By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(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)

This week we unveiled our plans for the design of Lincoln Park. It features a natural grass recreation field, lighted pedestrian pathways, and an activity corridor with community gardens, skateboard and Parkour activity areas, a new basketball court, adventure style playgrounds, and a water splash pad. The park also includes more than 150 new trees, plenty of seating, an updated ballfield, and an off-leash recreation area for dogs. On top of that it will have a 1.26 million gallon subsurface stormwater management system to help reduce flooding in the surrounding area, and rain gardens that will capture and reuse stormwater. We worked closely with the community to develop these plans, trying to balance recreational needs with open/green space needs, and we’re proud of the results.

While we call this a parks project, it really is just as much an infrastructure project. Just like a city can’t operate without roads, electricity, and water and sewer mains, open space is an essential element to quality of life in urban living. We need places where people can play, or relax next to some greenery. On top of that, permeable surfaces help prevent flooding and reduce the amount of stormwater runoff that flows into our regional waterways. Improving the open spaces we’ve got and creating the 125 acres of new, publically accessible open space (as outlined in our comprehensive plan: SomerVision) are vital to making sure we have a city that works on a human scale. These are essential projects, which is why we should place the same importance on open space as we would any other type of community-critical infrastructure.

Open spaces serve as some of our principle gathering areas. They’re where our children will forge some of their fondest memories and where adults can go when they need to unwind. Whenever we design a new park or playground, we try to make it something special for the people who will use it. In the most densely populated city in New England, every bit of open space is precious. One of the best things to emerge from the Lincoln Park planning process was just how much people cared that a large park, by Somerville standards, truly serves the community. People were passionate and engaged, and we get better park designs when that happens.

One of the big points of discussion with this project was a grass recreational field versus a synthetic turf recreational field. In this particular case, grass made more sense. Lincoln Park is our largest contiguous city-owned open space in a dense city. As part of our long-range park planning, it made sense to maintain this park as a large, natural open space for all to use. It will serve as our city common—a large expanse open to all.

However, the citywide field use data clearly show that to meet our significant and growing field demand, while adhering to best practices for field usage, synthetic turf will be required at other, more suitable locations. The City will select only safe and high-quality turf, for which fortunately there are several recommendable options. Helping to guide this effort will be our Fields Master Plan, which will be shared with the community in March at public meetings. I hope you will attend.

Our Fields Master Plan is just one part of our overall Open Space Plan, which will be presented this spring. In addition to mapping out data-driven and rational plans for park renovation and planning, that plan seeks to achieve the SomerVision goal to establish 125 new acres of open space. People might be wondering where we’re going to find that much land. Part of the answer is redevelopment. You’ve probably heard the term smart growth before, and one of its core tenets is to open up community space when you’re redesigning residential and commercial areas. This gets back to what I was saying about treating open space like it’s infrastructure.

As we re-envision Union Square, Boynton Yards, the Inner Belt and Brickbottom, we need to plan for open space. There should be a variety of spaces to fit all needs ranging from new plazas for socializing, recreation spots like playgrounds and fields/courts and reflective greens. When the state finally knocks down the concrete monstrosity known as the McGrath overpass, we also need to find space for trees and grass along that new boulevard.

Balancing that with 6,000 to 9,000 new housing units and the workspace for 30,000 new jobs will be no easy feat, but this is why it is so important residents stay engaged and push for the best community design we can deliver. During the comment period on the draft Neighborhood Plan for Union Square, we received many requests for more green and open space. As a result, we’ve been hard at work fitting in new green and open space into a revised plan. That’s the process working because it must. The future of our city can’t be all concrete and asphalt. Open spaces give us patches of sanity in a hectic world. They turn a city into a community.

Creating those public spaces will require detailed planning. New parks don’t happen by accident. We also need to encourage sustainable development that makes room for open space in our proposed updates to our zoning regulations. It’s one thing to say we value open space, but we need that value delineated in our zoning code. To deliver on that community value, we need a better set of rules and incentives. Hard work and forward thinking will be how we unlock more open space in the future.