What the Heck Is Going On With Alewife’s Silver Maple Forest?
Chainsaws, septuagenarian arrests, and a hunger strike: What exactly is going on at Alewife’s Silver Maple Forest these days?
What is the Silver Maple Forest?
The forest is named for the silver maple trees that grow on the 15-acre property, which stretches across parts of Arlington, Belmont, and Cambridge.
Once a pre-industrial idyll, the land that is now the Alewife Reservation and Silver Maple Forest was all but ruined in the late nineteenth century when local factories – including a slaughterhouse – dumped their waste into the marshes. Aside from being gross, this was a public health hazard: locals believed the swamp was the source of a 1903 outbreak of malaria.
That year, Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, and Somerville embarked on a project to improve sanitation and drainage conditions in the area, leading to the creation of the Alewife Reservation, which abuts the Silver Maple Forest. The state took over the Alewife Reservation in 1908. The Silver Maple Forest, also called the Belmont Uplands, remained privately owned.
Why is everyone so angry?
Pennsylvania-based O’Neill Properties Group first announced plans to clear the forest and build a commercial development in 1998. In 2005, after adjusting the scope of the project, the Group introduced its $70 million plan to build The Residences at Acorn Park, a 298-unit condominium complex.
Environmental activists don’t want the forest to be cut down. Lesley University assistant professor of biology Amy Mertl wrote in The Cambridge Day about the consequences of destroying the forest:
[A] condo development would greatly reduce the integrity of the forest ecosystem in the Alewife Reservation, resulting in the loss of many species of birds, plants and insects.
Floodplain forests such as the Silver Maple Forest are vital to avoid massive flood damage during heavy rainstorms, as they act to absorb excess water and slow rising water levels.
The battle to save the Silver Maple Forest ensued, including court cases, hearings, community meetings, and two unsuccessful attempts to pass legislation requiring the state to put $6 million towards the purchase of the forest.
Public protests appear to have picked up in recent months: rallies were held in June and Wicked Local notes that the number of signatures on an online petition created last year has quadrupled over the past couple of weeks. The petition requests that local officials:
“Rigorously apply environmental regulations and actively pursue an option to purchase the forest from the developer to preserve it for the purposes of conservation, recreation, and flood protection.’’
But why is everyone so angry right now?
If you’re a real estate developer, now is a great time — and Cambridge/Belmont is a great area — to sell some condos. O’Neill wants to build now, and it can. The condo complex will include 60 affordable units in an area where less than 10 percent of homes are considered affordable for residents with lower incomes. That’s not being done out of the goodness of the developer’s heart — setting aside a certain percentage of units for people with lower incomes grants the development an exemption from local zoning restrictions under the state’s 40B law.
On October 16, community members filed for an injunction to halt construction. Developers responded to the injunction filing by beginning to clear the site of trees on October 18. This came as a surprise to local environmentalists, who expected construction to be delayed until the injunction was ruled upon.
Activists met the revving of chainsaws and cracking of trees with protests. Since then, 13 people ranging in age from 26 to 78 have been arrested for civil disobedience, including Amy Mertl, that Lesley University professor.
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A YouTube video of the protests (above) shows that dozens of protesters assembled outside the construction site to chant and hold signs protesting the excavators and chainsaws they watched tear apart the forest. Their rally cry — “We are all The Lorax’’– connected them to Dr. Seuss’s children’s character who “spoke for the trees.’’
Officials issued an emergency restraining order against the builders on October 20, stopping them from cutting down any more trees until a decision was made. The following day, a judge finally ruled on the injunction, denying it. The project is back on, and environmentalists seem ready to square off again.
Friends of Alewife Reservation plans to assemble at the entrance to the site “regularly’’ from 7-9 a.m. and 5-7 p.m. “until sanity can be restored.’’
Finally, there’s hunger striker Rozann Kraus:
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Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of units planned for the Residences at Acorn Park condominium complex. There are 298 planned, not 198.
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