Residents Allege Kendall Square `Deal'

Angered residents of East Cambridge organized by Hard Times and the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee overflowed the City Council chambers last night to protest what they termed a "closed-door deal" between the Council and the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority (CRA) on Kendall Square redevelopment.

Seven councillors met with CRA officials over breakfast April 15 at the Sonesta Hotel and discussed plans for Kendall Square. Several councillors last night vehemently denied any collusion with the redevelopment agency.

"I will go to any and all meetings on the CRA so I know what's going on," Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci said. Councillors Henry F. Owens III and Saundra Graham echoed his sentiments.

"I'll even bug a few offices if I have to," Vellucci added.

A motion before the Council sponsored by the CRA would authorize the development of the "Golden Triangle" area of Kendall Square for retail and office buildings, a motor hotel, off-street parking facilities and apartment units.

An adjacent property known as the Quadrangle would be reserved for business and industrial purposes, providing the maximum number of jobs for Cambridge residents and blue-collar workers.

Anti-Working Class

But East Cambridge residents appeared dissatisfied with the measure. "The CRA has never really been in favor of jobs for working class people," Darleen Bonislawski of Hard Times told the Council. "They want to make a prosperous metropolitan city for students, professionals and the jet set."

On Graham's motion, the Council tabled the matter and scheduled a hearing on it by the Council's sub-committees on Land Use and Economic Development for May 8.

Sister Loretta Monahan, another spokesman for Hard Times, said after the meeting that the CRA plan represented a gradual "piecemeal" takeover of Kendall Square by business and white-collar interests. "If we didn't organize and get the people here, the City Council would have passed the resolution," she said. "We don't trust them."

She maintained that if the CRA proposal for the Golden Triangle were approved, the agency would return in the near future with similar plans for the Quadrangle, despite its statement to the contrary. Hard Times has suggested that the City use the land for working class housing and replace the property tax with a steeply graduated income tax.

Representatives of other organizations such as the East Cambridge Planning Team, the League of Women Voters, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Humans Against Loud Trucks also spoke against passage of the motion. Several decried the effects of highrise buildings and increased traffic that they said the CRA plan would bring to adjacent neighborhoods.