Kevin Prior, Chairman
Somerville Planning Board
93 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MA 02143
October 3, 2002
The Planning Board should condition this project on the following:
First of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to study the
IKEA Special Permit application and to comment upon it.
Looking through the file on the IKEA applications I noticed two or
three citizen letters decrying the "delay" in acting on IKEA's
proposal. I found myself wondering, What delay? The application is
date-stamped August 2, 2002; I've seen applications for residential
additions that took longer than the IKEA case has done so far. I
hope that the public will appreciate the enormity of this project,
and the relative expeditiousness with which it is being handled.
When I reviewed my own file on IKEA, I saw in it a press release,
dated December 6, 2000, and titled "Mayor says no to IKEA,
waterfront site cannot absorb big-box without mixed-use." This
announcement was followed by threats in the press: "IKEA vows to
build at Assembly Square," Somerville Journal 12/14/2000; "IKEA may
sit on Somerville Plans," Somerville Journal 10/18/2001. Then came
the pressure: mass mailings from IKEA, editorials like "Come to an
agreement with IKEA," Somerville Journal 10/18/2001. The Mayor has
since made her agreement with IKEA, and the matter is now,
thankfully, before the independent and non-political Planning
Board.
The Planning Board has the opportunity to take its own fresh look
at IKEA's huge, complex proposal. Yet it must do so within the
context of the Mayor's Memorandum of Agreement with IKEA, and of an
outpouring of support for the project from the press, and from a
significant segment of the public, including the Somerville Chamber
of Commerce and the Boston Building Trades Council. It seems fair
to assume that this project will get its permits to go forward. The
important question now is what conditions will be attached.
There are certainly good things in IKEA's bold and ambitious
proposal, as modified through its negotiations with the Mayor. The
placing of so much of IKEA's parking underground was an important
improvement. The dedication of public open space along the Mystic
River could be a real gain for the people of Somerville. The degree
of public benefit realized by this project is now going to be
determined by the conditions which you place on it
If you do decide to approve IKEA's pending applications for a
Planned Unit Development (PUD) Master Plan, and for a Special
Permit under the Assembly Square Interim Planning District, I urge
you to do so subject to the following conditions:
The feature of the Somerville IKEA project that is so different
from its other stores, and that seems to have been the main
sticking point in the Mayor's negotiations with the retailer, was
the introduction of mixed use to the site. The full build out of
the site calls for two office buildings (88,000 sq. ft.),
additional restaurants (24,300 sq. ft.), and other retail uses
(5,300 sq. ft.), as well as an additional parking structure. It is
the mixed-use component of the project that creates the chief tax
benefit from the site, boosts employment figures, and introduces
the kinds of use that support transit by generating fewer vehicle
trips per day.
Yet there is no time frame in IKEA's Special Permit applications
for building the mixed-use portion of the project. IKEA states that
its plans for building these components will be "as dictated by
market conditions." "Phase 1" of the project, the only part that
IKEA is committed to building now, consists of the 277,000 sq. ft.
retail store, surface and below grade parking, the latter topped of
with new open space.
"Phase 1" is not mixed use, but it's all the city may get if it
allows the developer's timetable to be dictated by "market
conditions" and not conditions set down by the Planning Board. The
zoning for Assembly Square dictates a mixed-use to retail ratio for
new construction. If IKEA can circumvent these requirements with
merely a promise, how will the city ever enforce compliance?
Article 16 of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance, governing Planned
Unit Development, does not address phasing directly. Section
6.4.6.2. of the IPD zoning ordinance states that "[a]n IPD Special
Permit shall continue in full force and effect if the first phase
of a phased project is commenced within two (2) years of issuance
and subsequent phases are commenced pursuant to the terms of the
IPD Special Permit. (emphasis added) It seems clear that the
Planning Board is not only authorized to, but expected to, lay down
a schedule for phase construction. The interesting question: what
happens if the IPD Special Permit lapses after construction of the
first phase for failure to commence subsequent phases? This seems
a worthwhile subject to discuss with your legal counsel.
Ultimately, flexibility and creativity will be key to establishing
mixed use on the site. For instance, there could be discussions now
with the Massachusetts Department of Education to custom-build
office space on the IKEA site needed to replace the Department's
outgrown rented quarters in Malden. Such a relocation could help
push the Orange Line stop closer to reality. From an urban planning
perspective, however, it is more important that some mix of use be
introduced than that the nature of that use be office use per se.
