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'Imagine having a building the size of Holyoke Center in your back yard'
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Check Your Zoning Maps
Why these people are at all surprised that Harvard or any other institution or corporation would actually buy up land and build it out according to the zoning is beyond me. That's called playing by the rules. It is more than plenty easy to get to Cambridge City Hall and check zoning on various parcels in your neighborhood. You can even get the maps to take home and scribble on.
But getting people together in your neighborhood to systematically assess the area zoing and request rezoning of various places isn't on the radar for some "community" groups like the North Cambridge Stagation Committee. Much easier to wait for somebody to actually dare think that they could ever buy a piece of land nearby and *gasp* build it out according to the zoning!
Why, you just can't throw massive righteous fits, run for city council, tell lies and call names and demand various absurd concessions as blackmail if you do things that way!
this is a proposed zoning *change*
according to the Crimson article. Not a build-out of an existing zone.
Zoning variance
Zoning change means changing to a different use IMHO. This is a zoning variance for height and setback. If that variance is denied, the developer could still build a laboratory there - just a smaller one. The people in the article didn't seem to realize they were near a commercial zone before that.
Lesson: check the zoning of parcels in your area. If there are issues with conflicting uses and potential future development that isn't desired, work to get that zoning changed. See if there are adequate buffers between housing and commercial/industrial uses and transitions to residential neighborhoods and get the zoning changed if it isn't sensible. (yes, I have checked on this for my home, too - even further out, you might be surprised that that woodland at the end of the street is zoned for heavy industrial)
re-read it please
The article talks about two different things -- a recent zoning variance that already happened somewhere else nearby, and a zoning *change* that has been proposed. The City Council has to vote on zoning changes, not zoning variances.
This part
According to the article, Swirly is right and you are wrong. Commercial buildings are allowed, just not so tall and not so close.
How does that make me wrong?
And that's why the developer wants to change the zoning -- to allow a taller building. The City Council must approve any change in zoning.
Oops. You're right.
Typically, the difference between a change and a variance is that a variance is to keep the same sort of use, but relax some guidelines (e.g. height and setback).
This is a different procedure from a zoning change.
Learn more here.
At first reading, a variance appears to be what they're proposing, because it talks about setback and height. However, the Board of Zoning Appeal approves a variance, not the City Council. The City Council approves changes, not variances. It's before the City Council because it's being filed as a change (amendment) rather than a variance. Instead of seeking a variance on the parcel, they're trying to change its zone to a differant usage.
So you're right. Never mind.
Harvard Defense Drones
Harvard Defense Drones Attack Wing, return to Death Star for further instructions.
Harvard?
The building that is proposed for the site is the same size as Holyoke Center.
The Crimson covered the meeting.
However, Harvard is not(yet?) involved in this particular development. Asking the City of Cambridge to essentially eliminate the buffer zone between the high rises and the neighborhoods is the brainchild of Beal Companies, LLP, a Boston-based real estate firm.
Goodbye Kendall Square Cinema?
Cambridge Chronicle says the proposal is to "construct a building and extended parking garage at the northeast corner of Binney Street and Cardinal Medeiros Way."
That's the current location of Landmark's Kendall Square Cinema. This is an important cultural institution that I'd hate to lose. A lot of what they show plays nowhere else.
Ouch!!
Loss of the Landmark's Kendall Square Cinema would be a huge blow, imo. I admittedly don't go there all that often, but I don't believe in depriving people who enjoy that theatre of the right to have something they enjoy.
If the planned construction
If the planned construction were a small building, it could fit on that corner and merely obscure the cinema (even more) from the street. There could be access to the street, just like there is across the street, on the One Kendall Square block.
Google StreetView
If, on the other hand, the plan would involve the cinema ceasing operations at that location, then why does the Cambridge Chronicle article not mention the cinema at all?
I think the Chronicle should follow up with info on what's currently on the site, and what is known and not known about how those would be affected. With emphasis on the cinema.
Kendall Square Cinema is the cultural gem of Kendall Square, and one of the few things to do there. Shame if it disappeared.
Kendall Square Cinema won't be demolished
After I asked this question, the Cambridge Chronicle edited their article, adding this sentence:
"The proposed project would maintain the Kendall Square Cinema and extend the existing parking garage, said Robert Doherty of the Beal Companies."
According to resident Isabel
I assume that MIT faculty have high school educations.
jobs...
High-paying, well-educated science jobs. Who needs em?
There are enough of 'em as it is.
n/t