Copyright The Boston Globe
Re “Proof of concept” (Business, Oct. 14): Andrew Brinker’s article about the proposed 12-story, 73-unit affordable housing project at 2072 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge minimized the depth and detail of community concerns and left out critical issues. It appeared to echo the developers’ own promotion. Rather than doing more to engage both sides of the issue, the article cast the city councilors who advanced the zoning amendments as visionaries while failing to acknowledge their role in obscuring public accountability. In doing so, it downplayed the use of zoning tools and public funding to advance private interests. The article details how the developers withdrew their application for the project a few years ago in the face of opposition, only to resubmit a larger project under the city’s Affordable Housing Overlay. While Brinker portrays this as both smart business and politics, the fact is that the developers, by opting to proceed “as of right,” bypassed important mechanisms for community input. Advertisement The article also failed to address the effects of a 12-story tower on the abutting Cambridge Housing Authority building for senior and disabled residents, a concern raised throughout the process. Our members support affordable housing in Cambridge. But this project stands as a cautionary example of how not to build it: by sidestepping community concerns and disrupting the human scale that makes communities real neighborhoods. Merry White Cambridge Michael Kennedy Cambridge The writers are affiliated with the community group North Walden Neighbors. The proposed development is at the intersection of Walden Street and Massachusetts Avenue.
