Somerville Planning Department

[czsz]

Yes, Union Square needs more development.

But that doesn't mean that all of Davis' one story buildings next to its high capacity subway stop make any sense.

 

[jass]

Mayor Bloomberg? Harvard Square did this decades ago.

Sort of. I mean, that's like saying city hall plaza did it decades ago....

The new harvard square (rebuilt in the past 2 years) is much improved.

What Boston needs is for menino to get on board. There's a huge amount of wasted space around the city caused by badly angled streets.

Heres one example.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...d=YAjHAt1CMccyXxHuLJBHZA&cbp=12,267.98,,0,4.9


As for the davis square debate.....if you think that isnt dense enough, don't visit the ashmont leg of the red line...specifically shawmut

 

[czsz]

I mean, I wouldn't single out Davis. Metro Boston has zero strategy for optimizing density at transit nodes. It's a joke.

 

[Shepard]

Actually, from the looks of this rendering it's going to take away sidewalk and parking in order to restore the direct connection of Washington Street through the square (which has been disconnected and disjointed for years). Encouraging...

No, that's backwards. It takes away parking but adds over 20.000sf of sidewalk in the process. (The article I linked to gives a before and after)

That's probably a good thing, but like others have said I'm not sure what it's going to do in terms of development.

 

[TheRifleman]

Harvard Square looks awful these days. A bank on every corner. Davis Square still looks great. Union has a ton of potential. Inman square looks good.

 

[bdurden]

No, that's backwards. It takes away parking but adds over 20.000sf of sidewalk in the process. (The article I linked to gives a before and after)

That's probably a good thing, but like others have said I'm not sure what it's going to do in terms of development.

That's what I meant, sort of -- thanks!

 

[palindrome]

I mean, I wouldn't single out Davis. Metro Boston has zero strategy for optimizing density at transit nodes. It's a joke.

Cleveland Circle. 3 green line stops (and 2 bus lines which connect to heavy rail - 1 to Harvard Square and 1 to Forest Hills) within a 5 min walk and we still have it surrounded by 1 story buildings and parking lots.

 

[Shepard]

Harvard Square looks awful these days. A bank on every corner. Davis Square still looks great. Union has a ton of potential. Inman square looks good.

I agree. Harvard has suffered at the hands of its own cachet. What bank or chain wouldn't want to open there? And what local independent can afford to without selling overpriced food and drink (Tory Row replacing Greenhouse Cafe) or $20 salad bars (the relatively-new "supermarket" at Church and Brattle)? Maybe I'm exaggerating but there's certainly a trend pointing in one direction.

Davis doesn't seem to suffer from its own cachet. The independents thrive, for the most part. Access via heavy rail is so assured that Somerville has even taken the bold step of raising meter prices and extending them to 8pm on 1 hour parking.

Union and Inman will change, but how significantly? I also see Inman in the same position as Union now, given that the stop will be between the Prospect and Webster bridges, a 4 minute walk from Inman. I dream of Prospect Street's dilapidated excuse for a streetwall going up towards that intersection becoming transformed by high rises and ground floor retail. Placing the green line stop where they plan to might actually make Inman-Union one contiguous neighborhood.

 

[ablarc]

Union Square will continue to be ugly and barely-streetcar suburbanish until they start replacing the buildings too.

True.

Having a Green Line stop will start economic pressure for higher and better development there.

True in theory, questionable in fact (see below).

Maybe it will increase pressure, but I doubt anything will actually be built. The improvement of the built environment around Davis has been glacial at best, and the Red Line has been there for over 20 years now.

True. That?s mostly because NIMBYs rule, and their low-density aspirations are enshrined in law. So Ron?s theory doesn?t hold in his very own nabe.

Does Davis really need improvement?

No place really needs anything unless you want it to achieve its potential. Did Back Bay need the Prudential Center?

Yes. It's way under its density capacity for a node on a heavy rail subway line. Look at how much development surrounds Harvard, Central, and Kendall by comparison. (In a city like Toronto, these stops would be surrounded by high rises as well.)
The Boston area can improve access to transit in two ways: building more transit out or building up around existing nodes. Guess which is cheaper, and should be easier?

Right on the money.

I live in Davis and think it's pretty much fine as it is.

Spoken exactly like a true NIMBY.

The parking lots along Grove Street could use some development, but beyond that I consider Davis to be essentially complete and built-out. Union Square needs a lot more development.

Not for your own backyard, but for someone else's backyard, you?ll happily propose more development.

Yes, Union Square needs more development. But that doesn't mean that all of Davis' one story buildings next to its high capacity subway stop make any sense.

Exactly.

I mean, I wouldn't single out Davis. Metro Boston has zero strategy for optimizing density at transit nodes. It's a joke.

Much too true.

Czsz has it 100% right on this issue.

Cleveland Circle. 3 green line stops (and 2 bus lines which connect to heavy rail - 1 to Harvard Square and 1 to Forest Hills) within a 5 min walk and we still have it surrounded by 1 story buildings and parking lots.

Thanks for the coda.

 

[GW2500]

As far as what czsz said, he is mainly right. But I'd say Wellington and Alewife have done a decent job of adding density near tranist stops. I mean Alewife has those apts (or are the projects) which I kind of love b/c they remind me of the Bronx soo much, nice to see Boston have a little edge to it. Oak Grove has added a sizable amount of housing near it too. But yea, Urban Boston is affraid of its own shadow.

