Dear Friends,
We need your help with a very important issue that will be brought before the Cambridge Planning Board this Tuesday, January 20 at 7:30 pm. We need to let the planning board and the city council know that the public demands time to consider a very bold proposal to change Binney Street. A proposal that has been brought to the brink of passage by the city council without even the city planning staff having had an opportunity to review it. Alexandria Realty Equities, Inc., the new owner of 15 acres of land along Binney Street, is asking the city for rezoning of the property that will allow them to build more than twice the density of industrial laboratories than the current zoning permits.

The developer, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. is abusing procedures that are built into the rezoning process to make sure that the public and city councilors have time to understand the issues that are before them. By filing a very vague document as their zoning amendment in September 2008, and having it read by the planning board and city council, they are now returning to the planning board with a substitute petition that is different in almost every detail from the original. This procedure allows Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. to skip an important phase of public review for their new proposal. The board and city council as who will be asked to cast a final vote on it - as if the petition has already been considered.

The East Cambridge Planning Team sub committee has been working with Alexandria since September to come up with a revised mutually acceptable petition that would allow for increased density but only in exchange for considerations that would create a vibrant, mixed-use district along Binney Street. The revised petition would include a substantial amount of housing offering possibilities for home ownership for Cambridge residents, open space, retail space for shops and restaurants, space for small businesses, and 50,000 square feet allocated for a community center.
This process has been productive, however, due to the refilling tactic used by Alexandria, no one in the community or any members of the city planning board, community development department, or city council have seen the final petition that will go before the planning board this Tuesday, and that may be up for a final council vote February 2nd or 9th.

Please join us and say no to the last-minute substitution of the Alexandria petition to the Planning Board Hearing this Tuesday, January 20 at 7:30 PM at the City Hall Annex, 234 Broadway, second floor. 234 Broadway is located at the corner of Broadway and Inman Streets. Let the planning board know that the Alexandria Rezoning Petition filed in September should be rejected and that their new petition should be subject to a thorough public review with a completely new cycle of review and public comment.

Thank you for your support!

Members of the East Cambridge Planning Team Alexandria Zoning Revision Subcommittee

Received this and thought it was an important piece of information... thx Steve

From : Steve Kaiser

Bill O'Reilly is not just a lawyer from Wilmer-Hale -- he is the primary author of the zoning changes that have just been released.

The neighborhood has very little time left. The City Council must consider the zoning during a regular Council meeting. There are two such meetings before the deadline for action : February 2 and February 9.

So the developer's language has now been released -- a week before the Planning Board hearing on January 20. All citizens and the Planning Board have a week to digest the new language, and how it relates to the Dixon report. While Alexandria has deep pockets to hire an expensive lawyer from Wilmer Hale, the citizens are reduced to having no zoning experts or lawyers. They are thoroughly outgunned, and have no alternate zoning language. They are completely behind the 8-ball. The clock is ticking, and the neighborhood ECaPS zoning of eight years ago is slipping away. The only reason this is not daylight robbery is that much of the action has taken place in the evening.

Clearly, what the new zoning language is designed to do is to be a substitute zoning petition. The original proposal which is on the table will be removed by vote of the Council and the new draft will be substituted in its entirety. The Council does not make a whole series of votes on each section that has been changed. That is what substitution means.

This is standard procedure for developers. All the changes are bundled into a new draft zoning document and are moved to the floor by an act of SUBSTITUTION. It will be done so quickly that you may not see it, and surely will not understand the significance of what is being done. Then, once having made the substitution, and accepting the new wording for discussion, suddenly the new document is on the fast track for approval. Dissenters might seek changes by proposing amendments and votes, but the majority will prevail to keep the deal as it was originally submitted. They might make a few small changes as a way of throwing a bone to the neighborhood.

The entire substitution process undermines the public process. It might seem as if the new language is simply being placed before the Council for discussion, but the substitution is effectively an approval of the new zoning. The final vote of approval is basically pro forma. Once the substitute zoning reaches the floor of the Council, that becomes what is most likely to be approved.

A very similar procedure was followed on City-wide zoning and Riverside zoning. Because of intense citizen involvement, ECaPS was not -- because the agreements had been arranged beforehand in a public process. Where the process is less formal, the substitution amendments are simply whisked onto the floor. ECaPS and any other plans, agreements or understandings simply vanish.

We will need to look closely to see what happens if Alexandria sells the land very soon after rezoning. If they do, many of the planning ideas, implied commitments, and mitigation will simply disappear.

I see nothing in the Alexandria package that identifies how much the upzoning is worth to the company. If it is in the range of $100 million to $400 million, then the proposals to date do not come close to meeting a balance of mitigation and increased value. Alexandria has indicated payments for park and other mitigation, but the totals are much less than $100 million.

Finally, there is the problem of the Constitution and whether this zoning from an individual developer represents a special advantage in profit-making. Article 7 of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights states that "Government is instituted for the Common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family or Class of men." Thus the Planning Board and the City Council cannot be in the position of conferring profit to any small group of men who are not the People, and to do so would be a violation of the law. It is the Cambridge equivalent of a bailout -- using taxpayer's monies or rights and passing them on to a single profit-making entity. Alexandria should never have filed this zoning petition, they should never have been allowed to do so, and the City of Cambridge has failed in its responsibilities to protect and represent the public in this matter.

SK