SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT EXPERT NAMED TO UNION SQUARE CIVIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Somerville

resident Professor Anne Tate brings to the committee an accomplished background

in the areas that the committee will tackle over the next two years,  including economic

development, land use, housing diversity, transportation, open space, quality

of life, and preservation of the square's character.

An

architect and planner, Tate previously served as a Special Advisor on

Sustainable Development for the state Office for Commonwealth Development,

which combined Massachusetts' executive offices of Environment, Energy, Housing

and Transportation, leading two signature efforts: the state's Sustainable

Development Principles and the Transit Oriented Development Initiative.

Along

with Doug Foy, former state Secretary of Commonwealth Development, Tate

negotiated the 2006 settlement between Assembly Row developer Federal Realty

Investment Trust (FRIT), IKEA and the Mystic View Task Force. She served on the

SomerVision Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee and is a member of Groundwork

Somerville's Advisory Committee. Recipient of the AIA Young Architects Award

for Community Service and first place in the Progressive Architecture design

competition for affordable housing, Tate has lectured at Yale, Harvard,

Princeton and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

At

RISD, Tate founded City-State, the Urban Design Lab at the Rhode Island School

of Design, which brings the creative design and research of RISD and Brown

University to public policy and private development partnerships. A graduate of

Princeton University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Tate's current

project, Urban Eden, imagines cities built in partnership with nature.

The now 20-member Union Square Civic

Advisory Committee includes community members, local advocates and business

owners with a range of skill sets and perspectives that will advise the City on

strategic planning decisions and development in the Union Square area over the

next two years.

The committee's work will build upon the

state-approved urban renewal plan for the square, realize transit-oriented and

community development opportunities brought by the coming Green Line Extension

scheduled to open in 2017 in Union Square, and work in concert with a

forthcoming, in-depth roadway and infrastructure improvement plan being

prepared by international consulting firm Parsons Brinkerhoff with community

input. 

The committee will also help the City

evaluate applicants who respond to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for a

master developer partner that will work with the City, the Somerville

Redevelopment Authority, current property owners and community members to

design and implement the redevelopment of the seven development blocks

identified in the Union Square Revitalization Plan. The master developer

partner will be selected by the criteria listed in the RFQ with the aim of

achieving the community's goals set forth in SomerVision and preserving Union

Square's history and unique character. Responses to the RFQ are due Jan. 31,

2014.

Once a master developer partner is

selected, the committee will act as a sounding board for the Master Developer.

The committee will help shape proposals that will then be brought forward for

full public review, providing the community a dialogue with the developer to

help determine a strategy that ensures the continuity of this unique and

vibrant square, while making sure all the pieces come together in a way that

creates community-driven, sustainable and strategic economic development.

The first meeting of the Union Square Civic

Advisory Committee will be held on Feb. 10 at 6 p.m. in the Public Safety

Building, 220 Washington St. The committee's first meeting will discuss the

groundwork laid so far for development of the area through the Union Square

Revitalization Plan adopted in 2012 with approval from the Board of Aldermen,

Planning Board and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and through SomerVision, the

City's community-based 20-year comprehensive plan. All Union Square Civic

Advisory Committee meetings are open to the public.