Residents ask Somerville to relax dormer and roof-pitch rules to ease home additions

Aaron Webber, a member of the Somerville YIMBY steering committee, told the joint Somerville City Council Land Use Committee and Planning Board that current zoning rules on dormers make modest home expansions costly and inefficient and asked the bodies to amend the zoning ordinance.

"Current dormer rules are onerous, they're expensive, they produce less efficient roofs," Webber said, summarizing the petition from 15 registered voters asking changes to zoning ordinance sections cited in the petition. He told the committee the amendments would align dormer fenestration and setback rules with other walls and allow larger, more useful dormers, including in some cases flat roofs and three-story houses in the Neighborhood Residence zone.

The petition asks for several specific changes:…