(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

By Chris Dwan

Somernova — a subsidiary of Rafi Properties —is applying for a zoning overlay under which they would demolish the low-slung industrial buildings along the railroad tracks between Market Basket and Park Street, replacing them with new buildings 9 to 16 stories tall — well beyond the four stories allowed by current zoning.

Rafi says they need the additional height to create space around the buildings for community amenities and a beautiful campus while still expanding their rentable square footage enough to justify the work. Their current proposal includes more than three acres of open space and a 25,000 square foot community center. It also includes a ludicrous 1,200 parking spaces, which they justify by pointing to the very same zoning that they are asking to change. In addition, the proposal lacks a sufficient commitment to our artistic and creative communities, who would be losing the admittedly limited protections afforded by the current fabrication zoning (see my previous piece on FAB for more on that).

I think that the proposal could be a great thing for the city, but as presented it contains deal-breaking flaws.

To the community: Nothing is perfect, but this could be really great. Let’s hear them out.

To the City Council: We should fix our zoning, citywide, remove parking minimums and create permanently affordable spaces for arts and creative enterprises everywhere.

To Rafi / Somernova: Cut the parking, commit to a startlingly huge arts campus, and I’ll grit my teeth and live with the construction.

The Pitch

Somernova laid out their initial pitch to the community several months ago in a glossy 468-page document that couldn’t seem to figure out what it wanted to be. The booklet spent untold pages on owner Collin Yip’s passion project — a youth-focused community center that he calls “The Dojo.” It rambled for 85 pages before finally showing a massing diagram of high-rises towering over the neighborhood.

Current conditions on the site of the proposed development.

The development team has convened two community meetings, each a three-hour marathon attended by more than 100 people. Ward Councilor JT Scott hosted the first one in late September (video here). The Union Square Neighborhood Council co-hosted another meeting last Wednesday. At that latter meeting, we finally heard the business drivers that are pushing the scale and the timing of the project.

One of Somernova’s anchor tenants, Form Energy, needs a global headquarters. Somernova wants to build it for them. Form got their start in Greentown Labs, and four of the five founders are Somerville residents. Form’s needs are an example of the “tough tech” building specification. They need good power and cooling, high ceilings, sturdy floors, and not too many structural elements cluttering up the spaces.

The story resonates with how the current campus was originally built: American Tube Works (ATW) was founded in Somerville in the 1850s. They obtained a pair of patents for manufacturing ‘seamless’ (extruded, rather than rolled and welded) brass and copper tubes, and went on to build the current campus between 1890 and 1920. The Ames Safety Envelope company bought up many of the buildings in the 1930s, and operated for nearly 80 years before closing in 2010.

There’s a good story about Somerville businesses innovating and growing within the community. I have no idea why Somernova didn’t lead with it.

Alternatives

Of course, Rafi could build to current zoning “by right” without all this process. That would still be a massive years-long project of heavy construction. Instead of a spacious, human-scale campus we are told that they would create hulking four-story buildings to the lot lines, include tons of parking (still required under current zoning!), and provide limited benefits to the community.

In the extreme case, Rafi might even walk away entirely, leaving us with aging buildings under new ownership who are certain to be less community-minded.

It’s a heavy hand, but it’s what we’re dealing with.

The fact that we have a developer who chose to get to know the community, asked our opinion, and is trying to invest billions of dollars to “co-create” something like this is a rare opportunity. Even so, we should still be willing to walk away from infrastructure mistakes that will outlive all of us.

My Deal Breakers

Much of my reticence on this project stems from the fact that the proposed construction will put mess, noise, dirt, and disruption on the scale of what we have seen in Union Square within two blocks of my home. It’s a bit selfish, for sure, but that’s real for me and it would be disingenuous to claim otherwise. It is certainly real for the people who live even closer to the site — along Taylor Street and by the tracks in Duck Village.

I suspect that I could grit my teeth and accept the construction if I was certain that the whole thing was not a catastrophic mistake.

There are two catastrophic mistakes on offer in the current proposal:

Ludicrous Amounts of Parking: The proposal includes 1,200 new parking spaces, which will lead to an estimated 5,000 additional automobile trips per day to and from the site. Beyond the fact that this plan is, on the face of it, unworkable (go on, drive Somerville Ave. at rush hour)— building a new car-centric campus in Somerville is wildly irresponsible. This site is a quarter mile from the new Union Square station and directly adjacent to train tracks that might someday extend the Green Line to Porter Square.

The vast majority of the parking should be removed. Instead, Rafi should make specific commitments to support shuttles, micromobility, cyclists, and similar measures that will allow increased density while putting people, not cars, at the center.

The fact that our current zoning still requires this scale of parking is a mistake that the current city council would do well to fix.

Not Enough Space for Art: Our artistic and creative community is already being pushed out of the city, despite the good intentions of our Fabrication zoning. The proposal as written accelerates that loss. Venture firms, corporate incubators, and tech companies are muscling in to our FAB spaces and raising rents. FAB is clearly not enough.

I would like to see Somernova commit to a frankly breathtaking space that would be a permanently affordable home for our artistic and creative community. The model I have in mind is SOWA Boston, specifically the artist studios at 450 Harrison Ave. That building is about 100,000 square feet and is home to enough artists that they can host weekly open studio events and a month-long holiday market that draws visitors from across New England.

A hundred thousand square feet is a mere 5% of this proposal. We should double that to 10% — 200,000 square feet for the arts. I would include the 25,000 square feet allocated for the community center, AKA the Dojo 2.0, in that total.

To the council again: We would do well to put this sort of requirement in place for all commercial zoning, similar to how we require that 20% of the units be affordable at a certain scale of residential development. If we had done that a decade ago, we would be building a very different – and better – Assembly Row and Union Square.

To the community: We can’t have everything, but this could be pretty good.

To Somernova: What do you say?