Emergency Measures: Three Legal Changes to Help Address Somerville's Housing Crisis

A blueprint for immediate action in a crisis.

In an earlier post, I described how a city could automatically address its housing shortage by temporarily modifying its laws while an emergency persists.

Here, I'll suggest three specific changes that Somerville (which has already formally declared a housing emergency) could implement to meaningfully alleviate our crisis.

These are not the smallest changes which might be effective. Instead, they are stronger measures intended to respond to the emergency with speed and vigor.

1. Reduce the Inclusionary Zoning Percentage

Somerville’s inclusionary zoning (IZ) ordinance requires that 20% of units in new developments larger than three units be offered at below-market rates. This can make otherwise viable projects unprofitable, and thus unbuildable.

This recent UCLA paper found that an inclusionary zoning percentage of just 17% reduced the production of market-rate housing by 49%. This is the sort of headwind that is hard to stomach when we have legally declared a housing emergency.

More locally, Somerville commissioned a Financial Feasibility Analysis which was delivered in June 2025. It showed that while the most in-demand area of the city could support 20% IZ, the other four-fifths of it needed levels of 10%-13%, 8%, or even lower, depending on their price dynamics. RKG (the report’s authors) interviewed numerous city staff and local developers at a cost of $60,000 to the city. I think we should bias strongly toward implementing their suggestions!

Keep in mind that infeasibly-high IZ requirements don’t just mean that market-rate housing isn’t being built. When inclusionary requirements reduce housing production, this includes affordable units. As the saying goes: 20% of zero is zero.

During this emergency period, Somerville should consider temporarily reducing its inclusionary zoning percentage. This calibration would likely make numerous marginal projects financially feasible, resulting in more total housing (both market-rate and affordable) being built throughout the city.

2. Eliminate Community Benefits Agreements as a Pre-requisite for Re-zoning

Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) are city-sanctioned tools enabling residents to negotiate concessions from real estate developers to mitigate the negative impacts of development.

The recent CBA negotiated for the Somernova project imposed 17 pages of requirements on its developer, including:

• Donating $500,000 to the Somerville Community Land Trust (a non-profit that buys properties and sells or rents them at below-market rates)

• Donating $250,000 to Union Square Main Streets (a local business association)

• Donating $375,000 to the First Source Jobs Program (a non-profit program that helps people find jobs)

These donations alone exceed $1M, but additional requirements (like setting aside 100,000 square feet of art space), will almost certainly cost substantially more in lost rent (one estimate put the cost of this benefit at $50M).

This is a heavy cost to bear, and the uncertainty and slowness of the process presents a major roadblock to development.

While CBAs are technically optional in Somerville, they very much function as de facto requirements. City Councilors (and our current Mayor) have publicly stated that their votes on the Somernova re-zoning hinged on whether a CBA was successfully negotiated.

The underlying assumption of CBAs (that housing itself isn't a sufficient community benefit) becomes particularly problematic during a housing emergency. When people are struggling to find homes, the community benefit is the housing itself. Each month spent negotiating CBAs is another month of rising rents and displaced residents.

3. Suspend Demolition Reviews

Currently, demolishing any Somerville building older than 75 years requires approval from the Historical Preservation Commission (HPC). This seemingly reasonable policy becomes problematic when you consider that 94% of Somerville's buildings exceed this age threshold¹. The assumption that “old” and “historically significant” are likely the same simply does not hold in Somerville.

The HPC can (and often does) designate buildings as “preferably preserved”, imposing up to 18-month demolition delays.

Developers report that these delays (and even the threat of them!) render projects financially unviable before they even begin. And, in the end, these delays don’t necessarily stop the demolition, they just delay it.

Historical preservation is a worthy goal, but it shouldn't take precedence during a housing emergency.

A temporary suspension of demolition reviews would remove a significant obstacle to addressing the immediate crisis.

Temporary Measures for Extraordinary Times

Six years ago, the Somerville City Council voted 10-1 to declare a housing emergency, and Mayor Curtatone signed it into law.

The fact of the emergency is literally in our book of law.

The fire alarm has been pulled! A klaxon wails away in our municipal code.

So where are the trucks?

Since 2019, the median rent for a 2BR apartment has increased over 20%². Despite the alarm sounding for 6 years, the fire has only gotten bigger. We must conclude that the actions taken so far by our government have not worked.

No one wants to have their home flooded with thousands of gallons of water. It couldn’t be further from how you want to live every day. But when your house is on fire, it’s exactly what must be done to return to normalcy.

By implementing these changes for the duration of the declared housing emergency, we can dramatically accelerate housing production while maintaining the principle that these are extraordinary measures for extraordinary times.

After housing supply is rushed to the market, and the emergency declaration has been repealed, we can all celebrate the return to business as usual.

I very much look forward to that day.

1. Raw data. 94% ratio calculated by Somerville YIMBY member Joshua Michel.

2. Source: Apartment List Data. 2019 numbers, 2026 numbers.