Somerville needs more housing and more staff with living wages. Willie Burnley Jr. is the best choice for mayor to solve these problems.
In the Somerville Yimby group survey this summer, we asked candidates: “Our neighbors in Cambridge have updated their zoning to allow residential buildings of up to four stories citywide – six if they include affordable housing at Somerville’s 20 percent level. Would you support a similar change that would legalize buildings of up to six stories by right (without special permits) citywide?”
Burnley was the only mayoral candidate to say yes. He said, “I would support such a measure. That said, I would look for a way to prioritize this development in neighborhoods that are not as dense. East Somerville and Union Square shouldn’t be the only neighborhoods to be impacted by this.”
The other mayoral candidates effectively said no. They lack the boldness to solve our housing crisis.
There has been some discussion about building more housing mainly near our T stations, referred to as “transit-oriented” development. By allowing builders to build more homes near transit, more people can enjoy public transit, which the state has invested with millions of dollars. We support this, too!
About 83 percent of of Somerville is within a half-mile of a T station. About 99 percent of Somerville is less than three-quarters of a mile from a T station. As we see it, citywide upzoning is transit-oriented development because all of Somerville is transit-oriented. Therefore, any candidate seriously advocating for transit-oriented development in a subset of Somerville should specify the number of stories and radius of the proposal they would support. We invite all candidates to define their version.
Separately, although we like the recent ordinance that makes it easier to build accessory dwelling units (small homes in backyards) and triple-deckers, it has led to only a small amount of new homes. In this housing shortage, we need bigger changes. Burnley’s collaboration with councilor Ben Ewen-Campen on removing parking minimums proves that he’ll continue to look for bold policy changes that make it easier to build badly needed homes, and also mitigate traffic by reducing the number of additional cars coming to Somerville.
As the only renter in the mayoral race, Burnley also takes displacement seriously. In 2022, he was the only councilor to file the amendment to update our Housing Stability Notification Act. Thanks to his leadership, the city now requires all landlords to notify tenants of their rights in the tenant’s language shortly after starting a lease. He also led the charge inside and worked with elected officials outside Somerville to push the state to ban tenant-paid broker fees, an improvement that became state law this month.
Furthermore, Burnley is the only mayoral candidate to propose starting an Office of Social Housing. This Office would buy or build housing, using profits from market-rate homes to pay for subsidized affordable ones. Montgomery County, Maryland, has already built hundreds of mixed-income homes in the past few years in a similar program, and Seattle approved a social housing program this past February. Closer to home, the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition published an essay asking Cambridge to create a revolving loan fund for social housing. Burnley’s social housing initiative is a big and proven way to fight displacement.
Building more housing will require more city staff, treated with dignity and paid living wages. Burnley has stood by our workers. In June 2024, the Somerville Municipal Employees Union had been out of a contract for two years, all during the administration of mayor Katjana Ballantyne. The union asked for raises to be competitive with comparable cities. Ballantyne’s administration failed continually to meet this demand. During the June 2024 budget process, however, Ballantyne proposed salary increases for her administrative staff. For example, she proposed increasing the salary for Lammis Vargas, the chief administrative officer and current Rhode Island state senator to $185,466 from $177,554. To protest this inequity, the union asked the City Council to freeze these administrative salaries. Burnley and four other councilors voted for this proposal, but Jake Wilson and the remaining five voted it down.
Burnley has the vision, the collaborative skills and the moral compass to fight our housing shortage and build the city capacity to get it done. Vote for Willie Burnley Jr. on Tuesday.
Jeff Byrnes, Laura Evans, Joshua Michel and Aaron Webster, steering; and Daniel Wong, Ashish Shrestha, Crystal M. Huff, Ben Lappen, Beatrix Klebe, Elaine Almquist, Peter Kim-Santos, Anna Rusnak and Cole Rainey-Slavick
The signers are members of Somerville Yimby (Yes, in Our Back Yard)
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