By David Winter

A rezoning proposal for Union Square met with mixed reactions last week when it was presented by city officials. The proposal, which had already undergone two revisions through meetings between city planners, residents and advocacy groups, was praised by some for its inclusion of the arts and questioned by others who asked that more affordable housing be included.

The proposal was presented by Monica Lamboy, Madeleine Masters and Rob May of the city’s planning and development office, who explained the new zoning will create six distinct districts to manage development in different ways, according to the character of the areas.

In one of the districts, the Arts Overlay District, the city will offer incentives to developers for building arts-related businesses and live and work spaces available only to Somerville-certified artists.

But the arts-centric approach was not enough for some advocates who are asking the city to designate at least 15 percent of the rezoned area as affordable. “Please do what you can to make Somerville affordable,” said 16-year-old Anthony Soto.

The Somerville Community Corporation and Save Our Somerville have both asked the city to increase the affordable housing allotment in anticipation of the Green Line’s arrival in the neighborhood.

Somerville resident Mary Louise Daley said, “The matter of affordable housing is a critical issue in Somerville. There are about 12,307 names on the section eight wait-list alone.”

Mary Regan of SCC said asking for 15 percent of the city’s housing to be made affordable is a movement toward the standards of the Boston area. She said 16 percent of Cambridge and 20 percent of Boston’s housing have been designated as affordable, while Somerville fails to meet the 10 percent affordable housing requirement enacted by the state. However, she also said ‚Äúwe’re happy with the changes that we’ve seen in this draft.‚Äù SCC representatives said the residents of Union Square include some of the most economically vulnerable in the city.

There was no shortage of opinions at last week’s meeting. One grassroots group, Union Square Neighbors, actually plugged their own zoning proposal as an alternative to the city’s. The group – which boasts members with city-planning experience and also supplied two delegates to a focus group which influenced the city’s proposal – would limit developers to lower height and density than the city’s plan, a move which, they argue, better fits the context of Union Square.