By Rob Buchanan

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

It comes as no surprise to Somerville residents that our city is ranked last in open space per person among Massachusetts’ municipalities. In a city with New England’s highest population density, we don’t need someone to explain the term “open space,” because we experience so little of it every day.

Playing fields become dust bowls from overuse. Community garden waiting lists are years long. Quiet moments to enjoy a shaded summer walk with a child or canine friend are often a car ride away. Because so much surface area is paved, flash flooding and basement back-ups are recurring events. And as we know too well this week, we struggle just to find space to put snow.

We accept all this because Somerville is our much-loved home. In a city rich with local characters, community events, and tight-knit social groups, we know the pluses far outweigh the minuses.

But our lack of green space in which to live, work, play and raise a family was never a foregone conclusion. And it need not remain as it is.

Somerville is rewriting its zoning ordinance. As we consider this once-in-a-century opportunity to channel real estate development pressures into meaningful open-space investments, we need not speculate as to how this might go awry for ourselves and future generations. We need only look back in time.

Somerville separated from Charlestown in 1842 as new railroad lines fostered industrial development. Despite this growth, the town’s agricultural roots remained visible throughout the nineteenth century. Its seven hills were home to orchards and grazing pastures. Residents and real estate developers extoled green Somerville’s clean air and expansive vistas.

Following the Civil War, industrialization and housing demand exploded. Town leaders, many of whom were involved in land sales and home building, were eager to keep taxes and city spending to a minimum. They opposed setting aside profitably developable land for parks. Somerville became a city of tightly packed multi-family homes on small lots.

Fortunately, not all of Somerville was carved up for development. City government, needing a high school, offices, and a library, bought 38 acres on Central Hill in 1870. And what is now Foss Park opened in 1876. Not being centrally located or available for land speculators, it was the subject of intense controversy and resulted in Mayor George Brastow’s defeat in the next election.

Despite other modest park creation successes, largely spearheaded by civic and social groups, the sentiment expressed by an 1888 editorialist admonishes us as we consider new zoning:  “Had it been possible to foresee how great growth of the city would be and to make a general plan by which its growth might be regulated to the best advantage, Somerville today would be a much more attractive city than it is….”

This legacy of rapid urbanization and weak political will has left us with precious little open space. Whereas neighboring communities have public commons, walking paths, trails, playing fields, community gardens, and waterfront recreation, our heavily used urban parks are under continuous strain. More recent investments have upgraded existing open spaces, and the Assembly Square project made improvements to the shore of the Mystic River. However, substantial commitments of new open space remain mostly elusive.

With market demand for walkable urban neighborhoods skyrocketing, developers are once again avid to build here. But this time, city leaders had the foresight to facilitate a comprehensive development plan. SomerVision calls for creating 125 acres of new open space by 2030, increasing the inventory from less than 7 percent to more than 11 percent of our 4.1 square miles.

The strategy involves a combination of public investment and obligations placed on private developers. The latter is essential, since a residential-heavy tax base has left Somerville with a structural fiscal deficit, and new tax revenues from hoped-for commercial development are years away.  So it’s critical that the new zoning ordinance include substantial requirements of private developers to increase open space.

But only two of the ten proposed zoning districts contain specific provisions for public open space. Specifically, buildings in the 7- and 10-story Mixed Use districts must set aside at least 15 percent of total land area for open space. And in the small area comprising these districts, “open space” is defined as “either increased sidewalk width, a mid-block passage, civic space, publicly-accessible courtyard with no less than thirty percent (30%) landscaped, or outdoor recreation facilities.” This definition begs the question of whether an ordinary person would even recognize it as “open space” if they were standing in the middle of it.

The proposed ordinance also designates Brickbottom, Inner Belt, Assembly Square, and Grand Junction as “Special Districts,” designed to encourage large commercial developments. It requires developers to set aside 12.5 percent of the land in large projects within these districts as “publicly accessible civic space,” which could include parks, playgrounds, plazas, dog parks, and playing fields.

The proposed ordinance does not now contemplate new open space in Union Square and Boynton Yards. Its authors state that this will come later, after a year-long neighborhood planning process.

But the point is clear: Even if 12.5 percent of every bit of the 365 acres of SomerVision’s transformational areas were committed to open space, it would still amount to only 45 additional acres, falling short of SomerVision’s goal by 80 acres.

It is conceivable that development in the Special Districts would be of such size and scale as to produce tax revenues sufficient to meet open-space objectives through purchase. But that would require that development be almost exclusively limited to high-density commercial property. And it would be so far in the future that land available and affordable for open space would be rare to none.

Residents and aldermen now performing due diligence on the new zoning would be well advised to consider our city’s legacy of development run amok. Our transformational areas offer the last best hope for making the substantial and enduring open-space investments needed to improve health and quality of life for those who call Somerville home. Let’s get it right this time.

Rob Buchanan lives on Walnut Street and is a member of Union Square Neighbors.