Affordable Housing Comes to Land Use

Elm/Beacon Connector

The city has kicked off the planning process for the Elm/Beacon Connector Project, which will make safety improvements Elm Street between Russell Street and Somerville Avenue. This “quick build” project (using paint and flexposts rather than concrete) will allow the city to test out new road configurations for a few months and determine if they work for the long term. The plan so far looks fantastic, and will include bike lanes along Elm Street, a narrower street crossing at Beech Street, and even closing Mossland Street to through traffic. Learn more and provide feedback in their latest survey.

Simplified Affordable Housing Application

Somerville has streamlined the way people find and apply for affordable housing with a new single application and wait list. Learn more about this updated, easier-to-use process in a series of meetings starting on March 18. The new application will open in April.

Upcoming Events

There are quite a few meetings in the second half of this month, which you can find in our Google calendar — community meetings about small apartment buildings, the Zoning Board of Appeals talks about someone’s attic, and a Historic Commission meeting discussing the fate of 199 Elm Street (the one near Revival Cafe). The most important, however, is the March 20 Planning Board and Land Use Joint Meeting. The agenda includes two major items of interest:

• A proposal from Just-A-Start and the Somerville Community Land Trust to build affordable housing at 297 Medford Street. If you haven’t already written in to support it, this is your opportunity to speak up in person or online.

• Requests from the mayor to update rules for arts and creative enterprise and laboratory uses surrounding the Somernova/Central Somerville Ave project. City Council is not likely to approve these changes until the completion of a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) and Project Labor Agreement (PLA), but they’re up for discussion now. Notably for us, these changes include allowing housing, with a plan for about 140 new apartments. That isn’t just good for the people who’ll live there: it also reduces the total amount of parking required for the project! Please come to speak in favor of the housing component and other changes to be implemented following CBA and PLA negotiations.

Recommended Reading

Cambridge’s Bold Move to End Single-Family Zoning: Coverage of recent zoning reform from City Journal. Somerville has never had a single-family-only zone, but our current Neighborhood Residence zones are still inflexible and deserve a similar upgrade.

Single Small Rooms, Big Impact: Boston Indicators explores the past and future of single room occupancy (SRO) housing, a type of dorm-like apartment that has fallen out of favor. Could this low-cost option have a greater role to play in addressing our regional housing shortage?

Why Housing is a Pass/Fail Question for Climate: Longtime readers already know that climate policy and housing policy are deeply intertwined. The Volts climate podcast explores the issue in this episode from March 7.

Denver’s Single Stair Revolution: We’re excited to see these updated construction standards gaining ground in the US, given their longstanding success in Europe and Canada. We hope to see Beacon Hill take action on the issue this year, especially since it makes it easier to build new “family-size” apartments with three or more bedrooms.

One Third of America: Land use regulations ban or discourage apartments and rental housing in enormous swaths of the country. A new paper in the Journal of Urban Affairs examines the resulting “rental deserts” and their impact on housing affordability and accessibility, especially for people with more limited means.