The ordinance would
relax density, height, and parking requirements for residential
developments dedicated to households age 62 or older where at least
17.5% of the units are affordable. It would enable the Park Street
developers to pursue a special permit without requiring them to obtain
variances.

The mayor and his staff have a demonstrated
commitment to Somerville's elders. He has reached out to them since he
first ran for Alderman. The Strategic Office of Planning and Community
Development's Executive Director Monica Lamboy came to her job with a
passion for creating enjoyable living environments from which senior
citizens could enrich the life of the city. In 2008, she tasked a
summer intern with exploring, and collecting data regarding these
matters.

But the reasons cited by planning staff to justify the
need for the ordinance do not do so. The ordinance itself would not
encourage the kind of housing that is most cost effective and that
gerontologists tell us is best for seniors. And some senior advocates
and affordable housing developers are urging the Board of Aldermen to
look before it leaps.

The staff report that accompanied the new
zoning proposal begins by observing that Somerville residents over age
65 decreased as a proportion of the population from 1970 to 2000. Some
suggest that a lack of affordable senior housing explains this
decrease.

Somervillians who lived here throughout the last
half of the 20th Century can offer a more accurate explanation. The
loss of manufacturing jobs and the lure of the suburbs produced a mass
exodus of Somerville families during the 1950s and 1960s. As Somerville
elders died in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the aging adults and older
children who had moved away were not here to replace them. A
35-year-old who left in 1965 would have been 70 in 2000, but was living
in Billerica or Florida.

In fact, Somerville is already in the
top 10% of Massachusetts municipalities in terms of affordable senior
housing units per capita. The crying need is for affordable family
housing. Waiting lists for such housing are four-to-seven times longer
than for senior units.

There is little credible evidence that
large numbers of elders are leaving the city because they cannot afford
housing here. Rather, elders have moved here to take advantage of our
large stock of affordable units. Although the Somerville Housing
Authority gives preference to seniors on their waiting lists who are
already Somerville residents, many are not.

There is ample
evidence that families who have spent their lives here are being priced
out, as are their children who are coming of age. This is one factor
contributing to a malaise among many of our city's youth that Save Our
Somerville President Matt McLoughlin has called "the Somerville slump."

Moreover,
the proposed ordinance would sanction housing developments that elders
would rather not live in. Consistent with many similar surveys, the
American Association of Retired Persons finds that over 90% of
Americans aged 65 or older would prefer to live in their own homes.
Scholars, clinicians, and policy analysts who study these matters tell
us that this alternative is more cost effective, both for the
individual and for the private citizens or public agencies who pay the
bills.

They also find that elders who do live in small,
low-ceilinged units in senior-only facilities often become depressed.
Prescription drug abuse is common. Fiscally healthy municipalities like
Cambridge are remodeling senior housing facilities, knocking down walls
to make larger apartments.

Passage of the ordinance would enable
the proposed 89-unit project at 44 Park Street to more easily obtain
permits. But its small units, low ceilings, minimal common space and
laughable "open space" are good examples of what doesn't work for
elders.

The planning staff's report quotes local seniors as
saying that if they were to leave their homes, they would want to live
in new residences that afford the ability to walk around the
neighborhood without barriers, are close to public transportation,
allow easy access to shopping, and provide storage space.

The
Park Street location is on a busy street. Within 100 feet of it, an
at-grade railroad crossing separates it from the nearest drug and
grocery store, and from the bus to Davis and Union Squares. There is no
open space within walking distance.

The Affordable Housing
Organizing Committee, Somerville Community Corporation, and Community
Access and Inclusion Project are asking the Board of Aldermen to not
approve the ordinance as it is currently written, as has Pat Jehlen,
who chairs the Massachusetts Senate's Elder Affairs Committee.

But
historically, personal relationships and calculations of political gain
have often dominated hard evidence in Somerville policy makes'
decisions. This time they would do well to look before they leap.