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During Mayor Joseph Curtatone’s mid-term address on January 7, 2019, he discussed some of the successes and challenges Somerville has faced in battling the regional housing crisis. The excerpt below touches on some of the work done in 2018 and a look ahead at the work the City will be taking on. To read or watch the entirety of Mayor Curtatone’s speech, which includes information about other upcoming and ongoing initiatives like open space acquisition, support for Somerville’s youth, and improving transportation options, visit www.somervillema.gov/2019midterm.

In 2018 Somerville took significant strides toward addressing the affordable housing crisis we face along with the rest of the Greater Boston region. Yet we still have a lot more that remains to be done in 2019, and this could become a watershed year in terms of local action on the housing issue.

During my Inaugural Address last year I unveiled 10 strategic steps that would set Somerville far ahead of the rest of the region in dealing with housing equity. We already sit at the front of the pack in terms of the percentage of affordable housing we require as part of major projects and we are one of only a handful of communities in the state getting linkage fees for affordable housing from commercial development. Since 2012 we have added 387 new affordable housing units in our city.

Yet we recognized we needed something far more aggressive to get at the roots of the problem. That’s where the 10 action steps come in, and we’re already making progress.  In fact, you can track that progress yourself at somervillema.gov/aha.

In the last 12 months we have created an Office of Housing Stability, re-launched our lead paint removal program, and reached the halfway mark on our 100 Homes goal. We’re setting up free legal support for tenants facing eviction, and we are establishing a universal waitlist for affordable units that gives priority to those in greatest danger of displacement.

We are also in the process of establishing an Advisory Board for the Office of Housing Stability to guarantee strong community input into the Office’s efforts to prevent displacement. In 2019, we will establish an anti-displacement brain trust. Smart, committed people making sure we’ve got each other’s backs. I can’t think of anything more Somerville.

Production alone will not solve the housing crisis, but we cannot solve it without producing substantially more housing as a region. That’s why I’m proud to say that as the co-chair of the Metro Mayors Regional Housing Task Force, I took a leadership role in bringing together 15 Greater Boston communities to commit to 185,000 new units of housing over the next decade.

That is a mammoth step in terms of regional cooperation, and a testament to how much everyone is feeling the pain of this housing crisis. In every single city and town in the group we’re hearing about how people are being crushed beneath the weight of runaway housing prices.

It’s not just us, and we’re no longer in this alone. But if we want to keep people in Somerville, we must increase housing locally.

Last year, we added 707 total new housing units, including 98 affordable housing units. We also approved two new large-scale projects in Assembly Square that will bring us more than 500 new units including more than 100 new affordable units thanks to our 20% inclusionary ordinance. In many other cities that would be a decade’s worth of work. In Somerville, we will treat it simply as a start toward addressing a gargantuan problem.

That brings me to the legislative end of things. With the Board of Aldermen – soon-to-be City Council – and the community, we spent many late hours working to develop a real estate transfer fee to fund affordable housing. Once approved by the state, the transfer fee will protect owner occupants and target people looking to make a business out of housing in Somerville.

I am confident that, working together, we can also deliver a modernized condo conversion ordinance in the first half of 2019 that both respects the needs of owners and the rights of tenants. Without a new ordinance, we’ll see more landlords forcing out tenants. We must add protections, particularly for those most at risk, such as the elderly, people with disabilities and those with lower and moderate incomes.

Likewise, we must regulate short-term rentals, which drive up overall rental prices. The state just passed a law on this and we have already submitted a local ordinance to work in conjunction with it. I look forward to working with the Board to pass this in 2019.

That’s three key steps within our grasp that can have immediate and sweeping impact. We also need to move forward with the Housing Land Trust, which would be able to buy property and designate it for permanent housing affordability. We have a working group that’s spent the past year hammering out the nuts and bolts of how to establish and operate a community-based housing trust. I want to thank them. That report is due any day now, and we need to be ready to act on it.

Simply put, if we are to protect housing in Somerville, we need to see it not as a commodity but rather as a human right—and we need the rules and regulations that back that up. That brings me to zoning. Passing the proposed zoning overhaul is the backbone of everything we’re doing to impact housing.

Through zoning, we can choose right now to move away from the NIMBY model that constrains housing supply and drives up prices. Through our proposed zoning, we can increase and incentivize a more diverse housing stock in our city. And through our zoning we can provide our families, our seniors, our makers and artists, our younger households, and our most vulnerable all an authentic chance to remain here.

Our proposed zoning lays out ground rules for building a community for people, not cars, not sprawl. It is designed to enhance our quality of life, alleviate congestion, and promote healthy living. It reflects our values. This zoning achieves more than 100 of the nearly 600 goals set forth in SomerVision.

We can no longer afford to leave one of our best housing tools on the table. It is time to pass the zoning overhaul. Let’s get it done in 2019. Let’s commit that next year at this time, we’ll be celebrating that we passed it.

There’s no one magic solution to the housing crisis. Yet when you combine the Office of Housing Stability, the transfer fee, new zoning, an updated condo conversion ordinance, the brain trust and the housing land trust, we will be able to help some of the most vulnerable people in our community in ways no other city in Massachusetts can match.