New Zoning Adopted; Local Activists Oppose Decision

SOMERVILLE, MA-After months of wrangling, this city finally came up with a zoning plan for Assembly Square. The new plan has been greeted with opposition from local citizen’s groups who object to the inclusion of so-called big-Box stores.

Three different proposals were submitted to the city’s Board of Alderman late last fall for the 145-acre site. The administration of Somerville Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay had proposed one of the plans while at-large Alderman Denise Provost and a citizen’s group, Mystic View Task Force, proposed the other two. While the latter two criticized the mayor’s plan as too lax, especially with regard to big-box stores, most developers have called Provost’s and the Task Force’s proposals too restrictive.

The final plan, which is called the Assembly Square Interim Planning District ordinance, stipulates that large new projects must contain mixed-use development and will have more stringent open space and design guidelines than other projects. These guidelines will be created by a Design Review Committee, which will also implement them. Block sizes will be limited to between 3.5 to 4.5 acres unless there are extenuating circumstances.”Big Box” stores, which are single use stores over 100,000 sf, will need to include one and a half sf of nonretail use for every sf over 100,000 sf. These large new developments will also need to create traffic plans.