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Car culture is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness, usually connected to visions of freedom while driving down a wide open road, or the adventure of a road trip. But most car travel is not that. It’s driving to and from work. It’s going shopping or shepherding children between activities. It’s a chore. We tend to regard driving as a personal preference, but our transportation choices are heavily shaped by housing and land use policies.

Somerville YIMBY is pleased to announce the following endorsements for Massachusetts House and Senate elections. There are multiple strong candidates in many of these contests, and these were not e…

This week, City Council passed a Somerville YIMBY-sponsored amendment to relax rules on building dormers in roofs. It took two years to get to this point, and we expect that we’ll begin to see the …

Policy newsletter Pencilling Out recently tackled a question that comes up constantly in Somerville: does building more studios and one-bedrooms actually help families find larger apartments, even if families aren't moving into those new units? Readers won’t be surprised to hear that the answer is yes: people who live in those studios would otherwise split larger apartments, so new studios free up larger units in other buildings.

Marblehead has been in the news recently for passing a much-delayed and toothless plan to comply with the MBTA Communities Act. As a reminder, the MBTA Communities Act, also known as Section 3A, is a state law that requires communities served by the T to legalize at least some multifamily housing. Marblehead, having missed several deadlines, finally complied this month by changing the zoning of a tony golf course to allow multifamily housing.

The following is a letter we sent to the Somerville City Council and the Somerville Redevelopment Authority on May 8, 2026 regarding the request for proposals for redevelopment of 90 Washington Street. To City Councilors and Somerville Redevelopment Authority members: At 90 Washington Street, the City of Somerville has acquired a rare opportunity: four under-built acres a short walk from a Green Line station. The city has received two proposals to make the site better for the city. One, from Wood Partners, proposes 300 new homes and 600 aboveground parking spots.

Everyone knows that the single biggest factor in the price of a home is its location. A home in Somerville costs more than a similar one in Lowell, for example, and a home near Davis Square is more valuable than a similar one right next to I-93. The price for a location reflects its desirability. If we want to build homes where people want to live, we need to understand what kind of upzoning will help us reach that goal.

Building housing is a business. Both non-profit or for-profit builders need to make some money to keep the operations going and get to the next project. To estimate whether a project is economically viable, they all use a document called a pro forma. It can get quite complicated, but at the simplest, it’s a spreadsheet that compares costs against revenue. Housing Construction Site at 24 Webster Ave There are two kinds of costs: hard costs (land, labor, and materials) and soft costs (mostly fees and interest). There is one main revenue stream: rents or sale proceeds.

.bh__table, .bh__table_header, .bh__table_cell { border: 1px solid #C0C0C0; } .bh__table_cell { padding: 5px; background-color: #FFFFFF; } .bh__table_cell p { color: #2D2D2D; font-family: 'Helvetica',Arial,sans-serif !important; overflow-wrap: break-word; } .bh__table_header { padding: 5px; background-color:#F1F1F1; } .bh__table_header p { color: #2A2A2A; font-family:'Trebuchet MS','Lucida Grande',Tahoma,sans-serif !important; overflow-wrap: break-word; } Building housing is a business. Both non-profit or for-profit builders need to make some money to keep the operations going and get to the next project.

Write In to Support Dormer Reform We presented our dormer amendment to a joint hearing of the Land Use Committee and the Planning Board on the 16th, and public comment is open until noon on May 1. If you were haven’t already, please write to publiccomments@somervillema.gov in support of file item 26-0287, the pro-dormer amendment. It doesn’t have to be long!

What makes a home affordable? The government definition is that it costs less than 30% of your income to live there. If you pay more, as about a third of households in Somerville do, you’re considered “cost burdened.” There are two ways to reach affordability: subsidies, and finding a bargain on the open market. When we talk about Affordable housing with a capital A, we’re talking about subsidies.

