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By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

Taking a closer look at notable city data—and interesting numbers. 

2/3 renters: About 2/3 of Somerville residents rent. Put another way, more than 50,000 of our roughly 80,000 residents are renters. Housing is one of the biggest issues in both Somerville and the Boston region, and looking at ways to alleviate the housing crisis means we need to know our population. Some policies affect homeowners and renters differently, so it’s important to keep both perspectives in mind. A recent example of this is proposed changes to the City’s condo conversion ordinance. Condos can be the affordable option for people entering homeownership and, for some people, condos are their preferred choice, so we don’t want to completely end condo conversions. At the same time, condo conversions remove rental units from Somerville’s housing stock and often displace renters. When we look at these issues, we have to keep in mind the needs of all of our residents and try to balance them.

3,536 affordable units: Somerville has 3,536 affordable housing units, which is about 10% of our total housing stock. Since 2011, we’ve gained 387 new affordable units and we plan to add another 51 by the end of 2019, but we want that number to keep growing. Through SomerVision, the community set a goal of 1,200 new permanently affordable units by 2030 (that’s 20% of the overall housing goal of 6,000 new units). As we start to reexamine the original SomerVision goals as part of SomerVision 2040 those numbers might change to reflect current and predicted need.

1 or 2 people: According to the latest American Fact Finder data, nearly 70% of Somerville households are made up of one or two people. In fact, looking back on data since 2009 that percentage has been between 60% and 70%. That’s good information to have when considering what kind of housing we want to push for, but we also need to think critically about it. There is certainly a demand for one- and two-bedroom units, but some of those households will grow over time. That’s why it’s important to push for and encourage the development of larger units so that people have housing choices that still meet their needs after moving in with a partner, having children, or expanding their family in other ways.

35,000 residential parking permits: We look at parking permit data during a fiscal year time period (the fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30), so we don’t have this year’s data yet, but the trend has been a decreasing number of permits issued. In FY2018, Traffic and Parking issued just over 35,000 residential parking permits compared to about 37,000 in FY2017 and a little more than 40,000 in FY2016. Transportation and housing are linked in several ways. If, for example, you can get where you need to go without a car, that can mean a lower overall cost of living. If fewer residents are relying on cars to get around, we know we need to continue to advocate for reliable public transportation options as well as more housing near T stations and along bus routes.

Data-based decision making is at the core of how the City of Somerville develops policy and sets priorities. Every day we check the latest 311 stats, and throughout the week we meet for in-depth review of departmental data and city trends. The Data Download column shares some of the data we’ve been reviewing recently, as well as interesting updates. To see more Somerville Data, visit the online Somerville Data Farm at www.somervillema.gov/datafarm.