two important public hearings Thursday

[elibeck.livejournal.com]

There are two important hearings in Somerville tomorrow. I'm mainly posting because I think we can't sit back any longer while our communities get transformed without our input.

The first hearing is about the new ZONING IN UNION SQUARE.
6PM at Somerville City Hall

The second hearing is a public safety hearing on the BU BioLab (bioweapons research lab) in Roxbury/South End

BU BIO LAB HEARING THURSDAY,
7 PM at SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM

HEARING ON UNION SQUARE ZONING
6PM at Somerville City Hall

Unfortunately without rent control it will be difficult to prevent the displacement of working families from Union Square -- but Union is next in line for the attack on our neighborhoods that is gentrification/homogenization.  It's all happening under the guise of an artists overlay district -- but how long before even the artists will be outpriced from the community they help build?

These zoning changes ask for a paltry 15% of housing units being developed in the new Union Square developments to be kept affordable, and yet the City of Somerville has refused to go along with it! Maybe we can show up in force and let
them know that even 15% is not enough!!!

Thursday April 19th
6PM at Somerville City Hall

The Planning Board and the Land Use Committee will host a public hearing on Thursday, April 19th at 6:00 in City Hall to hear public comment on amendments submitted by the SCC's Affordable Housing Organizing Committee (AHOC) to increase the affordable housing requirement in Union Square.

Over the last five months affordable housing advocates have been the loudest voice in the debate around zoning changes, unified in our call for development that benefits the working families in Union Square. Thank you for joining the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee in this important campaign.

Despite our hard work, unified voice, and support from residents all across Somerville, the City is determined to go forward with zoning changes that ignore our proposal to increase affordable housing requirements to 15%. While a higher affordable housing requirement is only a small part of tackling the problem of squeezing out working class families, it is a critical step that we simply can't afford to have the city ignore.

The City's proposed new zoning combined with the Green Line extension will entice the kind of high-end development that will dive up housing costs and create an even greater burden for working people in the neighborhood. Your help is needed to bring the message: "Keep our families in Somerville: Zone for People."

--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//--//\\--\\//

The second hearing is about BU and the Dept of Homeland Security placing a bio-weapons research lab in the heart of  the densely populated Roxbury/South End community. Brookline and Cambridge both passed resolutions opposing this lab, and Somerville is having a hearing tomorrow:

BU BIO LAB HEARING THURSDAY,
7 PM at SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM

Dear Friends,

This Thursday, April 19, we have an opportunity to express our opinions at a public hearing about the proposed biological weapons research lab that Boston University intends to build in the South End/Roxbury area.  This lab, just a few miles from Somerville, would study the most dangerous pathogens in the world, including lethal self-replicating organisms.

SMUJP, in cooperation with Mass. United for Justice with Peace, opposes the lab, and is asking the Somerville Board of Aldermen to pass a resolution stating their opposition.   Brookline and Cambridge have already passed similar resolutions.

There are many reasons to oppose the lab (see below for more information) .

We're asking all Somerville/Medford UJP members and supporters to help:

* Spread the word.  Forward this email to others who might be interested.

* Come to the public hearing on Thursday, April 19, 7PM at Somerville High School, 81 Highland Ave.  Learn more about the dangers of operating a Level 4 lab in our densely populated urban environment.  Tell the Aldermen what you think; they want to hear from us.

*******

Press Release
Public Hearing on Proposed B.U. Bio-Lab, April 19, 2007 , 7:00 pm
Somerville High School Auditorium - 81 Highland Avenue

A public hearing on Boston University's proposed bio-weapons research laboratory will be convened by the Public Health and Safety Committee of the Board of Alderman at the Somerville High School Auditorium at 7 pm on Thursday, April 19, 2007.  The purpose of this hearing, requested by Somerville/Medford United for Justice with Peace, is to take testimony regarding the Bio-Safety Level 4 laboratory that Boston University is building near the Boston Medical Center, and potential risks to the surrounding communities, including Somerville.


According to SMUJP member Duncan McFarland, "We're concerned about the risks of building this lab in a densely populated area, and of its potential effects on surrounding communities.  An accidental release of deadly pathogens, contact with infected lab workers, or the laboratory becoming the target of a terrorist attack can disastrously affect our community as well as the immediately adjacent Roxbury/South end neighborhood. We're asking the Aldermen to sign on to a resolution calling for National Institutes of Health to halt construction of the bio-lab until a more adequate environmental impact review, ordered by the courts, is completed.  Brookline and Cambridge have already done so."

People are invited to give testimony at the meeting about the impact of the bio-lab on our community. Those who wish to speak can sign up when they arrive at City Hall.  There is a three-minute limit on testimony.

Top Ten Reasons To Oppose the BIolab:
www.ace-ej.org/BiolabWeb/Biolabdocs/Ozonofftopten.pdf

Comments

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to hear more about exactly how more restrictive zoning in Boston led to the opposite of what was zoned...

Because zoning doesn't create economic incentives. Really, what it tends to do is just create varying levels of *dis*incentives.

If there's no property zoned for factories, that's another hurdle and another delay and another expense that might drive a potential factory owner away from an area. But zoning a property for factories doesn't mean a factory will miraculously appear - the factory will only happen if the potential owner thinks he can make a profit at it.

