Belmont, Mass. —

Belmont permits have been delayed on land clearing of the Belmont Uplands silver maple forest.

The city of Cambridge has written an order asking the city manager to "communicate to the Department of Public Works the City's desire to have City departments reasonably consider denying any permits that the developer may request or require from the City until all legal proceedings surrounding the Silver Maple Forest and its floodplain functions put forth by the Belmont Conservation Commission and their interveners are legally resolved."

The Greater Sierra Club of Boston has also written to the town asking that the silver maple forest be preserved. And the Belmont Land Trust has requested that the court process be allowed to continue and any discrepancies in previous 2009 Adjudicatory Hearings of DEP be addressed. The Mystic River Watershed Association has also written an article against the development.

The town of Belmont may be indirectly suing itself with the Commission going to court against the original town ZBA decision and now against the DEP decision; however, Belmont Community Development Department is considering a permit which would allow immediate clearing. The same contradiction is true in Cambridge. The DPW says it will not give a permit any time soon. And the Cambridge Conservation Commission has given a permit while Belmont was in DEP litigation against the development. All of this is coming down to the wire around Election Day when legislators cannot respond.

Who could be promoting this brilliant strategy? Why can't the town of Belmont and the city of Cambridge sit down and talk about the permitting fiasco that is transpiring before our intelligent eyes? — Ellen Mass, president, Friends of Alewife Reservation