knizerJun 21, 2024

#FreshPond has a public 9 hole golf course run by the City of #CambridgeMA

The course is almost 100 years old, and Boston area land usage has changed significantly since then. Some people believe that having a golf course this close to Boston is a critical recreation facility. Some people believe that the ecological impact of golf courses is too high, and that they are a byproduct of a different era.

As we think about changes we need to make to mitigate #Climate change and serve the changing needs of residents, I wonder:

What should the City of Cambridge do with the golf course over the next 25 years? #Boston #MAPoli

Keep the historic golf course as is
2.2%
Reduce course size, re-allocate for other uses
11.1%
Convert to public park/keep as public green space
51.1%
High Density Affordable Housing
35.6%
Poll ended at .
Show threadAri OfsevitJun 21, 2024
@knizer golf courses are terrible lane use and not great green space. I voted green space because this land adjacent to fresh pond is sort of a swamp and not super transit accessible, but I’d support a bit of high density housing with a better connection to alewife and a lot of non-golf green space.
Show threadknizer

@Ofsevit True, but the 75 bus goes straight to Harvard regularly, and its a 12 minute bike ride to either Alewife or Harvard (though going through the rotary from Concord Ave to Alewife Brook Pkwy is a deathtrap).

I'm not a fan of new building construction that close to water anyhow, swampiness is right and probably for the best to convert to park and preserve the green as long as we can. ✌️

Jun 21, 2024 at 10:14pmWeb
Show threadAri OfsevitJun 24, 2024

@knizer The portion adjacent to Concord Ave is basically two ponds with a fairway in between, not conducive to easily-permit-able development.

Maybe room for a bit of high-density on Huron (say, near the existing towers there, but cHaRaCtEr oF MaH nEiGhB0rH0oD!) on higher ground?

Show threadknizerJun 24, 2024

@Ofsevit Oh, I don't think there's any way the houses abutting the golf course, say along Grove St or Blanchard Rd, would do anything but fight to block any changes to the golf course. Someday with a majority of eco-socialists in the upper part of town government, zoning and permitting laws will bend, with time.

I'd say a long term strategy could be for the city to buy those properties near the golf course, when the come on the market, with the stated intent of an overall redevelopment plan for the fresh pond golf course.

The tricky thing is the town line and where it falls. Thinking a little outside the box, what if the Belmont Grove Street Playground area could be repurposed as a less swampy, further from the water lot, and do high-density there. And then watertown does a swap so there's a couple ballfields and tennis courts on the other side of Grove, on the current southwestern part of the golf course.

This is all a pipe dream, because belmont/cambridge NIMBYs, but I'm in 'crazy idea mode' so let us dream of complicated pipes.