Belmont Restraining Order to Cease Work is Affirmed. Cutting has Stopped.

10-20-14 Cambridge and Belmont - Acorn Park Drive

From Ellen Mass, President
Friends of Alewife Reservation
617-415-1884
186 Alewife Brook Parkway #304
Cambridge, Ma. 02138
www.friendsofalewifereservation.org

Cracking branches like breaking bones were louder than the crashes and thuds of the 80 year old trees towering over rich habitat within the Upper Alewife Basin in Belmont, bordered by Cambridge and Arlington, with no equal floodplain woodlands in the region, performing ecological nourishment, carbon sequestration functions, and green protection for the grand biodiversity of this New England home to wildlife species of 20 mammal and over 90 bird species, 40 of which are nesting. With seeming careful calculation, an agonizing death knell sounded for the gorgeous yellow leaved deeply lobed maples as hundreds were indiscriminently cut or bulldozed and hit the ground, falling on the public land and marshes - abandoned to die in full leaf, covering the ground in a corpse like blanket. The buzz saws grinding all day Saturday was startling to followers of the Uplands case, because Judge Miller of Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn hasn't ruled on the Belmont Coalition filed injunction which sites egregious permitting irregularities concerning storm water drainage; nor has the court acted upon a restraining order to stave off the rabid assault on an innocent forest with its special inhabitants and safety net for 40 thousand people in the river front areas who depend on the Alewife floodplain as their sponge from future flooding. The calculation was formidable to the Belmont Coalition to Preserve Belmont Uplands who were following the proper legal process of the courts. A restraining Order is now in place and work must stop perhaps temporarily until the filed injunction is ruled on.

Today, Monday, four citizens decided to trespass on the property for purposes of conscience: Katherine Roberts, 30 year teacher and co-founder of Cambridge Day Care Center; Judith Johnson, Boston Architect Firm, Amy Mertl, Professor of Biology, and Danny Factor, Running for Green Party, Secretly of Mass. They were frisked, handcuffed and arraigned today in Cambridge District Courthouse in Medford.

O'Neill Properties with Rose View Group determined this is the time to bring out the chain saws as the community was going through the legal process, and in 2012, an ambiguous statement by ZBA single decision maker, Bill Chin, head of Belmont Zoning Board, provided a loop hole in the tree cutting permit, by giving Mr. Corridan rights to chop in a verbal comment, “you'll not need to worry about having the Building Permit”. Uplands developers have not as yet attained a building permit from the Town, yet they have irreparably damaged the 15 acre forest located in Belmont with 3 acres in Cambridge.

Deer ran from their homes in frantic search for safety, but towards grave danger of Route 2 kill. Snakes slithering and coyote running from the carnage and violence directed against them. With the crashing of trees the Company made no effort to bring the animals to safety. Many animals ran for their lives.When Brian O'Neill flew to Belmont on private jet to talk to the Conservation Commission in 2012, he then pronounced the death of the trees to the entire Commission, “Those trees are coming down,” he noted, just as the Lorax film was hitting the screens in movie theaters. Mr. O'Neill publicly offered money with scholarships shocking the Commissioners who denied him. They spent 6 years in appeals court against his residential project to remove the forest trees for housing. Opponents at the Commission and Coalition said to Judges at the state 4 day DEP Hearing that the O'Neill storm water system was inadequate for waterways protection and flooding around the property and studies were needed.

The town represented Commission managed with little town money and volunteer attorney, and engineer who spent hundreds of hours on the casetogether with a state US-EPA storm water Specialist whom developers tried to ‘out' in the court room as incompetent. Legal battles continued for 6 years in behalf of storm water protection, working separately but together with the Coalition to Preserve Belmont Uplands which was not winning either through Superior Court with the case based on wildlife habitat (DEP Guidelines) and court irregularities and Judge inconsistencies. The environmental side was litigated by one of the finest environmental attorneys known for his philanthropic work, having advised the US Supreme Court also with years as a corporate attorney. Three Belmont zoning changes later which changed from commercial, to luxury units, to 40 B, the Belmont Selectmen via the Zoning Board of Appeals, using local Firm, Anderson and Kreiger law, permitted O'Neill with rationale conceding a ‘no choice' decision with Belmont offering only 3 percent as affordable housing, far from the 10 quota needed.

IT was Cambridge however, which started the entire process giving the first permit to ONeill just before Christmas of 2008, in an empty administrative room with the Director who allowed Cambridge land to be used as replication area together with an unpermitted drainage pipe, later to be noted by another Commissioner. After that permitting in Belmont went full scale ahead and as a result the Conservation Commission and Belmont Coalition of which FAR was a party began the long 7 year fund-raising drive to litigate over a 5 year period.

The Comprehensive Permit allowed the courts great liberty to support development. No neighbors live near the area, so few stood for the trees and animals except environmental groups and Little Pond residents who have footed the legal bills. Only FAR, news articles, videos activities and FAR website and the Belmont Citizen Forum and many activities in the schools, summer camp and officials running for office.

Environmentalists attended the meetings with the Coalition and meetings were aired regularly on Cable with 3 programs from the Media Center and interviews from many residents of Belmont's Winn Brook neighborhood. Weekly articles by FAR were continuous with regular programs on Cambridge Community Cable that carried the story as did the Globe West on several occasions. WGBH shot a full program with interviews of environmental heads while walking through the Reservation.