Word: cra
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...CRA's plans to refurbish Donnelly centered around 142 moderate income, non-profit apartment units which were to be built by the AFL-CIO. The projected rents of these units were well within the budget of the people then living in the area. Plans also called for 21,000 feet of new water mains, 16,000 feet of new sewer lines, 3,000,000 square feet of pavement and sidewalks, and two new playgrounds. At its completion, the project was to displace 337 families (15% of the Donnelly population...
...according to the CRA plans, those living in the even acres to be bulldozed could find immediate revocation in one of the new units, since the first of the three story buildings of the project were scheduled to be put up on an empty lot. Donnelly has no large Negro population. Thus the project was free of the sometimes ticklish problem of relocating Negro families in government housing. Moreover, a new $2,500,000 school already built in Donnelly Field made up the City's one third of the renewal costs; under the 1954 housing act, the FHHA share...
...City Council rejected the CRA's technically well-conceived plans for redevelopment and with them...
Today, nearly a year after the decision, the groups that were for and against renewal still accuse each other of scheming villainry. The CRA and its four councillors are convinced that "crackpots, rabblerousers, and short-righted politicians" defeated renewal in Cambridge. On the other hand, the residents of Donnelly Field and their five councillors think that "intellectuals" and "capitalistic cityers" were using redevelopment to exploit them again. The fact is that there were no villains--only some mis-handling and misunderstanding...
Members of the CRA were not diabolical capitalists, but they did see renewal primarily as a business proportion: an opportunity to improve the city's tax base and to attract industry. Of course, tax base is a legitimate concern of any community and is a part of any renewal program. Moreover industry moving out of Cambridge to Route 128 is understandably painful to the city's businessmen. Renewal would help to stop the exodus...