 

[Ron Newman]

Davis Square has a few parking lots that can be built on, and eventually probably will be. Beyond that, Davis Square is fully occupied -- we don't have empty or abandoned buildings. To build anywhere other than the parking lots, you'd have to take down buildings that are fully functional and in daily use.

Union Square has a lot of undeveloped or vacant land.

 

[ablarc]

Davis Square is full of single-story buildings, Ron. Such structures can never be thought of as part of the build-out of any urban place. Wherever they exist, there's room for development.

 

[bdurden]

Davis Square is full of single-story buildings, Ron. Such structures can never be thought of as part of the build-out of any urban place. Wherever they exist, there's room for development.

This is not accurate -- the "build-out" of any urban space is rarely, if ever, defined by what's above the first floor of any building. It's what happens at the street level. That said, Davis Square, in it's current manifestation, is built out and fully functional. There are a few gaps to fill in around the perimeter.

Now, if you'd like to take redevelopment or vision, you are right that virtually any urban environment can improve, reach new heights, change, and even devolve in doing so (like say, Potsdamer Platz).

 

[Ron Newman]

When you talk about replacing one-story buildings with higher ones, you're also talking about removing businesses that are in most cases prosperous and profitable and serving the local community well. This is not a step to take lightly.

If a five-story condo building replaces that one-story restaurant row that burned in the Fenway, will that improve the neighborhood? Not if you live there and liked the food that was served on restaurant row.

The old Harvard Square that people reminisce about had many low buildings, all commercially occupied. The current Harvard Square has many new taller brick buildings that sit partially vacant, and those vacancies deaden the adjoining streets and hurt nearby businesses. So, be careful what you wish for.

 

[a630]

Well, build-out is a subjective term, which thanks to the direction of federal/state/local policies on urban growth over the last 80 years, is almost universally imagined in horizontal terms in the United States. I stress "imagined." If build-out is to have a technical definition, it is the maximum development allowed under current zoning. (I would guess there isn't a one story height limit in commercial zones in Somerville). Many cities develop maps of where their city is not yet built-out (both horizontally and vertically) to aid developers in identifying as-of-right opportunities.
I tend to agree with ablarc, that because zoning is negotiable (and was always intended to be if you study the early history of its evolution in the US), "build-out" can easily be imagined in many different ways, despite the popular bias that's out there. And it needs to be imagined in different ways in the interest of design, sustainability, good planning practice and economic opportunity.

 

[Ron Newman]

For the record, Somerville's central business district zone (which Davis Square is) allows four stories, 50 feet tall. So yes, there's some room to build up, but it's not clear that this would be worth disruption to existing businesses. If it's to happen, I'd prefer it to occur on Highland Avenue, which lacks the pedestrian vitality of Elm Street and Holland Street (too many banks, accountants, and insurance agencies at street level).

 

[statler]

Can we agree that when there are vacancies within any one building, it would be a positive thing for the landlord to take that opportunity to convert their building to 3 or 4 stories?

And thus over time the area will reach it's full and true potential.

 

[Shepard]

I think the point is that density and urbanity are very different things. Towers in a park may be dense but not urban, while one-story Allston may be urban but not all that dense. Statler makes the good point that you can graft density onto urbanity in an opportunistic way.

 

[czsz]

Alewife and Wellington added density, but mostly in the wrong way.

Calling Alewife Bronxlike is a compliment it doesn't deserve. Yes, the "projects" are "edgy", but that doesn't mean we need the strip malls and utterly crap all around pedestrian access. Try walking from Alewife to the Fresh Pond cinema...it's the most ludicrous pedestrian experience I've had in inner metro Boston, requiring a switchback of what must be half a kilometer at least of unnecessary walking. Alewife Station is just a big parking lot that incentivizes sprawl in the Nortwest suburbs because residents can park there instead of dealing with the hassles of parking downtown, and no attempt has been made to make it anything more.

Wellington is only marginally better. A New Urbanist chimera that feels like a movie back lot built on the template of a subdivision divorced from arterial roads. It does nothing to gesture in the direction of improving its surroundings or really building an actual TOD.

These examples give me zero faith in metro Boston's ability to build TODs from scratch. The best that can be done is to build up existing nodes in piecemeal fashion. Davis and Porter should be built up to Harvard Square density at least; yes, new buildings tend to attract chain stores, but that blandness will fade over time (and don't forget that the demographics of Harvard Square are driven by adjacent wealthy parts of Cambridge and, well, Harvard people).

And obviously this is meant to be a gradual process. These businesses should not be simultaneously seized and redeveloped. I'm just saying that Somerville should incentivize this sort of development when possible and support it when proposed, and that Somerville residents should support it as well.

 

[Shepard]

I assume for Wellington you're referring to Station Landing - as that street view shows, at least one block of one street looks convincing. But the problem is there are only 2 or 3 streets - it's a very small area. It could have worked, and it would have if it were larger and integrated with the surrounding streets on the other side of Revere Beach Parkway. Imagine if the Meadow Glen mall and Wellington Circle strip mall - a huge area including parking - were torn down and rebuilt like Station Landing, and all that sevred by Wellington... you'd practically have a new city.