— Photo courtesy of the City of Somerville

By The Times Staff

Developer Copper Mill has filed for a Chapter 40B permit to construct a 26-story, 502-unit apartment high-rise at the corner of Elm and Grove Streets, with 25% of the units designated as affordable housing.

The proposed development has stirred up a great deal of interest, along with many concerns from residents. Somerville residents and business owners are asking questions and voicing their points of view.

The City of Somerville’s Somerville Planning Department has divided our city into official Neighborhoods (https://data.somervillema.gov/GIS-Data/Neighborhoods/n5md-vqta/about_data). But whatever assigned neighborhood you live in, most feel that they have a stake in Davis Square.

Developer Copper Mill has asked for state and city approval of its plan to build their tower in Davis Square, with 500 apartments, and no parking (https://coppermill.com/).

A local organization, Davis Square Neighborhood Council (DSNC), has started to talk about Copper Mill’s plan in its public meetings and online here: https://sites.google.com/view/DavisSquareNC.

The DSNC invites the public to join the listserv and take part, or at least see who’s talking. The Times will be re-printing some of these messages. We will use only the initials of those commenting and not use their full names in their messages, but you can see their full names on the listserv site. This is the first installment of comments, with others to come in subsequent editions of The Times.

Recent comments include these from DSNC Secretary Zev Pogrebin:

“Copper Mill’s plans provide no resident parking for this development. Some residents believe that the people who rent these apartments will not own cars. There’s also debate about whether Copper Mill needs to provide visitor parking, with strong opinions on both sides.

“I don’t think a 500-unit building needs visitor parking. Visitors do not necessarily need to park on-site. When I have friends visiting me from car-dependent suburbs or other regions with their car, I typically recommend them to park at Alewife and take the T, which generally saves them a lot of hassle and time. There is also plenty of paid parking in the area that they can avail themselves of, or they can also use ride-hailing services. I’m not saying that this is a one-size-fits-all problem, but the answer is that there are many ways to get to Davis Square, of which only one is driving your personal vehicle to an on-site parking space within your destination.

“Regarding cleaning staff, home health aids, service workers, and the like, I think that these people will typically be coming into the square at daytime/weekday hours. When I walk around Davis Square, I notice that parking demand is relatively limited and a glut of parking spaces are empty during weekdays.”  — Z.P., Feb.10, 2026.