Earlier this month, developer Raj Dhanda submitted plans for a three-story addition to his Galeria building at 57 John F. Kennedy Street in Harvard Square. The plans would include about 40 micro-apartments, those futuristic pods that everyone loves and few understand. Well, this being Cambridge, Dhanda's plans, themselves a revision of earlier ones, met with opposition from locals, with one calling them "totally disrespectful" in their scope and architecture.
Others are more concerned about a certain facet of the would-be residential addition: the lack of parking spaces. It's not so much that crunchy Cambridge is opposed to car-less-ness (or to 450-square-foot apartments); it's that the new tenants may, in fact, have cars and will thus join the Thunderdome that is finding a parking space in Harvard Square. Because of these parking concerns as well as the opposition to the height, Dhanda has been sent back to the drawing board, with an expected April 4 re-submission.
Meanwhile, such construction proposals are fueling a push for a master plan for Cambridge. Cantabrigians are talking in terms of stemming a "tsunami of development," particularly in the Fresh Pond/Alewife area, through meatier project reviews and stronger zoning enforcement. And you thought the Sullivan Courthouse brouhaha was an isolated drama.
· Proposed Three-Story Addition to 57 JFK Met With Concern [Crimson]
· Alarm Over a 'Tsunami of Development' Brings Call for Ban, Citywide Master Plan [Day]
· Boston Micro-Apartments: Higher Rents, Less Space, Lovin' It [Curbed Boston]
· Hub Micro-Apartments: Follow the Money and the Rest Is Noise [Curbed Boston]
· Sullivan Courthouse Developer on Chopping the Height [Curbed Boston]