City Planners Consulting the Neighbors

Cambridge city officials are trying a new type of municipal planning that works with local residents to guide future development in each neighborhood.

Last week members of the Cambridge Community Development Department (CCDD) presented the first study based on this system--a report on East Cambridge development and demographic changes--to the city Planning Board.

The project assigns members of CCDD to different neighborhoods to work with residents and address their concerns.

"There haven't been neighborhood studies done like this since the '70s," said Aaron Gornstein, CCDD neighborhood planner for East Cambridge. He added that the main purpose of the study was to document the changes that have taken place in the neighborhood and to determine what residents see as the area's major problems.

Although neighborhood studies have been done before, this type of neighborhood planning, which relies heavily on resident participation, is new in Cambridge, said Phyllis Robinson, who is conducting the same kind of study in North Cambridge.

The agency appointed a study group of 11 East Cambridge residents last February and held many neighborhood meetings, sometimes drawing audiences of more than 100, Gornstein said.

"In general, we found a postive attitude about the quality of life and community spirit in East Cambridge."

The report is still in draft form. Its authors will make revisions suggested by the Planning Board, then present it to the City Council in December, Gornstein said.

According to the report, the five areas that most concern residents are the parking shortage, high housing costs, traffic congestion and development pressures. The main recommendations in the report address the future of development in the area.

"The goal [of the city] needs changing. It used to be development," one East Cambridge resident said at the Planning Board Meeting. "The new goal needs to be the quality of life and the maintenance of the quality of life."

The report recommends zoning changes that would encourage "mixed-use development," a combination of officers, housing and light industry.

Other suggestions include a oneway street system and a requirement that developers replace parking places they take away through construction. Gornstein said an underlying theme in development plans is the need to connect outlying areas to the existing neighborhood once they are developed, "so they're not developed as islands."

He added that residents also wanted to be notified of developments farther in advance. When city agencies approved a 14-story building on the corner of Msgr. O'Brien Highway and Sciarappa Street, residents said they had not known about the proposal beforehand.

"No information has been given out. Permits have been issued without the consent or knowledge of the neighborhood," said Nicholas Geraigery, the president of the East Cambridge Planning Committee.

In addition to studying potential courses of action for the future, the committee undertook studies to determine the types of demographic change that have taken place in the area since the late '60s.

One of the major changes is a tendency for single-person households--now 37 percent--to replace established families.

The committee also noticed an increase in the number of residents with some education beyond high school and in the number with jobs in the professions.

Although residents of more than 21 years still form 36 percent of the area's poppulation, the influx of newcomers has increased, and residents of five years or less now make up about one-third of the neighborhood, Gornstein said.