By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(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)

During the past few decades, Somerville has worked hard to make itself a city that can deliver quality of life to its residents. We rightfully take pride in good schools, low crime, tree-lined neighborhoods, our ever-increasing number of parks and playgrounds, a diverse community and bustling city squares. There’s a lot to like about Somerville and, not surprisingly, it puts our limited living space in high demand. People who live here want to stay. People who don’t live here want to join us. Add to that the external pressure of our region’s rapidly rising housing prices and it makes housing affordability a clear and present challenge.

As I said in my recent inaugural speech, this issue hits me at a personal level. I grew up in Somerville as the son of two Italian immigrants. My father and mother both worked in factories. My dad cut hair and drove a snow plow for extra money. My mom also worked as a cook. They raised three children, put a good roof over our heads and sent us to college.

But is the door still open for a family like mine here in Somerville? It needs to be. We must be a city that is as much a home to the people who are working their way up as it is for those who have already made it. We need to remain a city welcoming to working families and immigrants trying to get a hold on the American dream—just as our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did. Ensuring we keep that kind of diversity is an extremely complicated, long-term challenge facing all of Greater Boston.

I believe Somerville can lead the way when it comes to housing affordability, just as we have on healthy communities, educational investment and multi-modal transportation. Mind you, it will not be easy. We face daunting market forces. Right now, rent and home sale prices are being driven by a massive housing shortage in Greater Boston. Demand far outstrips supply. Estimates are that our region needs to add 435,000 new housing units by 2040 to restore balance. Coming up with solutions to that problem is going to require innovative thinking and an all-hands-on-deck commitment from the community. Fortunately, Somerville is good at that sort of thing.

Last year I called together the Sustainable Neighborhoods Working Group. I sought out the city’s brightest and most determined minds and challenged them to come up with bold ideas on affordability. They embraced the task set to them and we now have the Working Group’s recommendations. The ideas are big and bold—just as we need them to be.

They include a 1% real estate transfer fee, new tenants’ purchase rights and support, and a 50% increase in the SomerVision goal for new housing units from 6,000 to 9,000. The proposals envision new 20% citywide inclusionary zoning and new financial supports for low-income tenants in affordable units. The Working Group is also calling for overhaul of our zoning code, which is essential for true social equity. Some of that may sound fantastic to you, some of it may sound scary. Our next steps are to devote City Hall’s resources to thoroughly analyzing these recommendations and getting extensive public input on them.

I want to be clear: getting from excellent ideas to achievable, leading-edge initiatives is always the hard part. We are going to run into earnest differences of opinion. Not everyone is going to agree with every part of what will be a multi-pronged approach. Unfortunately, it’s not like there’s a proven, simple plan to keep housing affordable in high-demand urban areas. So we’re going to have to dig in and work together to invent a way to preserve the economic and social diversity that make so many of us proud to live in our city.

It should be stressed that we are already at work on numerous affordability initiatives. We have joined a new Regional Compact with Boston, Cambridge and other cities to work on the housing issue along with transportation, sustainability and economic development. This involves dedicating city planners to working together on these issues. The math is simple. If the region does not build the housing we need, and if Somerville does not build the 9,000 units we need, no amount of affordable housing programs alone will be able to keep the cost of a home or rent reasonable for all of us. The rent really is too damn high and cities in metro Boston have pledged to work together to do something about it.

On top of that, we’ve launched our 100 Homes initiative with our partner, the Somerville Community Corporation. Rather than watching speculators gobble up homes, we are buying them ourselves, renovating them, and renting them out at affordable rates. We aim to transform 100 new units in the first three years.

Meanwhile, new Community Preservation Act funds are flowing into affordable housing as are new linkage fees on larger developments. Last year, we worked with our honorable Board of Aldermen and our State Delegation to raise our residential property tax exemption from 30% to 35%. We now offer the largest exemption in the state and that helps maintain affordability, especially for long-time homeowners like our seniors.

We are also collaborating with Tufts University to develop an ambitious housing strategy to provide more student housing on their campus and transition larger neighborhood units from student housing back to family housing.

Finally, it has been a cornerstone of my administration to promote new commercial growth and development in Somerville according to our community’s SomerVision goals. This is important for creating jobs and other community benefits. But it is critical to housing affordability. When more commercial tenants pay into our total tax revenue pot, homeowners pay less, which helps both owners and their tenants. During my administration, the assessed value of our commercial sector has increased 81% to more than one billion dollars. That was not by chance. And this is just the start.

Though not yet creating tax decreases, this commercial growth is already helping to reduce the size of residential tax increases. We expect to see even greater impact as Assembly Row expands and Union Square revitalization gets underway. I cannot stress enough how important it is to remember that commercial development is part of the affordability equation. This is why my staff works tirelessly to achieve those goals.

Meanwhile, the good news is I haven’t run into anyone who doesn’t want to fix the housing problem. How we tackle the immense complexity of preserving our social and economic diversity may draw a range of opinions, but we all want to achieve the same goal. As long as we keep our eyes on that prize, we’ll come together to forge a plan that works.