Cambridge Begins Formal Review Of Alewife Lab Moratorium Against A Second Developer's Wishes
Cambridge officials Monday initiated a review of a lab and office zoning moratorium in Alewife, moving forward the city’s most formal opposition yet to life sciences development and drawing the attention of a second major life sciences developer.
The Cambridge Planning Board and the Ordinance Committee will discuss the proposed policy order imposing a zoning moratorium through the end of 2023. Seven of Cambridge’s nine city councilors voted in favor of initiating the review, which officials introduced earlier this month in response to REIT Healthpeak Properties’ $625M area lab campus play. Both governing bodies are scheduled to meet Tuesday, although agendas as of this morning did not suggest the moratorium would be up for discussion.
Healthpeak and one of its executives have responded to councilors, pledging to work with officials and residents to follow a 170-page 2019 Envision Cambridge plan, which calls for residential, light industrial and lower-density office uses. The REIT and Senior Vice President and co-Head of Life Science Scott Bohn, who spoke during last week’s city council meeting, haven’t yet voiced direct opposition to the policy order.
Another Boston developer with a significant Alewife project made his firm’s feelings clear. The Davis Cos. Senior Vice President of Development Chris Chandor Monday came out against the review. His firm is building The Quad, a fully leased, 510K SF campus a few minutes’ walk from the MBTA Alewife Station for Red Line subway access.
“If this development moratorium were to go through, that would stop that Envision goal dead in its tracks for at least two years,” Chandor said. “We implore the city council to reconsider and not slow down our ability to deliver on a number of goals and a vision quite collaboratively with the city.”
Two city councilors and Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui wrote the policy order earlier this month calling Healthpeak’s plan incompatible with the Envision Cambridge plan or a prior 1979 Alewife planning vision. The Envision Cambridge plan imagines Alewife as a place for startups and small labs rather than market-leading giants that can afford sky-high rents in other neighborhoods like the Kendall Square life sciences epicenter 4 miles to the east.
Siddiqui and the policy order’s two sponsors, city councilors Patty Nolan and Marc McGovern, were among the yes votes for the policy order review. City Councilor Tim Toomey, who postponed the vote during last Monday’s City Council hearing, and longtime councilor Denise Simmons both voted present. Toomey is stepping down from his post next year and suggested the next city council with two new members discuss the zoning.
“I’m just not sure that this policy order is the correct way to achieve the zoning we’re looking for,” he said.
More residents in a public comment period backed the zoning moratorium, some restating their points from last Monday and others criticizing Cambridge’s development process.
Eric Grunebaum, who worked on the Envision Alewife plan, characterized Cambridge’s development as stuck in the 1980s with large blocks covering a parcel, little open space and no street activity, more akin to Houston than Boston.
“Labs are all-consuming, yes, they add to our tax base but they also create traffic and endless housing demand,” Grunebaum said. “It's not what our year of effort called for.”
Cambridge City Councilor Dennis Carlone slammed the neighborhood’s prior development plans, calling them “very weak” and emphasizing their lack of density, height and open space analyses.
“It never did what it was supposed to do,” Carlone said of the Alewife plans. “This was bound to happen eventually, that we’d hit a wall.”
