Hello Everyone,

First and foremost, thanks again for getting engaged in the fate of your neighbourhood. Apologies for not posting any updates over the last month, but other matters grabbed my attention.

BioMed Reality has submitted its petition to the planning board:

East Cambridge Community Enhancement Zoning Petition (APP 2025 #14)

CALL TO ACTION: REGISTER FOR TONIGHT'S PLANNING BOARD MEETING! YOU CAN WATCH FROM THE COMFORT OF HOME, IT'S ON ZOOM. 

CALL TO ACTION 1: REGISTER TO COMMENT AND LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.  

The meeting is tonight at 6:30p, and you can register to follow the proceedings here:

https://cambridgema.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2qBy4m6RRvCUUjB1Gl3zPg#/registration

To avoid a spot zoning, Biomed Realty, a Blackstone company, is submitting a petition for an upzoning. 

The East Cambridge Housing Overlay (ECHO) is an overlay embedded in our zoning code to protect the East Cambridge neighbourhood from Kendall Square and North Point infiltration. It was implemented in 2001 by the City Council.  ECHO provides added floor area ratio (FAR) and height for residential over business and commercial uses to encourage the development and replacement of what was once more residential and protect East Cambridge from the impact of industry. It was instrumental in helping guide the development of 125 Binney St and the adjacent parcel by Alexandria Real Estate during their special permitting in 2009. Alexandria Real Estate stuck to ECHO zoning, and the result was all we wanted. Alexandria Real Estate has a beautiful building, and the community has Toomey Park and the Foundry.  

For the first time since then, we have a proposal to redevelop a parcel right at the edge of the neighbourhood in the transition area set by ECHO. At the first opportunity, Biomed Realty, a private equity owned company, is asking us to dump the existing zoning, protecting the residential East Cambridge from the commercial development of Kendall Square. Biomed Realty wants to double its parcel's density and double its building's allowed height for no justifiable reason except that working within the constraints of zoning affects its revenues. Profits, money, and greed drive the Biomed Realty special permit request, not necessity or any hardship.

Cambridge practices contract zoning (or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_zoning A practice that exchanges public benefits for density when negotiating with significant commercial development. Commercial developers can purchase density from the City. The payment must be a public benefit. 

In this particular case, because the building is at the very edge of the East Cambridge neighbourhood, next to a beautiful playing field on which the City will spend $7.5M next year, where a new school is going to open in September 2026, according to the school interim superintendent, Biomed wants to build more labs. The gigantism of the building will impact our public infrastructure, from our fields to our streets, sewage, and water. It is now well-documented, i.e. Kendall Square, that buildings at these heights generate extra sound, light, and wind pollution, which affects children's learning and the livability of the East Cambridge neighbourhood. The East Cambridge Housing Overlay is a transition overlay engineered to transition from the industrial Kendall Square into the residential East Cambridge. No benefit can justify the destruction of a residential neighbourhood for the profit of private equity. 

Over the last 20 years, East Cambridge has borne the impact of Kendall Square's extra density and development, of which we are only starting to feel the consequences. At every turn, the neighbourhood reached a consensus and negotiated hard for the public benefits the City received. Our fight gave the City Councilors and Planning Board the necessary leverage to extract substantial benefits and extra tax revenue from developers. In return, we had ECHO protecting our neighbourhood from Kendall Square encroachment.

With their proposal, Biomed Reality wants to destroy the protection we voted into law, the East Cambridge Housing Overlay (ECHO). It wants to destroy the separation between Kendall Square and East Cambridge. Biomed Reality is testing whether our City will sacrifice the East Cambridge neighbourhood to lab development to the detriment of the neighbouring school children and all of the citizens of East Cambridge and Cambridge.

Tonight is the first presentation by Biomed Reality. The beginning of a possible 12-18 months process. In the end, the City Councillors decide whether this process moves forward and, if it moves forward, whether it will be approved. We are in an election year. It is when we hold Councilors who vote and will vote on this matter accountable.

We ask the Planning Board to recommend that the City Council reject the special permit request of Biomed Realty.

No to money. No to Biomed Realty. Yes to people. Yes to a residential East Cambridge.

-ilan

East Cambridge citizen