Nobody builds anything unless there's some profit in it. If land is heavily encumbered by restrictive zoning, or a long drawn out "community review" process, that may make some potential uses unprofitable, and it adds an element of risk to *any* potential project on that land. Small local owners or builders are less likely to have the capital to navigate those restrictions, and so the land falls to big developers with deep pockets, who can stand to have large amounts of money tied up in the cost of owning the land for years while trying to get through the zoning review process. And every zoning code includes the opportunity for special permit exemptions or variances, which a big, patient developer can pursue, but a small guy probably won't be able to summon the time or expertise to get.

The result in Boston is that the projects that do get built are both fewer and larger - for instance, much of the area around Fenway is zoned for low-rise apartments like the pre-war buildings on Queensberry Street. The newest thing there is the 17-story Trilogy Boston apartments, because between the cost of land, the cost of construction, and the fact that the approvals process is running something like 4 years, that's the scale of project that actually gets pursued.

Your logic is very strange.

It's not about logic, particularly, it's just an observation about how the facts on the ground actually play out, by someone who has actually been involved in the process.

You're welcome to encourage Somerville to zone in favor of any particular cause you like. But you cannot legislate a particular kind of neighborhood into being, and zoning doesn't legislate away the real economic incentives that drive real estate development.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[elibeck.livejournal.com]

The point is that the Green Line extension in Union Square will make it very valuable property -- that is enough of an incentive for developers. Real estate development is driven by profit, not by economic incentives. Though when the industry controls our elected officials they tend to get incentives thrown at them too. This is the perfect situation to use zoning to get what you want. Unfortunately I think the City may want the gentrification of Union Square.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

The Green Line extension will make it very expensive property. People don't build cheap housing on expensive property; they can't recover their costs.

People might indeed buy and develop property now in anticipation of its future value -- but that value (from the developer's perspective) isn't being generated by starving artists. It's being generated by people who want to pay more for use of the property than previously.

As someone who owns a home about a two-minute walk from where the Ball Square T stop would be, of course I hope it happens; my property value would go through the roof. But a Green Line through Union Square is the most powerful engine of gentrification for that area I can imagine. If you don't want to see Union Square gentrify, you should be fighting the Green Line tooth and nail.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[elibeck.livejournal.com]

well lots of the arguments for the green line extension were based on transportation justice, which is absolutely right. unfortunately, if it's
not accompanied with rent control, i agree there may be LOTS of unintended
consequences.

somerville has so many trains coming through here without stopping, so many communities underserved by public transit, so much car pollution, etc.

we really need to invest in public transportation big time, so i have no interest in fighting the green line. i'd much rather see a reemergence of tenant organizing to accompany the green line extension. i'd also really like to see the locally owned independent businesses start to organize.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

This is the perfect situation to use zoning to get what you want.

I think you're either not hearing me, or chosing not to look at the implications.

Zoning will not "get" you what you want. Zoning will not "get" anyone anything. Zoning will outline what you'll claim to allow. It will make proscribed uses of the land slightly less profitable, but it will do very little to make permitted uses of the land more profitable. If the permitted uses of the land weren't profitable in the first place, that land will just wind up as vacant property. Or someone will come in who can muscle through the permitting process long enough to get the variances to put up a luxury high rise.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[elibeck.livejournal.com]

It ain't all about profit, my friend. It's about balancing the community interests with development interests (profit). You can argue all you want that profit leads to investment in the upkeep of property, and that high property values are a only a positive force because it means more tax revenue. But when they price out long-time residents and long-time businesses I'd argue that it's a huge negative force.

Nobody wants vacant property (unless it's open space, which, by the way, we need more of, not less), so the zoning can't be pie-in-the-sky. But to ask developers of 8 or more units to create 15% affordable units is a small step to maintaining some affordability. I'd argue we need rent control to avoid the ultimate gentrification.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Terrific point regarding zoning and project size. The cost to get a project approved in Boston has become so tortured due to akll the levels of zoning review that the legal fees, re-design fees, etc., almost by default require the project itself to be massive enough that such fees (which do not vary all that much in proportion to the size of the project, with some exceptions) represent a small percentage of total cost. So we get big investors and big-ass megablock buildings. Which for the most part are dull and lifeless.

People in the 1950s thought zoning was a magic tool to separate all those noxious factories and slaughterhouses from people's homes (and white people from black people, but that's another story) and what we ended up with is suburban sprawl where by design you have to drive to the store and your place of work from your house. Fortunately, Somerville was built before modern zoning came into existance. If, elibeck, you're thinking that Union Square is a perfect place to get what you want through zoning, I really encourage you to think through the inevitable unintended consequences.

Re: el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Actually, the flaw in the 50's was that zoning patterns developed to be effective in a given situation (rural areas with development issues, mainly, or particular types of residential urban edges, etc) were, willy-nilly, applied as a magic band-aid to other areas such as rapidly growing suburbs, rather than having carefully-considered zoning appropriate to the actual goals of the community implementing it.

Zoning done correctly - ie, with a public process, active consideration of the implications of what's proposed, and so forth - is perhaps the most impressive tool around for actually shaping the patterns of life to promote intended goals. Zoning done poorly, such as much of the 50's zoning you refer to, is a case study in the opposite.

Union Square *is* a perfect opportunity for the City and its residents to shape what they want through zoning. That's what zoning *does*, when it's actually done properly.