• Identification of existing strengths and weaknesses, assets and opportunities of the station area • Identification of examples of future conditions that match community values • Collaboration with the project team to develop a wide variety of potential interventions • Critique of design and policy proposals by participants • Refinement of certain ideas and “deletion” of unsatisfactory concepts by the project team • Development of a plan document to guide decision makers and city leadership for implementation
neighborhoods, enhancing our funky squares and commercial corridors, and transforming opportunity areas on the southern and eastern edges of the City. Station Area Planning SomerVision calls for design-based area plans for each neighborhood, station area, and commercial corridor across the city. Special priority is given to neighborhoods with existing or future rail transit because they serve as important economic engines for the city, focal points of community identity, and areas that must adapt to change over time. Despite the novelty of design based collaborative neighborhood plans, the idea is not at all unique in Somerville’s past. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, residents, the business community, and public officials advocated for the MBTA Red Line subway to be routed through Davis Square. This same group realized that this energy could be leveraged to produce a strategic plan for new investment throughout the Davis Square neighborhood. Mayor Gene Brune shared that vision, and after several years of collaborative planning, the “1982 Davis Square Action Plan” was published. Many of Davis Square’s signature public spaces, as well as key transit-oriented development projects are the direct result of this neighborhood plan - which illustrates the benefits that a grass-roots, physical design planning process can offer.
The SomervillebyDesign process brings SomerVision to the neighborhood scale. It continues our tradition of civic engagement and connects it with best practices in planning that have emerged over the last fifteen years. Communities all over the world have learned that urban design is an effective basis for public dialogue because people know and care how places look, feel, and function. New technologies are helping government to “crowd-source” the collection of valuable information and the generation of creative ideas. By documenting these ideas in a visual format, the City and its partners can build and maintain public enthusiasm for projects and programs that are consistent with SomerVision’s framework of conserving Somerville’s great residential
EVENT FLYER
Somerville by
DESIGN
STATION AREA PLANNING SERIES
GILMAN SQUARE • LOWELL ST. STATION • MAGOUN SQUARE • BALL SQUARE
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Plan Presentation
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Design Charrette
28 & 29
GIVES NA TIO OM 187 ED N 1842 2C IT
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Visioning Session
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Office of Strategic Planning & Community Development Joseph A. Curtatone, Mayor
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www.somervillebydesign.com
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