Cambridge City Council on Monday called on Harvard Law School to step up reproductive rights education and voted to raise fees paid by commercial property developers towards public funds for affordable housing. .
At Monday’s meeting, the board unanimously voted a resolution expressing support for the hundreds of HLS students who staged a day-long sit-in at a law school earlier this month. The resolution supports her three main demands of students. HLS is to hire a full-time reproductive justice professor, create a clinic for reproductive rights, and establish a reproductive justice curriculum.
Samantha J. Nagler, a law school junior, called the lack of reproductive rights education at HLS “unfair to students” during the public comment period of the conference.
“We hope that the City of Cambridge will support our call to hold Harvard accountable and push it to become a leader again,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Alanna M. Mallon, who co-sponsored the resolution, said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer added urgency to the need for legal education on abortion rights. rice field.
“We know it will take us all to combat the oppressive nature of some of the laws currently being introduced after Roe v. Wade is overturned,” Mallon said at the conference. said in
“Reproductive justice is an important area of law,” she added. “And Harvard should step up now to help these students.”
The resolution asks the city to send copies to law schools. HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment on the council’s resolution.
The move reflects the council’s increasing focus on abortion following the Supreme Court ruling. Last month, city council members announced their controversial intention to ban limited-service pregnancy centers that do not offer abortions, but the city’s legal department raised concerns about its constitutionality.
During Monday’s meeting, the council also amended the city’s zoning code to reduce the “link” fee commercial property developers pay to the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust from about $20 per square foot. We raised it to over $33 per square foot, an increase of 66 percent. Cambridge linkage rates are now more than double Boston’s about $15 per square foot.
The amendment exempts some projects from the link fee, such as small developments of the first 30,000 square feet and projects where existing spaces are demolished and rebuilt for the same use.
In an interview last month, James G. Stockard Jr., a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a trustee of the Affordable Housing Trust, praised the “aggressive” price increases that could slow development significantly. said to be of low quality. He added that a gradual slowdown in development “wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“Development will continue to occur in this community regardless of how the city regulates and imposes restrictions,” Stockard said.
“It makes sense to keep increasing this number, and perhaps at some point some of the larger developments will start to slow down,” he added. “If you don’t like it as a city, you can back off a bit.”
— Staff Writer Elias J. Sisgall can be reached at elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com. follow him on twitter @eschisgall.
Comments
Post a Comment