Despite significant changes to its original design, a proposed expansion at 151 Linwood St. by U-Haul heard significant grievances from neighbors and residents of the Brickbottom neighborhood at the project’s first neighborhood meeting Tuesday.
Though sparsely attended with less than 20 community members, the hourlong meeting saw a majority of its time marked by skepticism and criticism from neighbors and Ward 2 councilor J.T. Scott.
The proposed design would reach 55 feet at four stories. U-Haul attorney Kelly Morris Salvatore noted at the beginning of the meeting that the design would better accommodate the region’s busy moving seasons – 64 percent of Somerville homes are rented, according to Census data, and Cambridge has about the same percentage – and allow more interior storage units. The design represents another expansion in the Inner Belt neighborhood, which is seeing increased density and significant changes with projects such as the double-high-rise at 200 McGrath Highway and the grounding of McGrath Highway.
“With the focus on housing development in local communities around the state, including Somerville, particularly multifamily development, U-Haul is excited to provide an updated facility where those living in smaller dwelling units have convenient nearby storage as we find is needed and welcomed by residents,” Salvatore said.
Salvatore highlighted that in the new design, most loading, unloading and storage would take place indoors, and all activities would take place within the parcel instead of on pedestrian walkways. “Most of the rental trucks will be stored indoors in an orderly and organized fashion. Loading activity will no longer take place encroaching in the public right of way, which it does presently. We’ve added significant landscaping with shade trees, outdoor bike storage and an area for bench seating,” Salvatore said. Street parking, she said, was also eliminated.
U-Haul representative George White called the current redesign an “investment in the community.”
The site would include native plantings as part of its plans, and the city has designated which plants should go there, said Nicole Langley, a project engineer.
This is the second proposal by U-Haul, with the first coming in 2022. Records indicate that the Zoning Board of Appeals was prepared to kill that version; U-Haul asked to withdraw the application instead, and the ZBA accepted.
The original application included 14 hardship variances, one of which included a building height of six stories at 65 feet – exceeding the maximum stories and height for the site’s zoning, Salvatore said. (A previous iteration of the redevelopment from 2022 included a dozen variances for a design of 75 feet with six stories.) Other variances in the original application included loading zones that would have encroached on pedestrian walkways near the building, a main entrance within the parking lot and closer than allowed “curb cuts” – vehicle entrances – to the site. The current proposal includes only one variance for curb cuts, on Joy Street.
Using the public way
Community members and Scott remained skeptical that a larger facility would address their grievances, whatever the reduction in variances. The meeting was marked by community members airing issues with the design and their skepticism of U-Haul over current practices, while U-Haul representatives insisted that a larger building answered the problems by filling the gap between the building’s operating capacity and how much it is used.
One of the first comments summarized a major neighborhood complaint: U-Box storage containers taking up the street. She asked whether U-Haul would stop using the sidewalk on Joy Street to store the boxes and Langley repeated that it was the main purpose of the design – so all operations, as White described them, could be “internalized.”
Scott expressed particular irritation at U-Haul’s leaving U-Boxes on the street while proposing the larger building as a solution: “You’re saying right now your plan is just to continue to leave those boxes on the street and to operate the forklifts out there and that you need a bigger building before you will stop violating the law? Is that what I understood you to say?” U-Haul representatives denied knowing their actions were illegal, and said they would stop immediately.
Councilor’s experience
Businesses and neighbors called to complain about U-Haul’s operations frequently, Scott said, including about trash left around the site. “I do get calls all the time, not just from residents and Brickbottom, but also your business neighbors, complaining about the activities at your site and, of course, storing these things in public ways and all the refuse that gets discarded.”
Scott further noted that, despite U-Haul promising to address issues that its customers cause, such as mattresses left in front of a property, he had experience with U-Haul not addressing a complaint of his own brought to their attention. “It just doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence,” he said.
In an email, Scott made it clear that he believed these ongoing issues were an issue with the management of the site, not the built environment: “The residents and neighboring businesses in the area have long-standing and understandable grievances with the operation of U-Haul at 151 Linwood which do not pertain in any way to the construction of their current building; that leads me to attribute the problems to a management failure rather than a structural issue that can be resolved with a zoning variance.”
Some positivity
Still, one commenter, a Brickbottom resident, expressed appreciation that U-Haul had so drastically changed the design. “It’s clear this is a massive improvement on what was originally proposed,” she said
Salvatore, the lawyer for U-Haul, agreed, and despite the criticism remained steadfast: “U-Haul has been listening to the neighbors and the city and, like I said, they’ve changed everything about this to make sure they meet all the requirements of the city except for that one variance.”
The project is slated to be reviewed by Somerville’s Urban Design Commission, followed by another neighborhood meeting, a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance and site plan approval.
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