If the market will not support office construction, a switch to
residential construction could be in order. Residential development
was an element of Steve Cecil's Emeryville, CA-based model for
Assembly Square, and the mix of retail and residential use appears
to be a growing national trend, as documented in the February 21,
2002 New York Times piece attached as Exhibit A. The introduction
of a residential component not only mixes use, but creates a 24-hour district, one of the Assembly Square Planning Study goals
embodied in the interim zoning.
It would seem that IKEA must introduce mixed use into its project
on a definite timetable in order to comply with section 6.4.5 of
the Assembly Square IPD zoning. That section requires 1.5 square
feet of non-retail use for every square foot of new retail use over
100,000 square feet. It is not clear that the project meets this
threshold now, even assuming all phases are built.
The number of square feet over 100,000 would seem to be 177,000;
multiplied by 1.5 yields 265,500 square feet. Does this project
meet this requirement? I would ask the Board to ensure compliance
with this section, and to exclude such mandatory features of the
project as required parking and required landscaping/open space
from contributing to the "1.5 square feet of non-retail use."
Section 6.4.6.6.2.a. of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance requires
that buildings in the Assembly Square Interim Planning District "be
located to create a presence on existing street edges or along
major internal circulation routes," with fairly minimal setbacks,
to "enhance the pedestrian friendly experience of the Assembly
Square IPD...." Yet the main IKEA building fronts on internal,
private "IKEA Way," and not on the new Main Street identified in
Steve Cecil's Assembly Square Planning Study as crucial to the
viability of the district. The surface parking lot, which is the
maximum block size for the district, is devoid of street-edge life.
The IKEA project lies between the future Orange Line stop and the
Mystic River, with its riverside open space. The basic
configuration of this project needs to be settled now if
pedestrians are to have any significant access to IKEA or to its
much-touted open space, or to the district as a whole. It is
crucial that the IKEA segment of Assembly Square make pedestrians
feel safe, at minimum, and engaged in an active street life, if we
are to have the lively, diverse, 24-hour district that Somerville
aspires to create. See also ASIPD sec.6.4.6.4.2., subsections
f,h,i,and j; and sec. 6.4.6.4.5 regarding continuous pedestrian
connections.
The attached Exhibit B depicting a Wal-Mart development in Florida
illustrates exactly how IKEA should be located to any main
thoroughfare, preferably to Main Street. Store frontage on the Main
Street of Assembly Square is optimal. If the store is to front IKEA
Way instead of Main Street, then the parking lot between IKEA Way
and Main Street needs buildings along the street edge, as shown in
the diagram.
Pedestrians need a significant building edge along any way if they
are to use it by choice. Partly this phenomenon is based in
instinctive and rational human perceptions of safety, partly with
perceptions of comfort - e.g., how far must I walk before I can buy
a cup of coffee, find a toilet, take shelter from the weather?
Finally, the human species is well known to respond positively to
other [friendly, interesting] humans, and signs of human culture,
such as building fronts, window displays, art or monuments, and the
like.
People do not enjoy long treks between oncoming traffic and parked
cars. Even if the parking areas are edged with the obligatory
margin of grass and trees, such trips are more in the nature of a
forced march. ( See, e.g., attached Exhibit C). Assembly Square
aspires to attract - and needs to attract - the kind of place-motivated walking one finds in downtown Boston or in Davis Square.
To attract real urban use, Assembly Square will need real urban
blocks, like those of Boston or Davis Square. These need to be laid
out now, even if they are to be fully built later.
I would ask the Board to weigh heavily in their deliberations the
text of Section 16.7.h of the SZO, regarding PUDs, that "PUD block
sides should reflect average city block size of Somerville, to
maximize a pedestrian-friendly scale in the street grid...;" also
sec. 16.7.k.: "PUDs should maximize pedestrian transit-oriented
development. Specifically they should use "traffic calming"
techniques liberally; provide networks for pedestrians as good as
the network for motorists; provide pedestrians and bicyclists with
shortcuts and alternatives to travel along high-volume streets, and
emphasize safe and direct pedestrian connections to transit stops
and other commercial and/or employment nodes; ... provide well-lit
transit shelters; incorporate transit-oriented design features,
etc." (emphasis added)
As a sort of footnote to this section, I should mention that I
share Traffic and Parking Commissioner Lyons' reservation about the
use of "woonerfs" as appropriate pedestrian passageways. In Europe,
motorists may well be used to sharing public ways amicably with
pedestrians. There is no such established culture here, and I would
hesitate to begin to experiment with human bodies as de facto
traffic calming devices at Assembly Square.
