The fire code was being violated right then and there in the Public Safety Building. Mayor Curtatone said nothing about this to the crowd of two hundred.

Nor did he remind them that he considers this building so toxic that he has to move police headquarters into another building over a mile away.

With the cops gone, the site will then be available for redevelopment. It is carefully included just inside the City’s proposed new zoning district. The Mayor said he hoped to begin a process “to really build an exciting neighborhood… of course it’s already exciting….” Then he stood off to the side and let Jim Kostaras run the meeting.

The crowd was mostly young and overwhelmingly white. Ninety-five percent of the talking was done by men.

Art for development’s sake

Jim Kostaras is head of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development. He also teaches on the side—a course at Harvard about how “to implement controversial development projects.” The three key terms in the City’s strategic plan are artists, density, and mass transit.

“Zoning is a tool to get you something,” said Kostaras. And so are artists: the City wants “to use the community of artists as a catalyst for development.”

Consumers, new residents, and real estate developers should be attracted by the “wonderful community vibes.”

If the City’s plan works, it “culminates with the redevelopment of city-owned parcels,” some of which were seized by eminent domain. At Prospect and Somerville Ave, the Kiley Barrel site is contaminated with lead and arsenic. Further down Prospect, Boynton Yards is an official Urban Renewal area. Here is where the MBTA is expected to build the Union Square station on its planned Green Line extension. It’s this that makes the City’s zoning plan more than just talk. Everyone knows that the Green Line will make the real estate much more valuable.

Kostaras introduced Jay Wickersham, a leading Boston real estate attorney who is also on the Harvard faculty.

The heart of the matter

Wickersham explained City Hall’s three goals. Goals one and three concerned artists.

• The zoning law doesn’t now define artists’ studios as an allowed use. This should be fixed, citywide.

• For Union Square, there should be special zoning rules to allow garages and back-yard “infill” structures to be used as studios.

But the heart of the presentation had little to do with artists.

Wickersham made clear that City Hall thinks the zoning around Union Square is too restrictive, and there are too many different zones. This discourages developers who want to build big projects.

Instead zoning should encourage big projects. To accomplish this, the City is proposing a “PUD overlay district,” such as the one at Assembly Square.

Real estate developers favor Planned Use Development (PUD) districts because they bypass normal land use controls and require only one Special Permit from the City.

The Aldermen have the final vote on a PUD Special Permit, so in theory they get to negotiate the details. However, local pols are usually too greedy for action to bargain very hard with a PUD developer. Wickersham was too polite to mention this in his presentation.

By the time the Aldermen see the plans, the developer will have worked them out with the Mayor’s full-time staff of 26 planners.

Kostaras emphasized that the plan is aimed at “increasing the density… that’s what we think makes a vibrant neighborhood.”

The City is proposing that the PUD’s basic ground rules allow structures up to 12 floors high, with a Floor-Area-Ratio (FAR) of 4—meaning an average height of four floors.

Then the powerpoint show started. We saw the Union Square of fifty years ago notably higher and more built-up than it is today.

The presentation didn’t mention that fewer residents had cars back then. This began to change in the 1950s; stores were knocked down for parking lots. Then upper stories were lopped off many commercial buildings.

The planners will deal with traffic issues by mandating fewer parking spaces for new developments. The theory is that this will lead people to stop driving cars.

DREAM STREETSCAPE OF THE FUTURE— Prospect Street in Somerville, as envisioned in the City’s public presentation on November 20. Towering structures, spooky strollers, and a complete lack of street traffic. We invite our readers to submit suggested captions for this strange picture, either in writing or by commenting at our website, www.bridgenews.org — we’ll print any entry which meets our standard of decency in the next issue of The Bridge! [graphic: City of Somerville]

Significant glances were exchanged around the room as images of Harvard Square and Starbucks flashed on the screen as revitalization “success factors.”

A young man who had come in with about ten of his friends asked how many people had come to the meeting because they were concerned about affordable housing? A forest of hands shot up. He insisted that this wasn’t being addressed. for the first time, there was more than polite applause.

What about us?

But Kostaras just repeated that if fully built-out, the zoning plan would allow 894 new units of housing, of which 111 would be “affordable.”

At least half the audience seemed to be wearing badges distributed by the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee (AHOC), who had mobilized people to come to the meeting to back their position.

AHOC supports the City’s zoning proposal with only one change— that “15 percent of all housing units developed should be… affordable to low and moderate income people.”

Since the City already requires that 12.5 percent be affordable, AHOC is asking at most for 23 additional apartments.

The formula, “low and moderate,” is not clear. When the Urban Land Institute suggested that Union Square could use some new apartments with “moderate rents,” they said that meant $1500-2000 per month!

Wickersham told a questioner that the City could not legally say how many of the new housing units would be rentals. For some reason the Mayor jumped in here to say that this was up to the City’s planning office.

“They have a strategy,” he said. “They want to capitalize on artists, and capitalize… our cultural identity.”

When Bill Cavellini asked whether small scale development might be a better option, Kostaras said frankly why they weren’t interested in that. “We have to attract investment into the Square that’s going to be transformative… not that we want this to be another Harvard Square.”

Not in their wildest dreams?

At a neighborhood meeting on in May, Kostaras lamented the relatively low tax valuations and commercial rents which “varied wildly” on the western side of Union Square.

The real issue, as usual, is rents and taxes.

Commercial landlords want higher rents. City bureaucrats want more taxes.

Green-Rainbow: tax reform and rent control

Upzoning, and the coming of the Green Line, will also bring real estate speculation. Rising rents and taxes are already driving residents from their homes. What could the City do to protect them?

The only effective legal protection for renters is an ordinance to control rents and evictions. Otherwise, the tenants will be gone long before any new housing is ready for them.

The surest way to give homeowners some security is to get rid of the residential property tax and instead base the City’s revenue on an income tax. Otherwise, rising assessments will overwhelm low and middle income owners and they will sell out to speculators.

Mystic River Green-Rainbow Action is the first local political organization to make these suggestions. The Green-Rainbow Party’s candidates for Secretary of State and Treasurer received 25 and 28 percent of the Somerville vote last month. There is a municipal election in Somerville next year.

On Thursday, Dec. 7 at 6:00 p.m., there will be a public hearing of the Planning Board and Aldermen’s land use committee at Somerville City Hall to consider Union Square rezoning.

The testimony of citizens at this hearing will become part of the official record.