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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
(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 Matthew McLaughlin
City Council President
Davis Square ain’t what it used to be.
That is good or bad depending on your perspective. When I grew up outside of Davis it was a collection of rundown buildings and dive bars. Later it became the “Paris of the 90’s,” the economic and social hub of Somerville. That boom was followed by rapid displacement that forced people like me out of the neighborhood we grew up in.
This inspired me to form Save Our Somerville, an advocacy group that hoped to preserve affordability. While many new residents supported us, we were met with skepticism from others who insisted change is inevitable and accused us of being ignorant and xenophobic.
Fast forward years later and I’m City Council President, representing the opposite side of town. Davis Square looks nothing like it did even a short time ago, and hardly anyone I grew up with still lives there. Change came at the expense of people like me, yet some who criticized us for fearing change are now fearful of change themselves.
Somerville’s planning department recently proposed changes in Davis Square to increase commercial and residential uses. These changes were met with resistance from residents and removed from the zoning overhaul. The main grievance was that increasing buildings from four stories to five or six stories would impact “neighborhood character.” This is an interesting concern for the Paris of the 90’s. I know a city covered with five and six story buildings that maintained its character for over a thousand years: Paris.
There are legitimate concerns that Davis residents have that should be addressed. No one wants a luxury college dorm built at the expense of losing McKinnons or Sligos. No one wants ugly buildings that take away from Davis’ unique character. That is why the City Council passed city-wide zoning reform to allow development on our terms. Somerville is now requiring a 20 percent affordable housing rate, linkage fees for jobs and housing, strong open space requirements, an off street parking ban for new developments and a potential transfer fee for affordable housing. We now have the groundwork to harness the inevitable changes on the horizon to our shared benefit.
People fear that rising property values will displace small businesses but that is happening regardless of development. There is little we can do to prevent a private landowner from displacing businesses. We can’t stop the owner of Johnny D’s from retiring or prevent Starbucks from competing against local coffee shops. But we do have an opportunity to use zoning and other tools to create an environment in Davis Square that will help current and future small businesses succeed. We can also use zoning to incentivize affordable housing near our biggest train stop, which in turn will increase customers for these businesses. In order to do that, we have to accept that some change is inevitable.
No one wants to lose Comicazi (formerly Disk Diggers) or Mr. Crepe (formerly Someday Café) or the Painted Burrow (formerly Gargoyles) or Five Horses (formerly Sagra, which replaced Yee’s Village) or Snappy Kitchen (formerly Iyo, which replaced Farmer’s Bounty). But what about the Middlesex Savings Bank next to the T stop? What about Rite Aid or any of the nameless one story buildings around Davis that do nothing to add to “neighborhood character?” Are these buildings so important that we can’t allow housing, even with the highest affordable housing rate in the state and all our environmental and traffic restrictions?
I understand the fear that comes with change. I was on the receiving end of that change and feared it as well. But whereas people like me were negatively impacted by changes, the opponents to change today will be just fine. Property values will continue to climb, hip businesses will come and go, and Davis Square will thrive. But what about those who are not benefiting from our urban renaissance? Resisting change now is not persevering neighborhood character; it is blocking the diversity and equity our progressive city claims to support. Neighborhood character is not defined by four versus six stories; it is defined by the people who live here. We need every neighborhood to do their part in addressing the affordable housing crisis, especially neighborhoods that reaped the benefits of transit access and commercial development.
Davis Square has changed repeatedly. It will continue to change. It may become another Harvard Square, a soulless remnant of its past glory. But if we do nothing we will have a square of banks and bars with no diversity of businesses or people. We have an opportunity to increase investment in Davis Square, build affordable housing and commercial office space and make Davis Square better than ever. If we want Davis Square to be a diverse, inclusive community, it’s now or never.
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Dive bars? I was there. You weren’t. You don’t qualify to refer to them as dives. It’s an insult .
Stole my Paris joke – http://www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/93989.
A few notes in case the councilor is reading for more material.
– I’m glad to see you finally get on board with upzoning. We are years behind where we could be on the zoning front because you spent most of the 2010s refusing to pass the overhaul. A lot of people have suffered because of that. It should have been the first thing we did.
– You left a lot on the table with ADUs and 3-family homes. That’s non-luxury housing. I was thinking of building an ADU, but no way under the current regulations.