Constituents have pointed out to me that the only present transit
link to Assembly is the geographically limited, notoriously
infrequent #90 bus. Even if an Orange Line stop is created, they
have argued, it will be primarily useful to people coming from
north and south of Somerville. People in Somerville will still have
difficulty reaching Assembly Square.
As you may be aware, the City of Cambridge required the developers
of the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall to provide free, frequent (every
10 minutes) shuttle bus service between that mall and the Red Line
stop in Kendall Square, despite that mall's location right by
Lechmere station on the Green Line, and despite its abundant,
subsidized parking. In the absence of an Orange Line stop, or any
other plausible public transit link to the site, IKEA should be
providing its own shuttle bus, perhaps to and from Lechmere
station, where riders of the Green Line and Somerville users of the
#69,80,87, and 88 MBTA buses can make a connection to IKEA at
Assembly Square. Otherwise, the site is destined to be almost
entirely automobile-dependent, increasing congestion and using up
the limited roadway capacity to and within the site.
The City's Director of Traffic and Parking, William Lyons, in his
20 page letter commenting on the traffic impacts of the IKEA, notes
that "it would be anticipated that these parking requirements would
be reduced at some point when an Orange Line MBTA stop is
constructed in close proximity to the site." (p.13) The best move
that Somerville could make toward justifying the creation of an
Orange Line stop is to reduce the parking ratios at Assembly Square
in the direction of the urban ratios in Boston and Cambridge.
The Planning Board should require that parking spaces be replaced
by buildings on a definite schedule, just as it requires that IKEA
add its mixed-use phases on a definite schedule. Doing so will push
the transit trip volumes to a point that the state will be
compelled to provide transit stops. As things stand, the
transportation bureaucracy can easily argue that the heavy highway
orientation and vast parking capacity of Assembly Square obviate
the need for transit investment.
It is easy to get lost in the details of the IKEA traffic data, so
I will stick to the major themes: Executive Office of Secretary
Durand, in his Feb. 1, 2002 Certificate, stated that "[E]ven under
the most conservative estimates, traffic will increase
substantially in and around the Assembly Square area, further
burdening the existing infrastructure, and resulting in increased
traffic congestion and air quality degradation." Rizzo Associates,
the city's transportation` consultants for Assembly Square, and
Bill Lyons, in his 20 page comments, have asked IKEA for additional
information, have pinpointed intersections at which already-poor
level of service will drop, and have made numerous, specific,
mitigation suggestions.
It is interesting to me that the Lyons letter disputes IKEA's
suggestion that certain needed improvements will be made by the
state as part of the Central Artery Project. For although Lyons
also disputes IKEA's assignment of "more than 30% of the site-generated traffic to each of the I-93 approaches to the site," it
seems clear that much traffic will arrive from I-93, and it is well
known that the site's on and off connection with I-93 are poor.
What will it cost to upgrade those connections to an acceptable
level? Since it unlikely that the state will fund this work, will
IKEA do it? How can we protect Somerville from being caught in the
middle between the state and IKEA on this one? Continuing
jurisdiction over the whole project is more than warranted here.
I think Bill Lyons is correct that local roads will bear more of
the trip burden than IKEA's analysis suggests. Whichever scenario
plays out - and it is likely that it will be some of both,
congestion on local roads and I-93, as Secretary Durand predicts -
how do we make sure that either IKEA or the state will address the
problem, and not add to Somerville's already disproportionate
traffic burden? It seems evident that the Planning Board must
retain the power to require IKEA to provide ongoing traffic
mitigation if necessary.
Candor must compel all of us to acknowledge that IKEA does not have
a great track record with respect to managing its high volumes of
vehicular traffic, and its congestion. It may be possible to
mitigate the traffic load to a tolerable level, but we know that we
must do so on a site which is surrounded by water on two sides,
which has poor existing connections to I-93, and which has tenuous
and tricky access to and from a state road (Route 28) which is
already operating close to capacity, and includes several dangerous
intersections.
These traffic volumes and impacts could translate into serious
impacts on the enjoyment and value of Somerville residential
properties. To give some idea of how such impacts may be
quantified, I submit as Exhibit D a paper prepared by economist and
specialist in urban economic development Dr. Elloit Sclar, of
Columbia University. The Planning Board of New Rochelle, NY,
received this paper in evidence in considering IKEA's application
to locate in that city.
For details on how and why modification of standard corporate
visual design should be modified, see the attached Exhibit E, from
the Boston Sunday Globe Real Estate section, June 30, 2002, "Signs
of Change."
Thank you for your consideration of these admittedly lengthy
comments. I have made them as brief as I feel the importance of
this project allows.
Respectfully submitted,
Denise Provost
Alderman-at-Large