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By Will Mbah
Candidate for Somerville City Councilor at Large

I have been following with interest the planning activity for Gilman Square, where a newly recognized Neighborhood Council hopes to achieve a community-directed redevelopment plan.      

 Gilman Square is the second Neighborhood Council to be formed under the ordinance, which I and my City Council colleagues adopted back in 2018.  The Union Square Neighborhood Council was the first and its experience has revealed the process to be complicated and slow moving, requiring hundreds of hours of volunteer time.  The Community Benefits Agreements achieved at Union Square have been difficult to interpret and monitor for compliance.  Thus, other neighborhoods with less population and smaller redevelopment potential have been unable to undertake the tasks of forming councils.     

Recognizing these difficulties, the City Council in April 2023 has adopted an amended ordinance and we now will be able to observe at Gilman Square whether the changes can lead to a more effective planning process. 

Background of Gilman Square planning

SomerVision (2012) defined Gilman Square as a station-area, where transit-oriented redevelopment could be accomplished by infill at a modestly higher scale.  This was a different strategy than in a transformation zone like Union Square, where large scale redevelopment was expected to generate property value gains, from which infrastructure and community benefits could be drawn.    

For the subsequent neighborhood planning, the city and state tried a variety of methods of citizen engagement, intended to define local needs and priorities.  First, the Gilman Square Station Area Plan (2014) used the method of “Somerville by Design,” which involved “charette” meetings and crowd source surveys.           

Then the state Department of Transportation and MBTA organized the GLX Community Working Group with one appointed citizen representative from each of the five GLX station areas along with other city and state agency representatives.  Periodic meetings of this working group took place during the entire period of construction from 2017 through 2021. 

In the same time period, the Gilman Square community pressed the city to work on a zoning scheme and a redevelopment plan to be ready when the GLX would reach completion.  But this activity was delayed because other projects — the high school, storm sewer separation, Zoning Ordinance overhaul, etc. – took precedence.   

The city agencies revived area planning only in 2020 under the title: Implementing the Gilman Square Plan.  They identified five potential redevelopment parcels.  On the south side of Medford Street, two city owned vacant parcels plus a vacant former gas station might be consolidated into a parcel of 1.3 acres and offered to a developer under a master plan.  On the north side, two parcels with open uses stood on either side of the historic Malta Building.  These could be rezoned to encourage their infill redevelopment.            

The process of citizen engagement for this planning was defined in a memorandum between the Neighborhood Association and the city.  They worked cooperatively to co-host meetings and workshops, keeping the public informed and receiving feedback.  During COVID, this activity took place on the SomerVOICE platform.         

Over the years, community members were not satisfied with the level and content of their participation.  In 2020, fifteen residents took a different track.  They filed a petition with the City Council and Planning Board to re-zone the five redevelopment parcels from MR-4 to MR-6 with an understanding that Overlay regulations could be added, requiring any developers to provide community benefits in exchange for the additional height and floor area. 

After lengthy discussions, the Council concluded that rezoning from MR-4 to MR-6 would not give the community leverage to fix priorities and require benefits.  The petition was changed so that the city-owned parcels became Civic (not MR-6), the former gas station remained MR-4 and only the two privately-owned parcels flanking the Malta Building became MR-6.  In reaction, the owner of Malta Building challenged the rezoning in court.    

OSPCD then began to discuss using the Somerville Redevelopment Authority to acquire the vacant gas station parcel and consolidate the three lots.  Alternatively, without the redevelopment authority, OSPCD could issue a Request for Proposals, asking developers to describe the scale, density, and mix of uses that they could build on the consolidated parcel.

To pursue these options, the OSPCD organized a Citizens Advisory Committee – with area representatives (appointed by the Mayor and City Council) along with elected City Councilors and city agency staff.  This group has been meeting since March 2022. 

Creation of the Neighborhood Council

It was in response to these inconclusive planning methods that the Gilman Square Neighborhood Association transformed itself into a Neighborhood Council.  The process began in January/February 2022 by amending the By-Laws, registering as a not-for-profit corporation and then, in June 2022, petitioning the City Council for recognition.     

This request led to the discussions at the City Council about simplifying the procedures for smaller neighborhoods and clarifying the legal status of recognition.  The amended Ordinance with these changes was adopted in April 2023 and the vote, granting recognition of the Gilman Square Neighborhood Council, came on May 25, 2023. 

Can we expect the Gilman Square Neighborhood Council to be more effective than the past planning methods?    

There is optimism that the Gilman Square Neighborhood Council can effectively engage a more diverse group of residents and local businesses in the neighborhood planning.  One example of its strategy of outreach is a pending By-law change to appoint two teen-age youth members to its Board. 

The difficult problem still to be faced is how to make any model of citizen directed redevelopment effective at the smaller scale of Gilman Square.  The core idea remains: to use the mechanisms of zoning and disposition of city land to induce a substantial gain in land and building values, which can then enable the financing of infrastructure and community benefits. 

In total, however, the five potential redevelopment parcels total only 2.1 acres and have a future build out of about 92 dwelling units and 50,000 ft2 commercial space.  By contrast, the Union Square redevelopment covers 17 acres with future 1,300 dwelling units and 2.5 million ft2 of commercial space. 

Gilman Square’s planners and citizens will need to be creative to use their simplified process to produce a modest but effective outcome of community benefits.

If you want to learn more or support my campaign, please visit my website at willmbah.com.