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.
Alexandria land; Galeria delay
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. A land swap in the form of a zoning proposal arrives as a City Council referral from Aug. 3. Alexandria Real Estate Equities would get to add 250,000 square feet of gross floor area, as a new building or addition, in a new four-block Technology Square Transfer Receiving District between Broadway and Main Street and Portland Street and Galileo Galilei Way. What Alexandria gives: 161 First St., a three-story, 40,000-square-foot, brick structure built in the early 1900s for the Ashton Valve Co. but more recently the offices of life sciences company Solid Biosciences. (Solid left Kendall Square for Charlestown in 2022.) The industrial building would be turned into more than 30 affordable homes under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning.
The owners of the Crimson Galeria in Harvard Square seek a second extension on a proposal first heard in 2022 to add 40 homes in 30,334 square feet atop the existing building of restaurants across from Winthrop Park. As with the extension granted in June 2024, this is because of construction complications due to a “significant increase in interest rates” and the costs of a separate project in Brookline “that has taken much longer and been more expensive than was expected.” The project will start “once we are able to obtain construction financing at a reasonable rate,” but things look grim: In 2024, the owners asked for two more years. Now they’re asking for four.
The board also checks in on a developer plan to move the 1846 Harriet Jacobs house at 17 Story St. in Harvard Square to the corner of Story and Mount Auburn streets and restore it, putting up a building behind of up to 67 hotel rooms and roughly 50 residential units. The plan involves demolishing a neighborhood building at 129 Mount Auburn St. According to the proposal, the historic house will become the hotel lobby and include a small cafe. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Gold Star Mothers park plans
Community meeting, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. An update on a redesign with insight from a conceptual design open house held in June. The park is being redone extensively in part because environmental tests of soil where there had been a basketball court found contaminants, leading to tests of other spots that found a wider problem. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
CSO plan community office hours
Combined Sewer Overflow Control Plan public hearing, 1 to 3 p.m. Thursday. The cities of Cambridge and Somerville and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority ask for comment on a draft control plan for combined sewer overflows. These CSOs take place when waste overflows into public waterways – the Alewife Brook, Mystic River and Charles River – because sewer and water systems get overwhelmed in storms. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Meet Your Neighbor
Community gathering, 6 to 8 p.m., Friday. The Cambridge Peace Commission hosts invites neighbors from across Cambridge to meet and connect over food trucks, street games and activities at Inman Place, between 344 Broadway and 51 Inman St., Mid-Cambridge.
Property tax, inclusionary rates
City Council, 5:30 p.m. Sept. 28. The full agenda for this meeting isn’t posted, but two items are known, including a presentation by Community Development staff on whether to keep inclusionary zoning at rates that compel developers of big residential projects to turn over 20 percent of new square footage as affordable units. At a Wednesday meeting of council committees, staff signaled that there remains justification for that 20 percent rate despite market troubles (and despite two lawsuits challenging the law, which are set to be discussed in a closed-door council session the week before). The regular meeting pauses so staff can hold a hearing on property tax rate classification, which is what property owners – residential and commercial – can expect to pay this year per thousand dollars of value. Bills have risen recently after 18 years in which the city held rates down for most people. The council meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
