Big Meetings & Other Action Opportunities

We’ve got some great action opportunities for everyone this week, including joining us to share notes from the multiple simultaneous community meetings Monday night.

Be Somerville: Join a City Board

The City of Somerville is seeking new members for the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Urban Design Commission, and the Historic Commission. These are paid roles with real power. For example, the UDC and ZBA recently kept two Somerville residents from installing an elevator to help an elderly relative have a safe and accessible home, and the Historic Commission delayed a construction project by 18 months to preserve a building its own study concedes has no specific architectural style or significance. It’s critical to find new board members who will make more thoughtful decisions on these boards. Learn more and apply at SomervilleMA.gov/BeSomerville.

Take On a Somerville YIMBY Project

If you’re looking for other ways to contribute, we’ve got a list of projects in need of adoption. Join Somerville YIMBY by signing up signing up for our messageboard and take on a project of your choice. Ideas include gathering personal stories about housing and development, learning about and keeping tabs on specific projects, and illustration or videography. Or make your own suggestions!

Adopt a Drain

This one’s easy. Go to somerville.mysticdrains.org, pick a storm drain near your house, give it a fun name, and help keep it clear during storms. I’m calling mine Catherine the Grate.

Book Club Schedule

When are you free? Respond to the poll here, then meet up and chat about cities. This winter, the book is Sacred Civics: Building Seven Generation Cities. It’s available as an ebook at the Somerville Public Library, too.

Upcoming Events

Monday 12/16: In addition to regularly scheduled Davis Square Neighborhood Council and Union Square Neighborhood Council meetings, there are two key meetings relevant to housing policy in Somerville on Monday night, and we’re organizing representatives to go to each one. If you’d like to join us, please let us know: we’d love to share notes or have you join us in our Discord chat as we discuss them live.

• 6:00 pm: Central Somerville Ave/Somernova Draft Presentation: The city presents the latest on the Somernova rezoning proposal. This is one of the final meetings before the city makes key decisions. While we’d love to see housing included in the final version, we also don’t want the perfect to become the enemy of the good. Please come out to learn about where the project stands, and help encourage the city to move it forward in a positive fashion. This meeting will be followed by an early-January community benefits report from the Union Square Neighborhood Council.

•  6:30 pm: 675 Somerville Ave Community Meeting: Despite its proximity to Porter Square, this site is zoned for only three stories. A community meeting is one of our few opportunities to ask the city and the proponent to do think bigger and do better.

Wednesday 12/18: Zoning Board of Appeals: The project to redevelop 299 Broadway, the site of the long-vacant Star Market, returns to the agenda for an update.

Thursday 12/19: Planning Board: Agenda includes a special permit to allow housing in a 4-story building on Broadway, updates to bicycle parking rules, and making Urban Residence zones more flexible.

As always, you can find our calendar at somervilleyimby.org/calendar. If there’s an event you think is missing from that list, please alert us at [email protected].