Cambridge developer responds to City’s criticism

CAMBRIDGE, Md. – The city of Cambridge now sharing concerns they have with the Harbor Proposal made by Cambridge Waterfront Development, Incorporated.

CWDI is looking to update the Cambridge waterfront to create more community and economic benefits, however, the city expressed four general concerns.

They would like CWDI to find a master developer. The city feels the current proposal does not generate enough money to develop the harbor without using a public subsidy. The city also says the proposal lacks a meaningful tax benefit. The last concern the city has is what they call a lack of transparency and responsiveness from the developer.

We reached out to CWDI who says these are projects where every partner won’t be happy but they are working on the appropriate funding. “Funding is an aspect of what we’re still trying to nail down completely. This is a $300,000,000 total project, of which $50,000,000 is public funding for all the public spaces and the infrastructure and we’re working through the details of how we get there and at what time we need those types of funds,” said Executive Director Matt Leonard with CWDI.

CWDI says they regularly report about every two weeks to the city however it is not a requirement.

Following the organizations’ September meeting, CWDI had the understanding that both parties were on the same page and would like to move forward with the project — so this letter came to them as a surprise. “Surprised and disappointed. I was surprised because we had been working really hard to make sure that all of our stakeholder partners the state, the county, the city, the community, and the press are up to date to a certain extent with everything that we’re doing as much as we can can to provide without breaching any confidentiality,” said Leonard.

CWDI will be holding a meeting on November 13th which the city is invited to discuss and adjust the plan where necessary. The full letter from the city can be found on our website.