By William C. Shelton

(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)

Recent events have increased the urgency for crafting a Union Square Community Benefits Agreement while changing conditions that will shape its design and implementation.

A year and a half of process culminated in Planning Board approval of the Union Square/Boynton Yards Neighborhood Plan. Meanwhile, the Board of Aldermen unanimously endorsed a zoning amendment to ensure that much needed commercial development dominates critical development districts.

Although developers are tying up chunks of the neighborhood, development cannot proceed until zoning is approved that implements the Plan and reconciles it with the amendment.

MBTA and Department of Transportation Boards tentatively approved the Green Line Extension while extorting $50 million from Somerville.  Add to that $70 million for needed infrastructure, $200+ million for a high school, unspecified millions for new public safety facilities, and the capital expense obligations become daunting. A community benefits agreement could meet only a small fraction of these needs without sacrificing its purpose for existing.

A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) is a contract executed between a developer and a community group or coalition. In some cases, a municipality has also been party to the contract.

CBAs emerged across the U.S. about twenty years ago. Major redevelopment projects, rather than benefiting long-time neighborhood residents and small businesses, had more often displaced them—either directly, or by driving up rents. CBAs are intended to reduce redevelopment’s burdens on, and share its benefits with, its surrounding community. In return, the community agrees to support the development.

The earliest notable CBAs were in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, and the Hollywood and Highland Center. CBAs have since been executed in cities across America, including Atlanta, Denver, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Syracuse, and Washington, D.C.

CBA benefits have included local first-source hiring agreements, job training programs, space set asides for local businesses, set asides for community facilities, park construction, and support for affordable housing. It’s worth noting that Somerville already requires commercial property developers to pay substantial linkage fees, and housing developers to make 20% of new housing units affordable to low-income households.

The Mayor and his staff will require US2, the Union Square Master Developer Partner selected by the Somerville Redevelopment Authority (SRA), to enter into a CBA. But so far, city officials have been reluctant to give the community a seat at the table, preferring that the SRA negotiate and execute the agreement.

Many of the groups and individuals who have been most active in the planning process are wary of such an arrangement, citing the unelected SRA’s past indifference to expressed community preferences.

Excluding community representation from negotiating and guaranteeing a CBA would produce inferior outcomes. In its master developer bid, US2 made clear that it was attracted to Union Square for reasons beyond reductive real estate economics.

The neighborhood is a special place because its residents, small businesses, artists and innovators have built a diverse human community and physical environment in which people flourish and thrive, a place where they want to live and do business.

The more these community builders are displaced, the less attractive the neighborhood will be to the potential residents and businesses that developers need as tenants. Since those who made the neighborhood special understand best how to keep it that way, their participation is essential in designing a benefits package that will have the most strategic impact.

Excluding them would ensure ongoing conflict and delay. Being party to a negotiation facilitates understanding of resource constraints and obligates tough choices. Being excluded makes such choices opaque, promotes suspicion, and assures resistance.

I am speaking from experience. Assembly Square Limited Partners (ASLP), the developers who controlled almost forty Assembly Square acres, refused to mediate with community representatives. In response, the Mystic View Task Force prosecuted three successful lawsuits.

Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT) bought out ASLP and subsequently negotiated a settlement. It produced an extensive list of community benefits, including the contribution that ultimately brought us a new Orange Line station. While reserving the right to advocate for good design, Mystic View has supported FRIT’s initiatives ever since, hastening permit approvals. I was one of the negotiators, and I know that the process can nurture trust and cooperation.

Deciding on who should represent the community is a challenge, but an achievable one. Union United is a coalition of stakeholders that includes small business owners, residents, activists, immigrant groups, religious congregations, labor unions, and community-based organizations.

Its members have been the most forceful advocates for a CBA. It has not succeeded in organizing a constituency sufficiently powerful to compel its participation. But its mission—“Development without displacement”—is the right one, and its constituency can, indeed must, be represented in negotiations, even if Union United is not a contractual party.

Neither Union United, nor the Union Square Civic Advisory Committee, nor the LOCUS “strategy leaders,” represent the broad community as single organizations. But collectively, they do. And thoughtful people of goodwill can find a reasonable way to ensure that those constituencies are represented.

Regrettably, we have ample time to decide this. “Regrettably,” because US2 cannot be expected to negotiate the benefits that it will provide before it knows what it can build. That requires adopting new neighborhood zoning and including it in the zoning ordinance overhaul.

I’m not criticizing an overworked planning staff or aldermen who are presently occupied with next year’s budget. Hopefully, the latter can relieve the former. I’m just pointing out that delay increases US2’s carrying costs and forestalls needed city revenue.

A CBA that is effective and sustainable must be fair to all stakeholders, including US2. To accomplish that, CBAs should be executed with all developers who intend to build substantial projects in the district.

And negotiators should be realistic regarding the amount that US2 is expected to contribute toward capital expenses. While the North Point developers will be paying half of Cambridge’s $25 million Green Line ransom, their project is three times the size of US2’s, and much of it, built. The more that US2 is required to contribute toward capital costs, the less will be available for investments that actually reduce displacement.

Covering new capital expenses will require new revenue sources that do not unduly burden homeowners and small businesses. Cities and towns across the Commonwealth are running up against this necessity.

But the Governor and the Legislature’s leadership have proven hostile to such initiatives. Over the last year, the Legislature has rejected over two dozen petitions from municipalities seeking new revenue sources, including transfer taxes.

The Mayor might consider pulling together a coalition of municipalities who are in a similar bind and are prepared to challenge state-level intransigence. I know some tenacious organizers whom they could call on.