A question around whether to build taller to add housing, even on Somerville’s biggest streets and near mass transit hubs, provided some disagreement Wednesday at a largely agreeable City Council candidate forum held by the activist coalition Somerville Stands Together.
It was the first forum for for the City Council’s four at-large seats since September’s preliminary election, held to narrow the field of 12 seeking the seats to eight.
In descending order, incumbent Will Mbah, Ben Wheeler, incumbent Kristen Strezo, Jon Link, Marianne Walles, Jack Perenick, Holly Simione and Scott Istvan won the most votes and will advance to November’s general election. Not appearing on the Nov. 4 ballot are Christopher Ryan Spicer, Justin Klekota, Ari Iaccarino and Tuesday Thomas, who also sought the position in the preliminary.
The eight continuing candidates appeared on Zoom with moderators Diane Wong and Rodrigo Badaro, who asked candidates to share their plans for housing, schools, immigration, budgets, and labor, directing each question to a selection of candidates.
Disagreement on upzoning
Several questions focused on housing. Link and Istvan said that they want to increase affordable housing through upzoning along major corridors, which Link said that he’d pair with density bonuses. Density bonuses allow developers to build structures with more housing units – usually by adding floors – in exchange for meeting certain criteria. Somerville’s Zoning Ordinance permits increased density in some districts when environmental standards are met.
Simione cautioned against upzoning. “The more that we allow large investors to build tall, regardless if it’s near transportation, we will continue to build 80 percent market, or as I like to call it, luxury homes,” she said, citing people moving into Somerville who are not looking for affordable housing.
Instead, the city should look into lowering costs for small homeowners, Simione said. “Being a homeowner myself, our real estate taxes are crazy, and that’s another reason why many of us end up leaving,” she continued.
To increase affordable housing stock, Mbah and Link promoted the Somerville Community Land Trust, an independent nonprofit that buys properties and rents or sells them as affordable units.
Candidates noted throughout the forum how housing intersects with other issues, including climate. When candidates were asked about their top climate goals, Wheeler said that building more housing close to transit would increase affordability and limit vehicle use, which would reduce emissions, limit traffic and improve street safety.
“For me, climate and affordability really go hand in hand,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler, Simione, and Perenick said Somerville needs more green space and trees. Perenick also called for enforcement of the city’s native plants ordinance, which was passed in 2021, and for infrastructure resilient to flooding.
Perenick and Strezo recommended depaving initiatives, which Perenick agreed would reduce heat. Simione cited building tall and dense as a cause of heat trapping and limited green space.
Strezo also called for sound barriers along Interstate 93, more neighborhood electrification and the use of community benefit agreements to incentivize use of public transit.
Agreement on labor, staffing
Candidates were united in support for project labor agreements, documents that set terms for union labor in development projects. Istvan, Mbah, Perenick and Simione, all supported requiring them in some fashion.
They should be “standard on large projects” and the Planning Board could enforce their adoption, Istvan said, and Mbah agreed. Simione called for an ordinance requiring the agreements for projects above a certain threshold.
Perenick said that he supports PLAs “in every project possible” and that he would withhold his vote on zoning changes “until we get them on projects that we know we can build with union labor.”
Candidate agreed that prevailing wages – the minimum hourly wage for people working on public projects, regardless of whether they’re publicly or privately employed – are nonnegotiable.
Candidates also generally agreed on a need for more city staff, and mentioned some specifics: Walles said schools need to be fully staffed; Strezo said she wants a seniors’ liaison. Full staffing is also needed to enforce the city’s wage theft ordinance, Walles and Link said.
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I have to admit I’m surprised to see Simione advocate for such a regressive policy as blocking new rental housing and simultaneously lowering taxes for homeowners.
Blocking new construction would increase the value of existing properties (including the one owned by Simione) while raising prices for renters.
And of course, lower taxes for homeowners is a policy that benefits people who own homes, who are generally wealthier than the average Somerville resident (2/3 of our residents are renters, after all).
Those two policies combined would be a significant use of the city’s power to benefit landowners and landlords at the expense of renters.