Notes from CNA Meetings
Dec. Feedback Session
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
6:30 set up and mingle
7:00-9:00 meeting
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
Students from Boston Architectural College will share their site analysis, zoning, research, and design diagramming for several crucial sites in the neighborhood of Cambridgeport. The goal for the meeting is to get feedback, suggestions, opinions, stories, guidance, and all other input from the community, because we are hoping to use their work as a basis of a neighborhood "comprehensive plan" that is a graphically rich document of the community's desires and needs in the face of inevitable and accelerating development. Students have been focusing on the Central library/parking garage parcel, the MIT parcels, and the KIMCO parcels in great detail and investigating probable outcomes. They have taken much observation, analysis, and conversation with the community into account, and they are also compiling responses to the CNA board's previous polls and studies to inform their work. Please join for a lively meeting of conversation and discussion (not a presentation) with the students that are helping to represent, visualize, and analyze the exciting possibilities that we want in our neighborhood! We, the community, are their clients so this is our time to review their work and make sure they are on the right track!
Inner Belt Presentation
Thursday, November 14, 2019
6:00 - 7:00 MIT Boathouse drop-in
6:30 - 9:00 Inner Belt
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
6:00-7:00: MIT representatives will be available to share plans to renovate the MIT Pierce Boathouse (409 Memorial Dr) and temporarily occupy a portion of Magazine Beach. Attendees will have an opportunity to review drawings and ask questions of MIT, the designers, and the contractor.
6:30-7:00 Informal showing of a 1967 map of the highway plan and the homes that would have been taken. At the end of the meeting the plan will also be available for further discussion.
7:00 Join us to learn about the history of the Inner Belt:
Bob Simha, for forty years Planning Director at MIT, will describe the history of how MIT became the developer of the Johnson Apartment building as part of its housing
plan for Cambridge during the period 1969 to 1975. Steve Kaiser, a resident of Hamilton Street for 54 years, will discuss his ongoing history of the Inner Belt in Cambridge, with a presentation on the planning for Brookline Street, the role of Tip O'Neill in helping to stop the Inner Belt, and a focus on one Cambridgeport resident – Henrietta Jackson – active in both Save Our Cities and in efforts by City officials to oppose the Inner Belt. Q&A will follow.
Sept. Community Meeting
Thursday, September 19, 2019
6:30 refreshments
7:00-9:00 meeting
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
1. Updates from the State House
Speaker: State Senator Joseph Boncore
2. Soliciting feedback on Alberico Park
Speaker: Gary Chan, Neighborhood planner, CDD
3. Grand Junction, River St., I-90
Speaker: Gary Deignan, CDD
4. Cambridge Public Library STEAM lab
Speaker: Muna Kangen, of CPL
5. Misc. updates: St. Augustine's, Memorial Dr., Eversource
6. Conversation with our neighborhood sergeants
Speakers: Cambridge Police Department
June Community Meeting
Thursday, June 6, 2019
6:30 refreshments
7:00-9:00 meeting
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
April Community Meeting
Thursday, April 25, 2019
6:30 refreshments
7:00-9:00 meeting
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
March Community Meeting
Thursday, March 14, 2019
6:00-7:00 Eversource open house
7:00-9:00 meeting
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
6:30-7:00 set-up and refreshments
- Representatives from Central Square's proposed adult-use marijuana retailers will be available to share information, answer questions, and hear concerns
Come meet Western Front LLC (567 Mass Ave), and Revolutionary Clinics (541 Mass Ave).
7:00-9:00 meeting
- Updates from the state house (Sen. Joseph Boncore, Chairperson, Joint Committee on Transportation)
- Updates on the BU rotary (Rep. Jay Livingstone)
- Presentation: Regional vision for improved and more livable streetscapes, and recent developments in the city for improved walking and cycling safety (Cambridgeport residents Bob Sloane of Walk Boston, Steve Miller of Liveable Streets, and Randy Stern of Cambridge Bicycle Safety)
- Discussion: strategies and plans for making Cambridge streets more user friendly for all residents
1. Central Square Library: How can it be a more welcoming place?
Speakers: Jason Yee, Manager of Branch Services
Joy Kim, Deputy Director of the CPL
2. Discussion of Central Sq. Business Improvement District: What does the BID mean for us?
Speakers: Michael Monestime, Ex. Dir., Central Sq. Business Association
3. Cambridgeport Committees: Let’s plan for our future!
(See preliminary descriptions here.)
1. Eversource Open House to learn about changes to Putnam Ave site.
2. Envision Cambridge zoning proposals
Speaker: Jeff Roberts, Director of Zoning and Development, CDD
January Annual Meeting
Thursday, 1/17/19
7-9 pm (Set-up and mingle from 6:30-7:00)
LBJ Apartments Common Room 150 Erie Street
Pre-meeting workshops: Mass Ave development and BU rotary redesign.
1. Board member elections
2. Mass Ave development
Speaker: Kevin Crane, Attorney
3. BU rotary redesign
Speaker: Jeff Parenti, DCR
4. I-90 Update
Speaker: Henrietta Davis
5. Envision Cambridge proposed action steps
Speaker: Melissa Peters, CDD