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By William C. Shelton

Considered as a system, Somerville is drastically out of balance. Severe imbalances exist between workers and jobs, residential and commercial property, open space and population, affordable and unaffordable housing, foreseeable city expenses and sustainable revenues, and within age and income distributions.

Every part of a system connects with and influences every other part. But the extent of each part’s influence varies greatly.

The part that has the most power to rebalance the Somerville system is building more commercial property, thereby bringing jobs, supporting local small businesses, and boosting the net tax revenues that are the primary way that city government pays for what we need.

Although we are New England’s densest city, our problem is not density, or at least not yet. Density creates opportunities for social connections, reduces per-capita-energy consumption, and can provide a market for a rich array of goods and services, often within walking distance. New York City is 47% denser than Somerville, but it has more open space per resident.

While developers are forcing outsized housing projects on residential neighbors, Somerville still has ample underdeveloped land in Assembly Square, Boynton Yards, Brickbottom, and Inner Belt. In my view, the sky is the limit on allowable building heights in these “transformative” districts, leaving room for open space and, in the case of commercial buildings, helping to pay for it.

Nor can we simply stop building housing. Those districts will require a modest measure of housing to ensure a 24-hour human presence, thereby increasing security, and reducing infrastructure requirements by sharing parking between daytime and evening users.

Our challenge is balance, which at present is like a residential elephant and a commercial mouse sitting on opposite ends of a seesaw, while the elephant is being force-fed more unaffordable housing. So here are some idea starters for reestablishing balance.

Develop Boynton Yards as an emerging biotech cluster

Firms that must innovate to succeed can thrive when they locate in geographical clusters near relevant research institutions, skilled workers, capital sources, supporting industries, and competitors.

The planet’s leading biotech cluster is located one mile south of Boynton Yards, where workspace demand is so high that companies are signing leases that won’t begin for four years. Emerging and medium-sized firms cannot pay Kendall Square’s skyrocketing rents and are looking for nearby locations.

Biotech provides jobs across a broad range of skill levels, most with upward mobility. And lab space produces the highest level of net property tax income to the city, except for hotel space during up economic cycles.

Today the most important location criterion for tech companies is to be where their talent wants to work. Boynton Yards lies between Union Square and Inman Square, the amenities of which are viewed by the younger talent as more attractive than Kendall Square’s. And developing Boynton Yards as an ecodistrict would make it even more appealing.

As we approach the end of this economic cycle, it’s worth noting that biotech is relatively insulated from economy-wide volatility. The New England portfolio manager for the world’s second-largest biotech developer told me, “Until death is cured, there will always be public and private investment in the life sciences.”

Somerville should plan and zone Boynton Yards as a biotech cluster for emerging and mid-sized companies. Biotech companies are looking for lab space with floor plates of at least 30,000 square feet, and every parcel in the district that can accommodate such dimensions should be so developed.

But other companies that provide the industry with supplies and services need space too and cannot pay Kendall Square rents. On smaller parcels, clever developers could build for, and lease to, for those companies. DLJ is already pioneering biotech in Boynton yards with 358,000 square feet of lab and office space, and underground parking.

Only the city can produce a plan for an entire district. A visionary plan would draw developers, increase property values, boost city revenues, and justify prescriptive zoning.

Immediately adopt the MMUR amendment

SomerVision 2030 called for a ratio of 60% commercial development to 40% residential development in transformative districts. But there has never been an enforcement mechanism, and the residential elephant has continued to binge. Moreover, the 60% commercial designation included nonprofit uses which produce no taxes, and retail, which produce low net revenues.

City Councilor Bill White sought to remedy this situation. He submitted a Mandatory Mixed-Use Ratio (MMUR) zoning amendment that excluded retail from the calculation. His aldermanic colleagues bid the required percentage up to 68%.

It has now been 30 months since Bill first submitted the amendment, and it remains in limbo. The city recently retained consultants RKG Associates to perform a series of analyses and make recommendations on the ratio. Meanwhile, largely unaffordable residential development has continued to absorb more land.

The City Council should immediately adopt the amendment. If RKG subsequently offers persuasive recommendations, the MMUR can be amended and integrated into the zoning overhaul.

Keep commercial corridors commercial

People who study such things tell us that residents are willing to walk substantially farther to a transit node than employers are willing to site workplaces from one. Increasingly employers also want to locate near the amenities provided by a commercial district. And Somerville’s languishing small businesses need the daytime population.

But in the current and foreseeable real estate market, even developers with minimal talent and risk tolerance are able to profitably build housing. The speculative land rush is usurping sites that, developed commercially, could help rebalance the system.

Somerville enjoys a number of pedestrian-friendly commercial corridors, including in the Squares and on lower Broadway. Properties on these main streets that are within easy walking distance of existing and planned T stops should be zoned commercial only. Side streets that are already residential should remain so, preserving neighborhood integrity.

Consider a ratio-based moratorium

SomerVision set a goal of creating 30,000 new jobs by 2030, which would be required to establish balance between working residents and jobs. The goal was also a proxy for balancing residential and commercial properties and the net tax revenues they produce. But as noted, there have been no means to enforce this goal, and residential development continues to outpace commercial.

The city could institute a moratorium on the development of unaffordable housing – affordability being defined by the range of HUD affordability guidelines – based on a fraction of how much new commercial property is developed.

Permitting of affordable housing would be expedited. Developers of unaffordable housing would have to queue up. Then, say for every 300,000 or 400,000 square feet of new commercial space permitted, the city would issue permits for 100,000 sq. ft. of unaffordable residential space.

Court rulings have thus far been ambiguous as to whether this would constitute a taking of property as prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. But such a policy does not appear to meet the established tests for such a judgment. It is not an exaction, is not a permanent physical invasion, nor is it a total deprivation of all economically beneficial use.

Affordable housing

Of all Somerville’s imbalances, the most wrenching is that of housing prices, and in turn, economic diversity. Many thousands of individuals and families – often those who made the city so attractive in first place – have been dispossessed. And increased commercial development, as well as the Green Line, will further increase housing market pressure.

The only way to maintain some measure of diversity is to permanently remove a portion of our housing stock from the inflationary market. This is the subject of the last column in this series.