Elections for the Davis Square Neighborhood Council board will take place April 13 through April 27, 2026. If you live, work, or receive services in or near Davis Square, you may be eligible to vote, and your vote will have a critical impact on the future of the neighborhood. In particular, we’d like to request your support for Somerville YIMBY members: …

Let’s start with a question: Which of these do you think built more new Affordable Housing in Somerville in the last 10 years? All our non-profits combined US2, the for-profit developers of Union Square Before we answer, let’s take a look at how much we Affordable Housing we have and how we actually get it built. There two main ways to make housing into capital-letters Affordable Housing in Somerville: subsidized homes and vouchers.

April is National Fair Housing Month, in honor of the 1968 passage of the Fair Housing Act. Somerville will host a number of events celebrating the month, including a screening of the documentary Segregated By Design followed by conversation around fair housing and discrimination in the city. Check out our event listings below for a variety of other events! Davis Square Update…

Building new homes is absolutely critical, but it’s also expensive. Just a few years ago, the Globe estimated that multifamily buildings cost at least $600,000 per home, and a 100% affordable building that just broke ground in Union Square will cost more than $800,000 per home! If we don’t want to pay for construction ourselves, we need businesses to do it.

Last week, Copper Mill hosted a new meeting about their proposed 500-home mixed-use apartment building in Davis Square. With a capacity crowd at the Crystal Ballroom and hundreds more attendees viewing online, CEO Andrew Flynn laid out some new and familiar information about the proposal, including:  A commitment to union labor 25% of the apartments set aside as subsidized , up from the 20% city minimum…

Have you ever wanted to add a home or workspace to your back yard? Well a Backyard Cottage might be for you! It is intended as a way to gently add a little more density to our city in a way that is not visible to most people. However, Backyard Cottages (with capital letters because they have a specific definition in the zoning code) have been a surprisingly contentious issue since they were originally allowed in 2019.

On March 12, Just-A-Start and the Somerville Community Land Trust will host a meeting for neighbors to discuss their plans to build a fully affordable building at 297 Medford Street in Gilman Square. They’ll go over the design and project timeline and answer questions from neighbors. If you live nearby, join them at 6:00 pm, in person in the cafeteria at Somerville High School.

Have you had a landlord ask you to do something they’re supposed to handle, like shoveling snow or dealing with a rat infestation? Have they ever dragged their feet on important repairs or charged illegal fees? Have you ever shaken your fist and then given up because, although you’re in the right, you don’t have any leverage? In Somerville, both you and your landlord know two things: it would be hard for you to find a new apartment, and it would be easy for them to find a new tenant.

We have two pieces of very promising news about affordable housing for you. First, Just-A-Start has secured financing and begun construction work on their 24 Webster Avenue project, which will create 43 deeply affordable rental homes in a 6-story building. That’s a real victory, but it’s taken a long time to get here, and the price is astronomical: about $837,000 per home.

Over the last 50 years, Massachusetts has focused on high-income job creation. It started with the “Massachusetts Miracle” and continued with the growth of Kendall Square as a technology hub. The latest addition to our “brain factory” has been the boom in biotechnology and the lab space that has come with it. Somerville, too, has joined to feed the demand for industries.

Join the Davis Square Neighborhood Council We strongly encourage all eligible readers to join the Davis Square Neighborhood Council and contribute to the ongoing Copper Mill discussion. The Council is moving swiftly toward full recognition from the city, and will have a major role in shaping the evolution of Davis Square over the next few years. To participate: Fill out this feedback form…

Everyone knows that Somerville is one of the densest cities in New England, with around 19,000 residents per square mile. Some folks use that number as a reason to say “we’re full, go away.” That’s not exactly welcoming to newcomers, especially not to those fleeing other states or countries who want to live in a sanctuary city like Somerville. It’s also not telling the whole story, because there are other ways of looking at density that tell us more about what it means for daily life.

Boston-based real-estate company Copper Mill is seeking permits to redevelop the area between The Burren and Dragon Pizza in Davis Square. Their latest proposal includes ground floor retail, a promised right of return for the Burren, and a lot of housing: 502 apartments ranging from studios to 3-beds. 125 (25%) of the apartments will be subsidized affordable, reserved for low-to-moderate income families.

