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.

Housing for all; gun settlement

City Council, 5:30 p.m. Monday. The regular meeting pauses after an hour for a hearing on reorganizing and consolidating housing and homelessness services to one department from three. There’s also a closed-door session planned for councillors to discuss response to a lawsuit filed in December by developer Columbia St. LLC and lawyer Patrick Barrett with the right-leaning Pioneer Institute think tank that says Cambridge is engaging in unconstitutional behavior with its “inclusionary zoning.” It requires that in a residential project with 10 or more homes, 20 percent of the square footage must be for lower-income tenants. Meanwhile, the public will hear a staff report on housing and zoning priorities.

Within the regular meeting, it’s annual report time on credit ratings (the city has a Triple A rating again, like for every year since 1999, which means it pays lower interest when it borrows money to pay for projects) and on use of surveillance technology – arriving after months of concern about the installation of devices owned by the company Flock to track license plates. The city stopped working with Flock before the most recent, scariest scandals (including one that convinced Amazon’s Ring doorbell company to back out of a partnership with a federal agency), but there is still council support for other forms of license-plate tech for automated traffic enforcement. The city manager also asks for $400,000 to settle a lawsuit by retired police lieutenant Thomas Ahern based on the claim that his weapon fired because of a manufacturing flaw, and that the city retaliated against him in a dispute over the gun. In addition to suing the city, Ahern sued the gunmaker, Sig Sauer.

Discussion can return on Cambridge Street zoning, which was passed by the council Jan. 26 but is considered by members of the East Cambridge community and councillor Cathie Zusy to need honing by the Ordinance Committee. (A meeting is set for this week.) Councillors could also return to considering raising the cost of most resident parking permits to $75 from $25.

The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing. 

Police department budget

Finance Committee, 10 a.m. to noon Tuesday. This committee run by city councillors Ayah Al-Zubi and Patty Nolan discuss the police department budget for the next fiscal year before its submission to the city manager. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.

Affordable housing design

Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Members give advisory design notes to two projects going up using Affordable Housing Overlay zoning, which allows certain construction as of right if all homes within are deeded as affordable – which is why the design notes are advisory only: redevelopment of 153 affordable homes built in the early 1950s at Corcoran Park, 8-12 May St. and 3 Lawn St., Strawberry Hill, with 67 rental units getting fixed up in the first phase; and new housing at Broadway Park by the nonprofit developer Just A Start at 240 Broadway in the Port neighborhood. This parking lot is being developed in conjunction with another JAS rental project at 37 Brookline St. This was a 1907 home lived in by the outsider artist Peter Valentine until his death in 2022 and once known as Cosmic Moose & Grizzly Bear’s Ville. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Disability services and planning

Human Services & Veterans Committee, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city city councillors Ayah Al-Zubi and Marc McGovern examines support services and planning considerations for disabled residents. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.

Activating two major corridors

Ordinance Committee, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. This committee run by city councillors Marc McGovern and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler revisit rules around activating the streetscape of the major traffic corridors Cambridge Street and Massachusetts Avenue, a follow-up to recently adopted zoning. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.

Signs for a Wonder ‘food hall’

Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. A design review representing another step forward for Wonder – “a new kind of food hall” that lets customers make a single order of food from across various cuisines – at Boston Properties’ 319 Main St., formerly part of the Google building at 325 Main St. Wonder, founded in 2018 and owner of the delivery service GrubHub, describes it as a way to “mix and match your cravings.” Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.

Pura Vida for Harvard Square

Board of Zoning Appeal, 6 to 11 p.m. Thursday. The restaurant chain Pura Vida Miami seeks to open its first Massachusetts location at 95 Mount Auburn St., Harvard Square. It comes to the board for permission to open as a “formula business” with trademarked branding where zoning is supposed to favor nonchain businesses. Pura Vida Miami has all-day breakfast; salads, wraps and sandwiches; bowls; and coffee, tea and baked goods. The 4,151-square-foot space it expects to fill is a former Verizon store across from Winthrop Park. Verizon relocated within the square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.