Tag Archives: Carlone Petition

BURY MY HEART AT THE SULLIVAN COURTHOUSE: A Dispatch From The Cambridge Zoning Wars

We started out small in numbers.

That’s how change often begins; first with a few diehard believers who loudly articulate the concerns of those who suffer and fret in silence. Our collective voice was easily ignored in those early days, but eventually, after far too many meetings, forums and protests, our message began to gain traction and resonance.courthouse

And then we had a real battle on our hands.

No longer could the reality of the problem be ignored, no longer could critical thinkers remain disengaged. Not when citizens were growing vocal as well as angry, frustrated by their elected leaders’ seeming inability (or disinclination) to protect and defend this city they swore to serve. Frustrated as well by city roadways growing ever more clogged, city neighborhoods growing ever more alien and congested, and city agencies and a Planning Board growing ever more deaf to the pleas of the city’s residents.

Meanwhile, apologists for the status quo scrambled to defend and protect a system that demonstrably worked against the best interests of those who live in our city, especially those most vulnerable to gentrification. In bursts of media-savvy sound bites they shielded their opposition to anything that might hinder Cambridge’s unbridled runaway development. In almost knee-jerk defensive attacks they accused us of “Nimbyism” and of being “Anti-Development.”

If the history of these struggles is ever recorded, it will be clearly seen that those who fought for more vigilance and planning as we grew our city were more concerned with what happened on our watch than in our backyards!

And now the genie is out of the bottle. 

City councilThis last year our numbers have grown substantially and we have helped elect two new members to the City Council (see front row left, first and second); councilors who share our concerns and who are asking their fellow councilors to re-think their views and votes of the past, and to recast a system put in place to serve a Cambridge that once needed a shot in the arm to grow, but was now in danger of getting seriously ill from an overdose of that same medicine.

After years of living with a system that gave critical development oversight to non-elected entities: city agencies whose mission was to facilitate development and a Planning Board that refused to believe it had the power to say “No!” we are on the cusp of change. Councilor Dennis Carlone has proposed a zoning change that would give the City Council final approval—temporarily, until a new Master Plan can be developed—for all projects 50,000 square feet or larger that require special permit review.

If you care about the future of Cambridge or the future of our neighborhoods, or just believe you have an obligation to leave Cambridge a better city than when you found it, you need to raise your voice and lift your pen. You need to tell the city council to vote for, to accept, and to USE—like a mighty hammer!—the power put in their hands if they enact the Carlone Petition.

You also need to voice your displeasure should they refuse to enact the Carlone Petition and effectively kill THE ONE SINGLE WEAPON the City Council could use to defend us against three mammoth, neighborhood-altering developments.

No matter how much they protest there are better ways to fix the system, or that the Carlone Petition would take up too much valuable council time, creating a polarizing political situation, the simple truth is they have NO OTHER VIABLE OPTIONS before them IF they wish to do their jobs correctly, acting to serve and protect Cambridge’s neighborhoods and its citizens.

So much depends—including the makeup of the next City Council, one might think—on whether they have the wisdom and courage to enact, and take up, the Carlone Petition.

We may have started out small in numbers, but wait till they see how we’ve grown!

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If you see this in time, please plan to attend the City Council meeting on Monday, September 8th, 5:30 in the Attles School Committee Room at CRLHS, entrance on Broadway.  

Paul Steven Stone is a founding member of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, which for the last three years has been struggling to raise the alarm about Cambridge’s runaway development, and to give voice to those who fear for the loss of our sense of community, quality of life and diversity of population. To find out more about the Cambridge Residents Alliance, go to: CambridgeResidentsAlliance.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We tried to break up, but they wouldn’t accept that it was over.”

Dear Abby:

This is very painful to talk about, but I need some guidance. Last Tuesday a group of fellow Cambridge residents and myself tried to break off our relationship with our Planning Board, but they just wouldn’t listen. All evening we kept telling them they no longer held a place in our hearts, and that we felt betrayed by their falling in love with the developers they were supposed to protect us damaged heartfrom. But, alas, nothing we said seemed to penetrate the unfathomable depths of their minds. Our words were like cannonballs that turned into feathers on impact.

We told them we were sorry we had to break up; that we had loved them once and they had done a great job helping us recover from hard times. But hard times were over, speaker after speaker told them bluntly, and now we needed guard dogs to protect us from developers rather than lap dogs to lick their fingers.

Abby, we did our best to be sensitive to their feelings. We told them we still liked them and, rather than take away all their power to cram ugly, dense buildings into our neighborhoods, we were only going to take away projects 50,000 square feet or larger, which would then be subject to City Council approval. It was like saying we would still go out on dates with them, but they could no longer assume they’d be staying the night when the evening was done.

But apparently we were speaking to people who couldn’t understand our language. We would say, “You’ve done everything but roll over and play dead for developers, approving 49 out of 49 projects and never rejecting a single one.” To which they’d reply, “But nobody on the city council is qualified to make these decisions. We have a combined total of over 75 years Planning Board experience.” To which we would answer, “Yes, but you’re using that experience to undermine our quality of life, jam up our roads, and totally change the character and makeup of Cambridge’s uniquely diversified population.” To which they responded, “Yes, and the city council is just not qualified to take on those responsibilities.”

Abby, I wish I could have taken their little heads in my hands and shouted “Listen, folks, it’s over! We don’t love you anymore. We don’t even like you. It’s time we went our separate ways. And, please, take the Community Development Department, the Traffic Department and the City Solicitor with you!”

But it was all to naught, Abby. Not surprisingly they acted as though they would never let us go, voting against the Carlone petition and ignoring our pleas to be freed from this excruciatingly painful relationship.

Please, Abby, tell us what we can do to rescue ourselves and Cambridge from the grip of an overly possessive Planning Board while there’s still a Cambridge worth rescuing?

(signed)

Growing More Desperate Daily

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In case it’s not obvious from the essay, Cambridge is going through a period of runaway development aided and abetted (some of us believe) by a Planning Board seemingly dedicated to protecting the rights of developers, often against the wishes, rights and best interests of Cambridge’s current property owners. The Carlone Petition, initiated by City Councilor Dennis Carlone, seeks to strengthen the city’s vigilance against the approval of egregious large projects at a time when the city is undergoing a process to develop a Master Plan.

Ironically, this was the first petition in recent history the Planning Board firmly rejected. The score is now 49 to 1 and, in case you haven’t noticed, Cambridge is losing.