City Council Passes Several Zoning Measures

Debate was almost absent at last night's Cambridge City Council meeting, as the council passed several uncontroversial zoning amendments.

On one matter of unfinished business, the council voted 9-0 to enact an amendment to the city's zoning ordinance to encourage affordable housing projects in the School Street section of Area 4, a low-income neighborhood near East Cambridge.

Petition sponsor Lydia Vickers explained the aim of the amendment to the council before the vote.

"It seeks to protect existing housing...and we hope to lay the groundwork for the development of possible future affordable housing in what is now a parking lot," Vickers said.

Council candidate Vincent Lawrence Dixon also urged the council to pass the Vickers petition.

"The basic idea here is to have the wisdom to look far into the future" and prevent large-scale development in the area, Dixon said.

Last night the council also passed an amendment to the city's zoning ordinance filed by resident Nancy Lippincott which will increased the space between residences and Harvard's proposed Knafel Center for the Social Sciences in the Sumner Road area.

In other council business, council candidate James M. Williamson criticized the council in the public comment section of the meeting for not preserving The Tasty, a longtime independent restaurant in the center of Harvard Square which closed in November 1997. The new Read Block, which includes chain stores Abercrombie and Fitch and Pacific Sunwear, replaced the restaurant this year.

"The city has widened the sidewalk for Abercrombie and Fitch," Williamson said. "But the city couldn't come to bat for The Tasty."

Councillor Kathleen L. Born defended the Council's efforts, however.

"I, for one, am very sorry and miss The Tasty enormously," Born said.

Born said the decision to tear down The Tasty was largely a private-sector matter, not the council's decision.

"If the person who owns the restaurant doesn't wish to own the restaurant [anymore], there's not much you can do about it," she said.

Near the end of the meeting, Councillor Michael L. Sullivan said Harvard was doing "a disservice to the community" by publicizing its new community relations deal with Boston while saying its treatment of Cambridge was the same.

"I hope at some point...the President and Fellows look retroactively to what they have done here in Cambridge since 1636," Sullivan said.