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CRT 2017 #22 · Communication to the City Council · May 8 2017
a report from Councillor Dennis J. Carlone and Councillor Leland Cheung, Co-Chairs of the Ordinance Committee, for a public hearing held on April 19, 2017 to discuss a zoning petition by the City Council to amend the Zoning Ordinances of the City of Cambridge by creating a new Section 11.900 Maintenance and Security of Vacant or Abandoned Buildings. The proposed zoning would require that any building that is deemed to be vacant or abandoned for longer than 90 days shall be registered with the Inspectional Services Department, shall be secured and maintained so that it does not exhibit any evidence of vacancy, and shall pay an annual registration fee
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ATTACHMENTA
April 19, 2017
TO:
The Ordinance Committee of the Cambridge City Council
FROM:
The Cambridge Residents Alliance
RE:
Zoning Amendment on Vacant and Abandoned Buildings
The Cambridge Residents Alliance supports the proposed amendment to the
Zoning Ordinance to create a section that regulates Maintenance and Security of
Vacant or Abandoned Buildings.
Sadly, some Cambridge land owners seem to have enough resources to allow
their buildings to lie fallow for years. The owners include some smaller property
owners as well as large real estate investment companies. And at least some of
the buildings are in prominent locations, such as the shuttered Harvard Square
Theater and the former Cambridge College Education Building on Prospect Street
that was empty for a couple of years until just recently. Vacant buildings invite
everything from crime to rats to a deteriorated landscape.
Given the very high and increasing value of land in Cambridge, we welcome an
amendment gives commercial and residential neighbors a sense that a vacant
building will be monitored. We might even wish the City to go further and
develop a longer-term requirement that might escalate the registration fee as
time passes and/or develop a time frame for consideration of eminent domain
action if nothing is done with the property.
We look forward to your deliberations. Thank you for taking this up this very
modest proposal.
Nancy Ryan
For the Cambridge Residents Alliance