YIMBYs are advocates for construction of housing because we want people to live in homes. We are advocates for housing in Somerville because we are advocates for Somerville. To us, that means helping people be part of Somerville, so we can all thrive and grow together. That’s true whether they grew up here, or are moving here. It’s true whether they’re coming from Cambridge or Des Moines or Tegucigalpa or Port au Prince or Mogadishu.

Apply for the Fair Housing Commission The city is recruiting new members of the Fair Housing Commission, and we strongly encourage members to apply. The commission generally meets one evening per month, with additional meetings and events as needed. All residents over 18 are invited to apply by January 30. Davis Square Planning Update The long-running discussion of redeveloping the building at the corner of Elm Street and Grove Street in Davis Square has taken a new turn with a 40B application from developer Copper Mill.

Most of our subscribers probably know someone who’s been displaced, or forced to move. Maybe their lease ended, the rent went up, or in some cases their building has been condemned and must be torn down. In general, good housing and urban development policy aims to minimize displacement: when people move, it should be because they want to, not because they have to.

We know that building a lot more housing can bring down prices. We’ve seen evidence around the globe, from Austin and Minneapolis to as far away as Auckland, or as near as Jersey City and New Rochelle, where we have seen major impacts on affordability from new construction. We have invited many people to live here by creating jobs…

2026 is starting off with a bang in Somerville’s housing! Mayor Wilson’s inauguration had a lot of discussion of the affordability of housing. Then this week 2 projects took a major step forward. In Union Square, the Just a Start 100% Affordable project at 24 Webster Ave put up barricade in anticipation of demolition. It’s great to see this project about to finally put shovels in the ground!

Somerville’s recent Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) is an analysis of the current state of housing in the city, and provides useful information about the types of housing Somerville needs to accommodate our changing demographics and population pressures. Home sizes Somerville is a city of old, large homes. 59% of occupied homes were built before 1940, while only about 9% were built from 2000 to 2020.

A few bright spots for you as we close out the year: the financial press has noticed that Luxury Apartments are Bringing Down Rents in Some Big Cities. In Boston specifically, we’ve seen that bike lane initiatives are working to reduce traffic and pollution, and the Globe editorial board is advocating for permit reform to accelerate homebuilding throughout the region…

I was traveling around Somerville and ran into what looked like a gut renovation of an entire lot at 38 Laurel Street in the Spring Hill neighborhood. And my first thought was: could this have been more? 38 Laurel Street, Circa 2025 This seems like fairly serious construction, and it’s changing this site from 3 homes to having... still 3 homes.

Zoning has always been a reflection of the people’s desire to control how their environment looks, which is another way of saying it’s an expression of our city’s values. One value many of us share is to have a local environment that is greener and more environmentally friendly. That is reflected in our current regulations that allow a maximum of 65% impermeable surface for newly built homes in residential districts.

How Somerville creates "missing middle" housing I am the very model of a modern major upzoningI've information efficiency, density, and filteringI know the price of homes, and I quote the cause economicalFrom Austin to Minneapolis, in order categoricalI'm very well acquainted, too, with matters transportationI understand production, both the finance and constructionAbout transit development I am teeming with a lot o' news…

We hope you’ve been enjoying our recent series of data-driven essays on planning and policy — if you’ve missed them, you can find them at newsletter.somervilleyimby.org. Our next piece will take a look at what happens when a single lot in a typical Somerville neighborhood is redeveloped. This week, be sure to fill out Mayor-elect Jake Wilson’s community engagement survey…

We at Somerville YIMBY talk a lot about the need to supply more homes to solve our housing shortage. But supply is only half the economic equation. We also need to ask ourselves where all this demand came from. Why have we seen such large increases in the cost of housing while similarly old and dense rust belt cities have stagnated? 

Hi, all! Over the past two years, we have been working on an upzoning proposal for Somerville. With an new city council in 2026, it feels like a good time to move forward on it. In support of that effort, we hereby start a roughly weekly blog post series about upzoning in Somerville. We plan to cover a range of topics -- from open space to housing demand to affordability.