By Sara Feijo
sfeijo@wickedlocal.com
Posted Jul. 3, 2014 @ 5:15 am

ARLINGTON

Wearing masks, costumes and props, environmental activists and state officials gathered outside the MBTA’s Alewife Station in Cambridge on Saturday to protest a planned development that would, they say, wipe out the silver maple forest at the edge of Belmont, Cambridge and Arlington.

"The silver maple forest is a special place. It’s one of the few places in walking distance from the urban areas of Arlington, Belmont and Cambridge where you can in fact get into the woods, see wildlife, be close to wildlife, and remember what that’s all about," State Sen. Will Brownsberger, D-Belmont, said seconds before his eyes became teary. "It’s one of those places where you can surround yourself with green and feel that. And so losing it is going to be a big deal."

Nearly 100 people held signs and banners on June 28 as they paraded down Cambridge Park Place towards the private forest, which rests in the middle of the state-owned Alewife Brook Reservation. "Save the silver maple forest!" one sign read.

Another said, "Preserve our urban wild!"

The protest was the most recent effort in a series of attempts to prevent a looming 298-unit development planned by O’Neill Properties Group, the Pennsylvania-based real estate development company that owns the property.

The ongoing conflict over the silver maple forest started in 1998 when O’Neill Properties announced that it planned to clear the woods and build a commercial development.

However, the scope of the project changed after area residents raised objections. O’Neill Properties is in the process of acquiring the necessary permits to build an affordable housing complex in the 15-acre forest. With the zoning permit in hand, the developer is awaiting a building permit from Belmont to start the project, according to Andrés Rojas, chairman of the Belmont Board of Selectmen.

"We are not able in any legitimate method to force this developer to give up the property, buy the property," Rojas said. "The state has tried. Belmont has tried. We’re still trying. I will say this: We have not given up."

Brownsberger, who represents the Second Suffolk and Middlesex District, has submitted legislation twice to buy the land on behalf of the state, but Gov. Deval Patrick vetoed it, Brownsberger said.

For Cambridge City Councilor Nadeem Mazen, the controversy is a stamp of an upheaval society. He urged activists not to give up, and encouraged them to make their voices heard by organizing even larger protests.

"It’s a real shame when an issue like affordable housing comes up against an issue like environmentalism," Mazen said. "I think it’s a real hallmark of a society in crisis, because we have ostensibly chosen an outcome in which it is possible to say there is only this much of a resource, and it has to either go for this or this."

Mazen is one of three councilors who have sponsored the protest. The others are Dennis Carlone and Marc McGovern.

Environmental activists are opposed to the project because, they say, it would worsen climate change and flooding issues in the Mystic River watershed. "The buildings that are proposed on this development are designed to handle a 100-year storm as estimated in 1958," Anne-Marie Lambert, a board member of the Belmont Citizen Forum, said. "The data today tells us that the 100-year storm has over two more inches than it did back in 1958."

'Critical components'

Phil Sego, an advocate with Massachusetts Sierra Club, said the project would destroy the natural habitat of multiple species, including deer, coyotes and various birds.

"We’re not just losing a small bit of a larger forested area, or even a smaller forested area. We’re breaking up critical components of what’s supporting wildlife in this area," Sego said.

According to Quinton Zondervan, president of Green Cambridge, the forest is often used as a classroom, where students, especially Lesley University folks, visit the woodland to learn about ecology.

"This is really the last remaining opportunity to preserve a little bit of wilderness at the edge of our city," Zondervan said in an interview. "It’s used by our residents, by our students to teach them about ecology. It would really be a shame to see it be destroyed."

The Belmont Board of Selectmen will discuss the silver maple forest issue at its July 21 meeting. Contact Chronicle reporter Sara Feijo at sfeijo@wickedlocal.com or follow her on Twitter at @s_fjo.

^[1] Image accessed 2014-08-05 at
http://belmont.wickedlocal.com/storyimage/WL/20140703/NEWS/140709776/AR/0/AR-140709776.jpg&MaxW=650&MaxH=650