder how effective this color coding would be without a very rigorous enforcement program.

Public Comment and Viewing Meetings:

Public comment begins at 5:30 pm. Each person is allowed to speak for up to 3 minutes on any agenda item except for communications from other members of the public. You may call 617-349-4280 on Monday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm to sign up to speak, or sign in when you arrive (before 6:00 pm). To submit written comments, please email council@cambridgema.gov and cc City Clerk Donna Lopez at dlopez@cambridgema.gov. Your comments will appear on the public record (under “Communications”) at the next regular Council meeting.

City Council meetings are televised on Channel 22-CityView and live-streamed on the City Council’s website. Recorded versions of all Council meetings may be found on the city’s Open Meeting Portal.

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Jan Devereux
City Councillor
Cambridge, MA