Action alert: Write in to support housing

This past Thursday, the Land Use Committee and Planning Board reviewed a city proposal to update the Central Somerville Ave/Somernova area zoning. The city, Rafi Properties, the Union Square Neighborhood Council, and many, many neighbors have been working for nearly two years to develop a balanced plan for the area, and Thursday night represented a new and significant step forward.

Take Action

Please write to [email protected] and [email protected] and let them know that you:

• Want as much housing as possible in the Central Somerville Avenue plan.

• Want an aggressive mobility plan to reduce both parking and traffic.

• Support the city’s updated zoning once a CBA is in place.

• Think the proposed step-backs and reduced height are sufficient to address shadow concerns.

Please include your full name and address in your comment, and send it before 7:00 p.m. on March 31. Thank you for your help!

Background

For the last several years, Rafi Properties has owned the “Somernova” campus, the four large blocks where Aeronaut Brewing, the Bouldering Project, and several clean energy and arts businesses operate. Rafi’s current and future clean energy tenants want to grow without moving out to the suburbs, and they’ll need bigger buildings to do it.

To balance that commercial growth and make up for the disruption caused by construction, the city wants to refine and expand requirements for arts and creative uses and permit some housing on the site. Meanwhile, Rafi is working with the Union Square Neighborhood Council to hammer out a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), and have already signed a Project Labor Agreement (PLA), which upgrades the labor rules and pay for the project.

What’s In It for Somerville?

Even without a CBA, an expanded Somernova would produce millions of dollars for housing, infrastructure, job training, and the arts, as well as underscore Somerville’s role as a global leader in the fight against climate change. The CBA will add things like a decade of funding for the Dojo youth center, additional arts funding, commitments to native pollinator plantings, and reserving space for current tenants like Aeronaut and the Bouldering Project. The PLA, in turn, includes things like strong wage and labor standards and local hiring initiatives for contractors and subcontractors.

Drawbacks to this plan (or any plan!) include shadows and traffic, but negotiations have addressed them with ground-floor setbacks and upper-floor step-backs and an aggressive transportation demand management program.

The city is not likely to move forward with updated zoning until the CBA is in place, and we think that’s a wise choice. Our focus remains on the housing component of the proposal. The current zoning prohibits housing, while the new rules will allow both residential and commercial uses. Housing is good in and of itself, and Somerville’s 20% affordability requirement will also be in effect, but putting homes directly on the Somernova campus adds an additional advantage: it can lower the number of people who drive to work, reducing the traffic impact of the project as a whole.