Dog Park in the Sky

Dear Cambridge City Council,

We are neighbors in East Cambridge writing about the future use of Gold Star Mothers Park. We want to begin by acknowledging the work that the Department of Public Works, MassDEP, and the EPA have undertaken on the remediation plan. The contamination at this site — polychlorinated biphenyls at 68 times RCS-1, lead at 41 times RCS-1, benzo(a)pyrene at 175 times RCS-1 — is serious, and the agencies involved have treated it seriously. We are grateful for the rigor applied to this process.

We write to address a question that falls outside the remediation’s technical scope but squarely within the Council’s civic authority: what programming goes on top once the site is safe?

East Cambridge has one of the highest residential densities in the state and a significant deficit of dedicated off-leash open space. Dog owners in this neighborhood currently travel to Danehy Park or the Alewife reservation for reliable off-leash access. For older residents, for residents without cars, and for families with young children, those distances represent a real barrier. A parcel of this size, remediated and capped, represents a rare opportunity to correct that gap.

The structural proposal we are advancing is the same deck engineering that underwrites the Lid Park concept, programmed for a different use: off-leash areas, water stations, agility elements, shaded seating, and a small grassy run, with a modest indoor facility below the deck for bad-weather days. A deck built over a remediated site has to be built for something. A dog park is one honest answer — specificity of programming is not a distraction from the structural argument. It is the argument. Some neighbors will sign a coalition letter for a dog park who will not sign one for a generic civic lid, and that difference is worth respecting.

We are not asking the Council to commit to a design or a budget at this stage. We are asking for something more foundational: a formal determination that off-leash recreation will be considered in the preferred-use analysis for this site as the remediation plan advances through the MassDEP process.

That determination, entered into the planning record now, would allow the community to participate in the programming conversation before the engineering decisions that follow the consent order foreclose certain options. It would also signal to residents who have lived beside this fenced parcel for years that the 50-year question about their neighborhood is being taken as seriously as the contamination question.

Respectfully submitted,

Tim Miano, organizer, Santa Prosper LLC — on behalf of [X] neighbors in East Cambridge.