– You do realize there are people who grew up in East Somerville who’ve got the same complaint about you displacing them that you’ve got about the people in Davis, right?
– Totally agreed Davis needs to get with the program on affordable housing and commercial development. Wild suggestion – 50% affordable requirement (workforce housing included) for all new housing built above retail/office. Davis is a mint. My guess is developers will go for 50% there.
– I moved here 20 years ago hoping for an urban renaissance. Pretty pleased with it. Been great for my kids. Maybe it’s because I’m in Union, but there’s a world of diversity around me.
– Diversity of businesses is a serious issue. I don’t know how to solve it. Tough to regulate commercial rentals. Perhaps long-term leases?
– Davis and Union should be car-free. We need to figure that out.
Pols must be padding their fat pockets .. ulterior motives. I don’t think you really care at all. You are not a nice person
Matt “Rusty” McLaughlin, you’re not fooling anyone who grew up with you and knows the true McLaughlin boys. You and your brothers have done a remarkable job of rebranding yourself in order to fool your “new” woke progressive friends for your own personal gain. You are no better than the “Old Somerville” pols you constantly put down. Actually you’re worse, Old Somerville pols were who they were, you my friend are a sheep in wolves clothing. Keep believing your own lies and you’ll soon not be able to fit your oversized ego through the doors of City Hall.
You’re an overweight bully with orange hair… Sure sounds a lot like the Trumpster.
Aw how cute! Matt used the Paris / building height quip! You know what else Paris has, genius? A network of 6-8 lane boulevards running through it. How about we come to an agreement: an extra floor for each extra lane.
But seriously, this is just a bunch of garbled nonsense; it’s a platitude-ridden, C minus high school essay.
Just to be clear, the new zoning does nothing for making buildings any more attractive, it does nothing for increasing or diversifying affordable commercial property (and it’s the businesses and buildings that define neighborhood character in a commercial district). It does nothing to keep the McKinnons and the Sligos and the Mr. Crepes in place. The only thing it does is make developers increase the amount of affordable housing in new buildings.
Currently Davis is mostly 1 & 2 story buildings. Nobody is saying keep the rite-aid (etc) as a single story building. They’re saying replace it with a 4 story building, ie grow 400% instead of 600%. Lots of growth, and building heights that don’t stick out like a sore thumb in that neighborhood. It’s a win-win (or oui oui) situation. See how that works? But keep up with the hyperbole. If calling the neighborhood a bunch of change-fearing knuckle draggers makes you & your handlers feel better then have at it.
And to the person who suggested making two of our major transportation nexuses / nodes car free, I imagine we could keep things moving with a system of elevated roadways. Or we could all just become Amish.
Cool, let’s be Amish! Neck beards for everybody.
“That boom was followed by rapid displacement that forced people like me out of the neighborhood we grew up in.This inspired me to form Save Our Somerville, an advocacy group that hoped to preserve affordability.”
Funny how it never inspires these leftists to actually work hard towards a goal to make more money so they can live where they want. It’s always about forming some group that will use political influence to take money from hard working producers in the community to give to moaners who don’t want to take responsibility for their lives.
@ Magic Man – Another Rush Limbaugh-lover, replete with right-wing doofus distortions and asinine generalizations.
Yawn.
Magic Man, that is great. We need more people fighting here to bring common sense to this city. It really has gone too far now. The elderly and less mobile people are hurting the most here and are being driven out by the city’s designs to make it mostly for young able bodied people. That had made me form a group also. Good luck.
Lemme get your Magic Logic straight: if you were priced out of your neighborhood it’s because you’re too lazy to make enough money to outbid others who will pay the big rent increases to the hard working landlords. It’s all about those hard working, God-fearing, right thinking salt of the earth landlords. Yes indeed you are the very stable genius in this discussion.
While I take issue with the buildings height Matt is clamoring for, as well as his representation of certain facts and characterization of certain people, his proposal is a quintessentially free market (and legitimate) one: if you increase the amount of new housing at a greater rate than demand increases, rents / costs stabilize or even drop, and just like that those hard working landlords are suddenly lazy good for nothing slackers who need to work harder.
But I suppose to you and trump the free market is only noble when you come out on top.
“That boom was followed by rapid displacement that forced people like me out of the neighborhood we grew up in.”
No. No. You left when Mark Niedergang told you to haul it over to ward 1 and run for office.