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.
Sewage overflow questions
Draft updated combined sewer overflow control plan office hours, 5 to 7 p.m. Monday. A project team takes questions about a draft control plan to end the release of waste in public waterways when sewer and water systems get overwhelmed by rainfall. The plan about combined sewer overflows has been submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection. There are five additional office hours planned, in-person and virtual, but this instance is online only.
Noodle Lab and Ippai Izakaya
License Commission, 10:30 to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. Noodle Lab is ready to bring its quick-serve bowls with noodle or rice bases to the MIT building at 238 Main St., Kendall Square, with seating for 46 in a 1,540-square-foot restaurant open until 9 p.m. daily. Audrey Yap opened the Lab in 2015 at the Boston Public Market and added a storefront in the North End for the soups, skewers, dumplings and bao now coming to Cambridge. Also on the agenda is shifting One Bite and Bar licensing over to the Ippai Izakaya at the same 1124 Cambridge St., Inman Square, address. The kitschy maker of sushi doughnuts opened just a year ago at a location that’s been turning over since the Brazilian buffet Midwest Grill foundered there during the Covid lockdowns; the izakaya – suggesting diners let the chef choose their meal – expects to have seating for 85 and an occupancy of 100 for daily hours from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Progress in Carl Barron Plaza
Public Art Commission, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Members get an update on Carl Barron Plaza in Central Square, which has been mired in a four-year overhaul as part of a $25 million River Street Reconstruction Project. There’s discussion too of a Community Preservation Act grant application to help refurbish Gift of the Wind, the aging art outside the T station in Porter Square. A $100,000 state earmark request is pending, but even the lowest estimate for repairs is $166,000 (and others go much higher). Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Affordable housing zoning ideas
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. A resident petition led by Doug Brown seeks several changes to the Affordable Housing Overlay zoning passed in October 2020 to make it easier for developers to put up buildings of 100 percent affordable housing. (An update in October 2023 allowed all-affordable buildings to go automatically to 12 stories along the city’s main corridors and to 15 stories in Central, Harvard and Porter squares.) These proposed changes to building size, shape, open space around buildings within a lot and parking and traffic upset vice mayor Burhan Azeem upon introduction in June because “I don’t believe a single affordable housing project that’s under consideration right now would meet the qualifications.” Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Preparing for work at Danehy
Danehy Park improvements plan, 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday. Face painting, treats and more (with a Thursday rain date) mark the readiness of plans for a phased series of reinvestments over the next 10 to 15 years to revive a 35-year-old park that’s showing wear and tear and needs rethinking for a changing climate. The plan can be reviewed here. Danehy Park, 99 Sherman St., in Neighborhood 9 just east of Fresh Pond.
Social Housing and the CHA
Cambridge Housing Authority, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. Staff accept an informational memorandum on social housing – mixed-income homes that are locally owned and permanently affordability – and what it might mean for the CHA; and talk about the redevelopment of Walkling Court in Medford, part of the agency’s growing business of lending its expertise regionally. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Funding Margaret Fuller project
Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. A motion is ready to go on buying the parking lot of the nonprofit Margaret Fuller House community center at 71 Cherry St. in The Port neighborhood to build a mixed-income housing project. In addition to the $3.5 million purchase, a second motion forgives a $293,419 line of credit leading to the work. The board also expects to go into a closed-door session to talk about leasing commercial kitchen space, a want in Cambridge at least back to 2011, when chef JJ Gonson tried to get the former Marino’s restaurant in North Cambridge licensed as one. Energy toward a commercial kitchen got largely diverted into discussion of permitting for businesses based in people’s kitchens at home, but the Cambridge Housing Authority has built four commercial kitchens since 2013 in its bigger developments. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
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