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They speak for the trees - and get arrested

For the second time this week, police arrested protesters against a housing complex for which woods where Arlington, Cambridge and Belmont meet is currently being cleared.

According to the Friends of Alewife Reservation, four people were arrested at Silver Maple Forest, where five were arrested Tuesday morning in a similar protest against a 298-unit development planned by a Pennsylvania company.

Cambridge School Committee member Patty Nolan attended today's protest but was not arrested:

In the hour we were there before going onto the land and provoking the arrests, the chainsaws were going, and we saw at least a dozen large trees crash down from being cut. I support property rights. But I am stunned that this flood plain can be cleared despite being part of a watershed without knowing what current (not decades old) science says about likely impact on the entire area. When the area has been flooded twice with "100 year floods" in the last decade alone, you know there is a problem.

The courage of those arrested - from a very young 23 year old to a senior citizen well over retirement age - was inspiring. Civil disobedience is one way to demonstrate concern about current policy and laws. There has not been a proper environmental review.

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Comments

It would be nice if these people could stand up for the pitiful state of our trees in public parks. But that would require being productive members of society and not attention whores.

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huh? How do you know they don't?

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There is some overlap here with Friends of the Fells.

Of course, their Loraxation can often be exclusionary of activities that they themselves don't enjoy.

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performed. Fuckin' tree huggers need hobbies.

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At least these people are raising the point of "hey, these are trees in an urban environment" as opposed to "THERE'S NOT ENOUGH PARKING WHAT IF SOMEONE PARKS ON THE STREET OH NO!!!!!1!1!" but at a time when we need every last bit of housing, especially near transit, a few trees on private property don't seem like the be all and end all of protesting.

But then again, it's Cambridge, and they've protested the cutting of sycamores on Memorial Drive (and won) and then of course protested the inner belt (and won). This is not straight NIMBYism, and the point of "maybe we shouldn't build in a low flood plain" is somewhat salient, but it's really time to start picking battles.

Maybe we should go protest some big ass-parking garage over in Southie?

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today's urban professionals need for overpriced housing will outlast any fucking tree, amirite?

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I believe affordable housing is what is proposed for this site.

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"affordable".

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That allows developers to force cities and towns to consider projects with "affordable" housing.

BTW, most of the project is in Belmont, not Cambridge. Cambridge is happy to overdevelop at its edges and subject neighboring communities with the traffic and flooding while collecting enormous property taxes.

The forest needs some knights who say "Ni!"

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While many of us would love to see this little wild area preferably preserved, the simple truth is that it's been challenged in courts, state agencies, and elsewhere and all challenges to date have not prevailed. Most of the area is in the Town of Belmont and the town has not come forward with a plan to buy (or take) the land for conservation. What Cambridge wants isn't even relevant since none of the proposed development will be in Cambridge.

Regardless of the preferences of some, including me, that this area be preferably preserved as a wild area, due process has taken place and it's probably time to accept the outcome and move on. Meanwhile, I heard that the land owner has already filed for a conservation restriction (for the parts of the land that will not be developed) several days ago. Some affordable housing will be built and some of the area will remain wild. This doesn't sound like such a bad outcome.

This, of course, won't stop several aspiring political candidates from using this "crisis" to build their political campaigns for next year's Cambridge City Council election. This tempest is as much about political organizing as it is about preservation.

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I rode by this area with a Friends of Alewife Reservation bike tour this morning (Saturday). As we stopped on Acorn Park Drive, we could hear the chainsaws going and the trees falling :-(

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Good for them and hooray! This is a beautiful and ecologically significant efficient patch of wetlands. Glad to see folks demonstrating how much it matters.

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Opposition to this project is everything to dislike about upper middle class environmentalism: of all things, fighting against dense, affordable housing with immediate access to fast public transit and in walking distance to amenities (supermarkets, restaurants, etc.). This is precisely the type of development that is needed for both adapting to a low carbon world, and that we've made a state-wide decision to promote in communities like Belmont that have utterly failed to create affordable housing opportunities. It reeks of NIMBY-ism and a prioritizing of resource preservation for the rich and wealthy communities in the state.

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Define "affordable".

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It's a long and lonely walk to Alewife station from this location (Acorn Park Drive at the Lake Street on-ramp to Route 2 eastbound), and it certainly isn't within walking distance of any supermarket.

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Great, an overpriced condo complex was just built there, now there will be another one. Because the Alewife area needs more traffic (yeah right these people won't have cars). California is starting to look less crowded. And the weather is better.

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The core concern over this tiny swath of forest isn't because it is some pristine wilderness. In fact it is landfill from Route 2 which raised the land above the water table and made it build-able. The big concern is that the construction will exacerbate existing flooding issues along Alewife Brook when the water storage features of the forest are eliminated. The building plan claims to include enough water storage capacity, but many in the adjacent towns don't agree. This fight is kind of similar to the medical pot argument; with the exception of some really hardcore types, the forest preservation argument is just a means to effect better flood control.

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