Vol. 2, No. 9
September 30, 2002
Dear Readers, There has been so much going on that it's been hard to
find the quiet hours in which to write about what's happening. I do
so now both to inform you of recent events, and to encourage
everyone who has thoughts about the IKEA proposal to put such
thoughts in writing to the Planning Board. That Board's comment
deadline is October 3 at 5:00, but letters before that deadline are
likely to receive better attention. E.mail comments can be directed
to Chairman Kevin Prior at:
planning@ci.somerville.ma.us
I was shocked to see that there are more letters in the file from
residents of Charlestown and Medford expressing concern over IKEA
traffic than from residents of Somerville. Does anyone have any
theories why?
Contents
1) PLANNING BOARD WEIGHS IKEA; COMMENT OPPORTUNITY
As I looked through the file on the IKEA applications for Planned
Unit Development (PUD) Master Plan, and for a Special Permit under
the Assembly Square Interim Planning District, I noticed two or
three citizen letters decrying the "delay" in acting on IKEA's
proposal. I found myself asking, What delay? The application is
date-stamped August 2, 2002. I've seen applications for dormers or
other residential additions that took longer than the IKEA case.
Then I came home and opened my own file on IKEA. Prominent in it was
a press release, dated December 6, 2000, titled "Mayor says no to
IKEA, waterfront site cannot absorb big-box without mixed-use."
Then there were the threats: "IKEA vows to build at Assembly
Square," Somerville Journal 12/14/2000; "IKEA may sit on Somerville
Plans," Somerville Journal 10/18/2001. Then there was 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 before the 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
only open question 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 placed on it by the Planning Board.
Important areas for modification will be these:
A) The Planning Board should require compliance with a definite
schedule for phase construction as a condition of permitting
The feature of the Somerville IKEA project that is so different from
its other stores, and that seemed to be 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 plans for building the mixed-use portion of the project. IKEA states 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?
B) The Planning Board should require IKEA to increase building
presence along street edges, especially the new Main Street.
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.
C. The Planning Board should impose a timetable for the reduction of
parking spaces at IKEA.
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 driving the creation of the 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 requires 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.
D. The Planning Board should require that all necessary traffic
mitigations be planned, designed, and funded in advance of
approvals; should require IKEA to continue to monitor and evaluate
traffic volumes and patterns as the site is developed, and retain
continued jurisdiction over the site in order to require future
mitigations.
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
is 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?
E. The Planning Board should require IKEA to tone down its garish
building colors, and prevent the 'corporate branding' of the water
tower, which is already a landmark.
For details on how to comment, see the newsletter introduction. For
"when," it's, the sooner the better; October 3rd is the deadline.
2) ALDERMEN ADOPT ASSEMBLY SQUARE MAJOR PLAN CHANGE
On Thursday, September 26, the Board of Aldermen voted to accept the
recommendation of the Committee on Housing and Community Development
that the Somerville Redevelopment Authority's (SRA) Major Plan
Change to the 1980 Assembly Square Revitalization Plan.
The Major Plan Change will now be submitted to the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development for
approval.
The Major Plan Change was amended in several places by the Committee
on Housing and Community Development, of which I am vice Chair. The
SRA voted to accept all the committee's amendments, and these will
be reflected in the final plan that goes to the state.
The changes, proposed by me, Alderman White, and Alderman Taylor,
include:
-provision for pedestrian connections between Assembly Square
and East Somerville (the Plan connected Ten Hills with Assembly
Square, but not East Somerville).
-provisions to make any eminent domain takings more fair to existing
businesses, in ways such as requiring the city to formulate a
Relocation Plan for displaced businesses, and to make sure that the
full costs of any takings and relocation are borne by the developers
who will acquire the property, and not by the city's taxpayer's.
(The Administration had taken the position that the law did not
require it to provide a relocation plan for displaced businesses,
and the Plan was open-ended on the subject of costs).
-the addition of a new section on the future direction of the Urban
Renewal Plan. This section acknowledges, to begin with, that the
Major Plan Change is not a Master Plan for Assembly Square, nor a
substitute for a Master Plan, nor is there indeed any Master Plan
for Assembly Square. The new section contains a commitment to
continue the city's planning efforts at Assembly Square, and make
future amendments to the plan in order to bring it more in line with
the Assembly Square Planning Study completed by Steve Cecil and
associates in October, 2000.
The Cecil Study, itself an effort considerably short of a Master
Plan, set forth some modest development goals for Assembly Square.
The Major Plan Change does not incorporate the Cecil Plan and falls
far short of it in scope and ambition, simply setting forth the
three largest private development proposals for Assembly Square: the
proposed new Home Depot on the Mall site, IKEA, and Yard 21. I am
profoundly disappointed in the Major Plan Change, and will at a
later time explain more about why it holds so little promise for
Somerville, and how it could be improved by further amendments in
the future.
3) COURT DECIDES APPEAL OF HOME DEPOT PERMIT
On Wednesday, September 25, Judge Stephen Neel of the Superior Court
issued his written decision in the appeal of the Planning's Board's
grant of a Special Permit for demolition of the old Assembly Square
Mall and the construction of a new, 173,697 square foot Home Depot
store on the site. That lawsuit, brought by Somerville homeowner
Louanna Evarts against the Planning Board and the Assembly Square
Limited Partnership, the mall's owner, charged that the Planning
Board violated the city's Zoning Ordinance by granting the Special
Permit instead of requiring the Home Depot to meet the higher
application standards of a Special Permit with Site Plan Review.
The court agreed with appellant Evarts that Special permit with Site
Plan Review was indeed required for this project. The case has been
remanded - that is, sent back - to the Planning Board for
reconsideration in light of the court's decision. I will try to get
a copy of that decision in electronic form, to forward to any reader
who requests it.
copyright 2002 Denise Provost
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