TAB coverage of last Thursday's Harvard/MEPA meeting

Compatriots from Cambridge blast Harvard’s Allston plan - Allston/Brighton TAB

“Every deal we ever made to cut some corner for these people, we got stabbed in the back,” Cambridge resident Michael Higgins said at the meeting Thursday, Aug. 23, urging the environmental affairs office not to issue the waiver. “Don’t make it easy for them.”

State Rep. Michael Moran also requested the waiver not be granted, because the master plan Harvard filed has not yet been approved. “I don’t feel, after looking at it, that it’s all that complete,” he said. “They gave you a master plan without an ounce of public comment. I don’t feel the application itself is appropriate or complete,” he said. “Out of necessity, out of sheer desire to find answers, this community has upped meetings to once a week,” he said. “I do not believe an extension of the ability to comment is asking for much.”

Representatives from state Sen. Steven Tolman’s office, the Charles River Watershed Association, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation and task force members all publicly requested an extension for the comment period.