Union Square Housing Project Approved

The Somerville Planning Board Thursday night approved plans for a controversial mixed-income housing project in Union Square.

The Planning Board voted 4-1 in favor of the proposal, a joint venture between the Somerville Community Corporation, which builds affordable housing, and Cathartes Private Investments, a private real estate firm.

James Kirylo was the lone Planning Board member to vote against the proposal, saying he thought the project was too large, even after developers made last-minute changes to their plans to make the scale of the project smaller and more palatable for the Planning Board.

Originally an 84-unit, five-story proposal—with 40 units to be built by the Somerville Community Corporation as affordable housing and 44 units to be built by Cathartes as a market-rate development—the developers made a number of changes in the week leading up to Thursday's meeting in an attempt gain support from the Planning Board.

The proposal approved Thursday would include 10 fewer units: 35-units of affordable apartments built by the Somerville Community Corporation and a 39-unit market-rate apartment complex built by Cathartes. Due to Somerville's affordable housing laws, five of the 39 Cathartes apartments would also be affordable.

Last-minute changes to the plans also included lowering the height of the building to about four-and-a-half stories, adding planters on the roof and creating more green space along the street.

By decreasing the number of units, the developers no longer needed a special exemption for its 86 parking spaces, which under the previous proposal wasn't enough spaces.

The project is planned for 181 and 197 Washington St., at the sites of the former Boys & Girls Club and the Cota Struzziero McKenna Funeral Home.

Many neighbors opposed the proposal, saying it was too tall and big.

One of the Planning Board members who voted in favor of the proposal scolded the developers for not paying enough attention to neighbors' concerns. "I'm not congratulating you on the process; I'm congratulating you on actually doing what we asked and what the neighborhood asked," said Michael A. Capuano.

Kevin Prior, chair of the Planning Board, said something similar. "We finally have something that should have come before us in the first place," he said.

Capuano supported the project, saying, "You've knocked off 10 units [and] you've knocked off half the fifth floor."

"One-hundred percent of the people are not going to be happy one-hundred percent of the time," he said.

Reactions

After the vote, there was a short outburst of cheering and boos from supporters and opponents who attended the meeting at City Hall.

Sam Millen, an opponent, said he and neighbors are "certainly" considering a legal challenge to the decision. "The subject has been broached more than once," he said.

Once the Planning Board officially files its decision—which it has 14 days to do, though typically it doesn't take that long—opponents will have 20 days to appeal the decision. If they appeal, the matter will go land court.

"The real failure here goes well beyond this project," Millen said. "We're going to be having a discussion about the failure of the process, the failure of the zoning."

Parts of Union Square were rezoned in 2009 to allow for larger development. Millen said he and neighbors opposed the zoning changes at the time, and they still do.

This particular project was the subject of numerous community meetings, with some neighbors opposing it from the beginning.

Supporters of the project were pleased by Thursday's vote.

Andrea Shapiro, who lives in the neighborhood, said she was "happy that some compromise was reached, happy for the community and the neighborhood."

Marga Hutcheson, who lives close to the project, said she was "happy" about the decision.

Shapiro said "it would be disappointing if the project failed" due to a legal challenge. Another project would likely be proposed at the site, which "could be more detrimental to the neighborhood," she said.

Shaina Korman-Houston, a project manager with the Somerville Community Corporation, said her organization would now apply for special affordable-housing funding for its part of the project. If all goes well, they could be breaking ground in summer of 2014, she said. Cathartes will seek financing for its half of the project and could break ground in spring of 2014, she said.