Cambridge Council Hears Opposition to Harvey Street Curb Cut, Police Camera Plan

CAMBRIDGE — August 5, 2024 — Cambridge held its annual summer City Council session August 5, with eight of nine members ultimately attending and 24 residents signed up for public comment on a range of contested items. Jonathan Slate of 6 Wesley Avenue told the council that every resident of his dead-end street had signed a petition opposing a proposed curb cut sought by developers at 55 Harvey Street, who want to add a garage to a project that would convert four existing residential units into a single-family home of more than 4,000 square feet — a proposal the Zoning Board of Appeal had already signaled it would reject before the developer withdrew it. Emiliano Falcon-Morano, policy counsel for the ACLU of Massachusetts's Technology for Liberty program, urged the council not to approve a police department outdoor surveillance camera acquisition — items 149 and 150 on the agenda — until the department files a technology-specific use policy under Chapter 2.128 of the city's ordinances and answers questions about data sharing with federal agencies, privacy protections, camera counts, and installation locations. No formal votes were recorded in the available portion of the meeting transcript, which was cut short by a recording failure during the public comment period.