By Karen Klinger

In a long-awaited hearing, the city's zoning board is set to review a plan for a 50-room hotel and attached 210-seat restaurant in Porter Square that has residents divided about its likely impact on the traffic-clogged neighborhood.

Meehn Su Gim, owner of the restaurant Kaya at 1924 Massachusetts Ave., wants to demolish the current one-story building on the site and replace it with a five-story hotel and restaurant with an outdoor cafe area. Gim plans to ask the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal (BZA) at a meeting February 28 to allow him to build more square footage than current zoning law allows and to approve variances letting him deviate from certain parking, height, setback and loading zoan requirements.

The 24,000-square-foot structure Gim envisions would be permitted "as of right" if it were a residential building, but is substantially larger than zoning regulations allow for commercial use. To gain support for the project, Gim and his architect, Michael McKee, have been meeting for the past year with abutting property owners and neighborhood groups.

An oddity of the property is that it is divided into two different zoning categories. The front section of the site, facing Massachusetts Avenue, is zoned for commercial or residential buildings, but the rear section--bounded on one side by Porter Road--is limited to residential construction. The hotel would be built on the front part of the site, with an underground parking garage extending into the rear portion, beneath a landscaped mini-park that Gim says would be open for public use.

In a letter to the BZA, Susan Hunziker, president of the Porter Square Neighbors Association (PSNA), said her group favors a commercial use for the site, reasoning that a hotel's impact on parking would be "substantially less" than any residential use. But she added that members were concerned about the impact of hotel-related traffic on Massachusetts Avenue, particularly since the entrance falls at a "choke point" in vehicle circulation in Porter Square.

Laurence Field, chair of the Ward 10 Democratic Committee, which includes Porter Square residents, said in another letter to the BZA that his members had two major concerns about the project, the first involving traffic and parking and the second, construction mitigation.

"We are not reassured by the owner's marketing plan which assumes that many of the hotel's clients will be using public transportation," or by Gim's plans to use valet parking, Field said. While the city has compiled its own traffic and parking plan for the site, Field's letter asked the BZA to insist that an independent study be done. In addition, he said nearby residents are concerned about the blasting required to build the underground garage and the possibility of flooding. "Before granting a variance, we urge the Board to require a geophysical study so that residents are protected," he said.

Janie Katz-Cristy, a Ward 10 Committee member and director of the Green Streets Initiative, a Cambridge-based organization that encourages "green" transportation, said she felt a traffic study commissioned by Gim greatly underestimated the number of cars the hotel would draw, posing a greater risk of accidents. If the hotel were to become an urban "showcase" attracting visitors using alternative means of travel such as the "T" and bicycles, "I would be more sympathetic," she said.

But as things stand, she said she supported committee member Howard Medved's suggestion that the group oppose the project as being "out of character with the neighborhood" and a "detriment to the public good."

In a separate letter to the BZA, Porter Road resident Carol Cohen said that while she agreed with much of what the PSNA had to say about the project, she would like to see a reduction in the hotel's maximum 55-foot height and the elimination of a proposed karaoke bar. "Looking around the Porter Square area, one can see many other single-story buildings that will become 55-footers within 10 years," she said, as property owners seek to maximize their profit potential. She warned that a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue north of the Porter Square "T" stop could turn into a "wind tunnel and shadowy canyon."

Cohen urged the zoning board to "use these upcoming variance petitions to make a statement about the importance of mixed commercial and residential use with parking and about improving the neighborhoods for residents as well as businesses."

The BZA hearing on the variance application of Kaya-Ka, Inc. for 1924 Massachusetts Ave. is scheduled for February 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Citywide Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Ave.