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Car culture is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness, usually connected to visions of freedom while driving down a wide open road, or the adventure of a road trip. But most car travel is not that. It’s driving to and from work. It’s going shopping or shepherding children between activities. It’s a chore. We tend to regard driving as a personal preference, but our transportation choices are heavily shaped by housing and land use policies.

Somerville YIMBY is pleased to announce the following endorsements for Massachusetts House and Senate elections. There are multiple strong candidates in many of these contests, and these were not e…

This week, City Council passed a Somerville YIMBY-sponsored amendment to relax rules on building dormers in roofs. It took two years to get to this point, and we expect that we’ll begin to see the …

Policy newsletter Pencilling Out recently tackled a question that comes up constantly in Somerville: does building more studios and one-bedrooms actually help families find larger apartments, even if families aren't moving into those new units? Readers won’t be surprised to hear that the answer is yes: people who live in those studios would otherwise split larger apartments, so new studios free up larger units in other buildings.

Marblehead has been in the news recently for passing a much-delayed and toothless plan to comply with the MBTA Communities Act. As a reminder, the MBTA Communities Act, also known as Section 3A, is a state law that requires communities served by the T to legalize at least some multifamily housing. Marblehead, having missed several deadlines, finally complied this month by changing the zoning of a tony golf course to allow multifamily housing.

The following is a letter we sent to the Somerville City Council and the Somerville Redevelopment Authority on May 8, 2026 regarding the request for proposals for redevelopment of 90 Washington Street. To City Councilors and Somerville Redevelopment Authority members: At 90 Washington Street, the City of Somerville has acquired a rare opportunity: four under-built acres a short walk from a Green Line station. The city has received two proposals to make the site better for the city. One, from Wood Partners, proposes 300 new homes and 600 aboveground parking spots.

Everyone knows that the single biggest factor in the price of a home is its location. A home in Somerville costs more than a similar one in Lowell, for example, and a home near Davis Square is more valuable than a similar one right next to I-93. The price for a location reflects its desirability. If we want to build homes where people want to live, we need to understand what kind of upzoning will help us reach that goal.

Building housing is a business. Both non-profit or for-profit builders need to make some money to keep the operations going and get to the next project. To estimate whether a project is economically viable, they all use a document called a pro forma. It can get quite complicated, but at the simplest, it’s a spreadsheet that compares costs against revenue. Housing Construction Site at 24 Webster Ave There are two kinds of costs: hard costs (land, labor, and materials) and soft costs (mostly fees and interest). There is one main revenue stream: rents or sale proceeds.

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Write In to Support Dormer Reform We presented our dormer amendment to a joint hearing of the Land Use Committee and the Planning Board on the 16th, and public comment is open until noon on May 1. If you were haven’t already, please write to [email protected] in support of file item 26-0287, the pro-dormer amendment. It doesn’t have to be long!

What makes a home affordable? The government definition is that it costs less than 30% of your income to live there. If you pay more, as about a third of households in Somerville do, you’re considered “cost burdened.” There are two ways to reach affordability: subsidies, and finding a bargain on the open market. When we talk about Affordable housing with a capital A, we’re talking about subsidies.

Elections for the Davis Square Neighborhood Council board will take place April 13 through April 27, 2026. If you live, work, or receive services in or near Davis Square, you may be eligible to vote, and your vote will have a critical impact on the future of the neighborhood. In particular, we’d like to request your support for Somerville YIMBY members: …

Let’s start with a question: Which of these do you think built more new Affordable Housing in Somerville in the last 10 years? All our non-profits combined US2, the for-profit developers of Union Square Before we answer, let’s take a look at how much we Affordable Housing we have and how we actually get it built. There two main ways to make housing into capital-letters Affordable Housing in Somerville: subsidized homes and vouchers.

April is National Fair Housing Month, in honor of the 1968 passage of the Fair Housing Act. Somerville will host a number of events celebrating the month, including a screening of the documentary Segregated By Design followed by conversation around fair housing and discrimination in the city. Check out our event listings below for a variety of other events! Davis Square Update…

Building new homes is absolutely critical, but it’s also expensive. Just a few years ago, the Globe estimated that multifamily buildings cost at least $600,000 per home, and a 100% affordable building that just broke ground in Union Square will cost more than $800,000 per home! If we don’t want to pay for construction ourselves, we need businesses to do it.

Last week, Copper Mill hosted a new meeting about their proposed 500-home mixed-use apartment building in Davis Square. With a capacity crowd at the Crystal Ballroom and hundreds more attendees viewing online, CEO Andrew Flynn laid out some new and familiar information about the proposal, including:  A commitment to union labor 25% of the apartments set aside as subsidized , up from the 20% city minimum…

Have you ever wanted to add a home or workspace to your back yard? Well a Backyard Cottage might be for you! It is intended as a way to gently add a little more density to our city in a way that is not visible to most people. However, Backyard Cottages (with capital letters because they have a specific definition in the zoning code) have been a surprisingly contentious issue since they were originally allowed in 2019.

On March 12, Just-A-Start and the Somerville Community Land Trust will host a meeting for neighbors to discuss their plans to build a fully affordable building at 297 Medford Street in Gilman Square. They’ll go over the design and project timeline and answer questions from neighbors. If you live nearby, join them at 6:00 pm, in person in the cafeteria at Somerville High School.