Somerville council adopts inclusionary zoning, overlay to implement fair-share housing plan

Somerville borough council on March 2 adopted a set of ordinances to implement the borough's fourth-round affordable-housing plan, creating an affordable-housing overlay for a Bell Avenue site and enacting inclusionary zoning and development-fee rules the borough says are needed to secure court compliance.

The package includes an amended redevelopment plan for the East Central Business District (Ordinance 27-80), a municipal budget cap-bank ordinance (27-85), an inclusionary zoning subsection for affordable housing (27-86), and an AH-01 overlay for Block 127 Lot 4 on Bell Avenue (27-87). Council members voted to adopt each ordinance after hearing presentations and a public hearing; roll calls recorded the motions carried.

Why it matters: council attorneys and planners said the ordinances are necessary to meet a state-mandated fair-share process that covers 2025—2035 and to secure a compliance determination from the court. A compliance certification would give the borough a 10-year period of protection under the state's affordable-housing framework and allow the adopted mechanisms to capture affordable units in future developments.

Christopher Zangaro, redevelopment and affordable-housing counsel to the borough, outlined the timeline and legal context. He said Somerville adopted a housing element and fair-share plan in mid-2025, entered a settlement with the Fair Share Housing Center in December 2025 that modified the plan, and must ratify implementing ordinances before a March 15 submission to the court. "One instrumental part of the plan is a 20% set aside," Zangaro said, "which means that any developer coming into town that wants to develop a property over five units has to provide opportunity for an affordable unit."

Mike Cole, the borough planner, described how the council chose an inclusionary approach rather than a single affordable-housing zone: "The overlay, otherwise known as an inclusionary ordinance, spreads affordable housing throughout the municipality," he said, and added the plan sets a 20% set-aside for for-sale developments and 15% for rentals. Cole also summarized the development-fee mechanism that collects a percentage based on equalized assessed value into a local fund for rehab and affordable-housing projects.

During public comment on the AH-01 overlay for the Bell Avenue parcel, Alexander Fisher, an attorney representing the property owner, and the property's project planner objected to a provision limiting three-bedroom market-rate townhomes to five units. The planner argued the restriction would be "cost-generative" and harm project feasibility because market-rate larger units help subsidize on-site affordable units. The planner said the developer had intended to provide 15 market-rate three-bedroom units and provided an estimate that the change between 5 and 15 three-bedroom units would generate roughly two additional public-school children and about 6.6 residents overall. "Restricting the number of three-bedroom market-rate units to just five would adversely impact the ability of the developer to subsidize the affordable units," the planner said.

Council members heard the objections; the public hearing closed and the council proceeded to adopt the overlay ordinance and the related zoning and fee ordinances on roll call.

What's next: borough officials said they will submit the adopted plan and implementing ordinances to the court for a compliance review before March 15. If the court issues a compliance certificate, the borough will have statutory protections for the next 10-year compliance cycle. The council also authorized related resolutions to endorse the revised housing element and to submit materials to the affordable-housing dispute-resolution program.

The meeting transcript does not record any amendment or change to the contested three-bedroom limit at the time of adoption, and the developer's objection remains part of the record.