Porter Square Neighbors Association

After running into zoning trouble with the parking entrance at the back of the property, Oaktree is revising the ramp design. They hope that the Planning Board will treat this as a minor change on Tuesday, thus avoiding yet another review and more public input. Whether or not you agree, a preview would be useful.

Here are a new site plan and two views showing the new plan. Gwen Noyes tells me that these are a work in progress, with more drawings to follow.

John Howard

Ruth Ryals reports:

At the Planning Board meeting March 15th, 6 board members (1 had recused herself from the beginning of this process) voted to approve the requested waivers, which simply put:

1. allow the church entrance to be on Mass Ave, and the residential (condo) entrance on Beech Street; and
2. allow the development to extend 25 feet into the part of the property zoned Residential B.

Here are my unofficial notes from the Planning Board meeting on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. There were several items of interest to Porter Square on the agenda including St James (deferred to next meeting), Lesley AIB, and Faces on Concord Turnpike.

Porter Square is facing a number of big construction projects, including:

• A 46 unit condominium on the combined car wash and St. James' Church site.
• Lesley's Art Institute of Boston just south of University Hall.
• A a 65-room hotel replacing the Kaya Restaurant.
• New elevator construction at the MBTA station.
• Yet another hotel on the site of the defunct gas station at Somerville Avenue and Beacon Street.

We'll keep you posted as these projects move along.

The U.S. Census Bureau is still looking for qualified applicants for part-time jobs.

Census Enumerators are being hired in Cambridge at $22 per hour. Census employment tests are currently given in various locations in Cambridge throughout the month of March. To schedule an appointment to take an employment test and submit an application, call 1-866-861-2010. More information on the 2010 Census jobs and an on-line version of the practice test are available at www.2010censusjobs.gov.

Through the Go Green Awards, the City of Cambridge recognizes businesses and organizations that take exceptional environmental actions in at least one of five areas—energy use, transportation, waste reduction, stormwater, and climate protection. Self nominations are accepted. The deadline for GoGreen Awards nominations is April 5, 2010. Click here to download a nomination form.

The ceremony will be held Tuesday, May 25 at 5:30 pm at the City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway.

The Parish Hall is completely vacated. It appears that asbestos removal will start this month, and serious construction will begin this winter or early spring.

Here is a collection of information about the proposal, including materials submitted to the Planning Board and the Historical Commission, and various comments and reports on the hearings.

On June 22 the Cambridge City Council voted 8-1 to create a Lesley Porter Overlay District. This new overlay district rezones Lesley University's Porter Square campus, including the former North Prospect Congregational Church site, to allow Lesley to bring the Arts Institute of Boston to Porter Square. It limits what Lesley could eventually build on the parking lots behind and across Massachusetts Avenue from University Hall, although Lesley has not proposed any specific plans for those sites. It also has provisions to require open space and to encourage ground floor retail.

Here is an image from Jessica Pratt arguing against the car wash condo project.

Here is my completely unofficial summary of last night's Planning Board meeting on the Lesley Porter Overlay District zoning proposal, and also about last week's Historical Commission decision on the North Prospect Church building.

After lengthy public testimony, last night the Planning Board voted unanimously for a positive recommendation on the zoning proposal, but with expressions of concerns over two specific areas: open space, and dimensional limits on future buildings west of Mass Ave. In fact, they used words like "enthusiastic" support and "excellent" petition. They seemed to feel that they did not need to address moving the church, since it is not a zoning issue per se, and the Historic Commission has already done so. Please note that the Planning Board's recommendation deals with the zoning, not the specific AIB project which will need to go through a special project review later (assuming the zoning change passes the City Council.)

Last week the Historical Commission decided to recommend that the church be granted landmark status. Basically they accepted their staff report, which treats the entire building, not just the original part, as historic. This means that any future modifications to the building would need to pass further reviews by the Historical Commission.

In both cases, the exact wording of the recommendations to be sent to the City Council is still being worked out.

The next event in this saga is the Ordinance Committee meeting at 4PM next Tuesday, April 14.

John Howard