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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Somerville By Design Takes on Winter Hill



Somerville by Design will be hosting a series focusing on Winter Hill starting this Fall that will include a visioning session, "open studio" charrette, and ending with an "open house" in January.

A visioning session, set for September 29th from 6:30 - 8pm at the Healey School will kick-off the series that has tackled other areas around the City including Davis Square. Somerville by Design has seen a lot of success with this format as it offers numerous opportunities for residents to stop by and voice their ideas and concerns.

In an email, Somerville by Design writes, "We are pleased to announce the fall and winter schedule for the "Somerville by Design" neighborhood planning effort in Winter Hill. This fun, participatory process has been very successful in neighborhoods like Gilman Square, Lowell Street, East Somerville and Davis Square. Over the next four months, residents, business owners, community organizations and commercial property owners will be rolling up their sleeves with City officials to prepare a plan that guides public and private investment in the Winter Hill neighborhood, from Mystic Avenue to Medford Street, and from Foss Park to Magoun Square.

A kickoff visioning meeting will be held Monday, September 29th at 6:30 pm at the Healey School (cafeteria). Interactive mapping and photo preference exercises will get everyone involved, and will set the table for an intensive, three-day design charrette in late October.

From October 27th to 29th, we will hold an "open studio" event in the vacant storefront at 328 Broadway (former MetroPCS location). For three days straight, from 9am to 9pm, you can drop in at the studio and work with City staff and designers to draw and discuss ideas about the future of the neighborhood. Green space, jobs and housing, business development, traffic management, arts and culture: it's all on the table. We will work together to generate as many ideas as possible, and at a "Pin-Up Presentation" on October 29th, we will ask you to select the ones that are worth keeping, the ones that need more work, and the ones that should be thrown out.

During the early winter we'll take what we've heard and refine it, and come back for an open-house presentation in mid-January."

For more information and to see studies of other Somerville locations, check out the Somerville by Design website!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These things are scams. 97% of what the planning department is going to do has already been decided. They then put on these dog and pony shows so they can say all of the private redevelopment that follows was 'community driven'. I know that in both Lower Broadway and Gilman Square, that the planning department had major redevelopment deals already in the can, and withheld that information from the participants of the visioning sessions while people earnestly discussed community concerns that were never ever going to be actually considered.

Anonymous said...

I went to the session and it was a good experience. It provided a forum for people to talk about what they liked best about the neighborhood and what they liked least. It included an opportunity for everyone to voice their ideas, which is needed

At the end of the day the grand design is just that, it is not a perfect process but at least people were given a chance to talk.

One high point is that it was not overrun by local special interest groups like SCC.