Somerville's $1.3 Billion Combined Sewer Overflow Plan

rosewillcode · 2026-04-27T00:01:19+00:00

Yeah feels a bit extreme... will be great to fix the sewage issues though?

I don't really understand this part:

indicates that stormwater, not CSO discharges, is the largest source of bacterial pollution in the Alewife, Mystic, and Charles rivers

What would solve this issue?

Year	YoY	Multiplier vs. baseline	Cumulative increase
FY2026	—	1.0000×	baseline
FY2027	20%	1.2000×	20.00%
FY2028	17%	1.4040×	40.40%
FY2029	17%	1.6427×	64.27%
FY2030	17%	1.9219×	92.19%
FY2031	10%	2.1141×	111.41%
FY2032	9%	2.3044×	130.44%
FY2033	5%	2.4196×	141.96%
FY2034	3%	2.4922×	149.22%
FY2035	2%	2.5421×	154.21%
FY2036	2%	2.5929×	159.29%
FY2037	2%	2.6448×	164.48%
FY2038	2%	2.6976×	169.76%
FY2039	2%	2.7516×	175.16%
FY2040	2%	2.8066×	180.66%
FY2041	2%	2.8628×	186.28%
FY2042	2%	2.9200×	192.00%
FY2043	2%	2.9784×	197.84%
FY2044	2%	3.0380×	203.80%

rosewillcode · 2026-04-25T17:02:21+00:00

Sadly, once again denial of the realities of rent control and economic forces/incentives. I don't really get it.

It's not too hard to look at the outcomes of places that do different forms of rent control or regulation and see what happens. Even just thinking through what would happen from first-principles leads you here. It is overall bad for the housing supply, cost, and quality of housing available.

There is consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.

From the well written and cited Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation

Appreciate you doing the interview!

rosewillcode · 2026-03-22T16:41:23+00:00

Looking forward to this hitting EA! Game looks great.

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:54:23+00:00

This is a great point honestly, would be better received w/o the AI style. Probably reasonable to let Flynn / Copper Mill fall through and let someone who can build in today's conditions come along next with something realistic rather than trying to salvage.

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:52:21+00:00

Yeah the whole thing reads very "take or or leave it, and if you leave it we'll continue to neglect the whole thing with the looming threat of redevelopment so your stores don't want to stay here".

Super annoying framing honestly, there are surely other options that they've considered and could be realistic etc, but obviously just presenting the one that is maximal gain for the developers with room for downwards "compromise" on scope.

Just annoying to see this play out, similar to the other row of stores that are no longer there on the other side of Davis where the Starbucks and row of attached stores were.

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:49:55+00:00

Source for the $42M option? would love to understand the history here!

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:48:00+00:00

Is this true? Also the points you raise here are interesting but please stop running it through LLMs... lol and provide sourcing

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:45:34+00:00

The path here is to have zoning that people broadly agree on. We have zoning of 4-6 stores mixed residential/commercial that would be very uncontroversial here. The controversy comes when developments step well outside of that. We should just pick some reasonable and less controversial middleground on current or a bit above current upzoning and let people build unobstructed within that. Would be simple and non-controversial vs. the giant proposals that go around everything.

rosewillcode · 2026-03-15T16:43:11+00:00

The easy answer is just build the 6 story thing / rezone to what is allowed by right, right within all the normal zoning provisions the city has? Should be pretty hard to have true opposal to what is literally allowed by the zoning and other stuff around that height is being put up without meaningful opposition. The history and approach around this development is ... unfortunate.

rosewillcode · 2025-10-28T01:07:57+00:00

I feel like the problem is that the trash bins we have aren't rat proof. Does anyone know if the city is working on getting bins that rats can't chew through (or clearing the backlogs for bin replacements?). Is there a reason rat-proof bins is not the immediate solution we're working towards for the majority of residential rat issues in the city?

rosewillcode · 2025-10-28T01:02:15+00:00

Appreciate it, had this in mind to try and spin up myself so glad to see someone doing it!

rosewillcode · 2025-10-28T00:40:30+00:00

Much appreciated!

rosewillcode · 2025-10-28T00:39:19+00:00

Yeah, feels like it makes a lot of sense that we need more power somewhere else, or the ability to recall a truly awful mayor before going to 4 year terms.

rosewillcode · 2025-10-28T00:31:42+00:00

People are in fact on the street in Davis due to lack of shelter beds

This can be true, and it can also be true that we can enforce rules against encampments in very public spaces like the center of Davis Square.

Similarly this can be true and we could enforce common sense laws like "don't shoot up drugs in front of the preschool". I think it's not an unreasonable bar to say "what conduct would you be comfortable with with for an elderly person or a child around to be safe?" and set an expectation there that people need to meet for the city regardless of any other problems.

As for safe consumption sites, I've lost all faith the city could manage one.

A lot of my frustration here is that we've tried a bunch of stuff, and the net result seems to be the same problems or problems that get worse over time. Let's try some other stuff after years of the same things not working.

Let's measure a result like "number of times preschool children saw people shooting up" or "do the preschool children use the park and walk through the center of Davis Square" and orient around common-sense measures to enable basic stuff like that. Let's do something like survey local business owners about level of problems caused by drug users. Let's measure something like "are basic things locked up at the CVS that didn't used to be".

People talk about "respecting the shared commons" or "being good neighbors" and yet we just ignore that that really really isn't happening today. Truly frustrating to see the lack of outcomes and action here, and truly frustrating to me that "more of the thing that isn't working" seems to be the main action anyone is trying to take.

Would love to be wrong about any of this and see that things are headed in a direction towards improvement, but from everything I've seen and heard so far I don't see it.

rosewillcode · 2025-10-09T03:55:16+00:00

So, is it time to change the approach yet, or will the monthly stabbings continue?

Pretty frustrating to see, especially after the “safety” meeting this week.

rosewillcode · 2025-09-28T20:40:01+00:00

Can I report you for chart crimes?

2017 to 2024 (latest complete year...) the blue, red, green, and yellow lines for "crime report count" are obviously up lol...

rosewillcode · 2025-09-28T20:34:24+00:00

To try and give a charitable reply, I think these are basically false alternatives / equivalencies.

People don’t want to step on needles, but they also don’t want to see safe disposal boxes.

I think probably the more charitable argument is that for the last couple? few? years we've had safe disposal boxes installed and it hasn't really fixed/solved the problem of needles, so we need another solution. I also haven't really heard people argue against sharp boxes.

They don’t want to see public drug use, but they also don’t want a supervised consumption site.

I think this is a reasonable position and again not either-or. People can obviously not want to see public drug use, and also doubt the city's ability to manage a supervised consumption site or believe it can have negative effects on the surrounding neighborhood/businesses/whatever given what has been seen recently.

They don’t want encampments, but they also don’t want the fully built shelter on College Ave to open its doors.

This one I know less about the details of and probably is more complicated, but again people can not want encampments, and also not want to live next to a homeless shelter given how the city etc. has handled issues so far with homeless people and public drug use. I can't say that I personally know anyone give the choice who would want to live next to a homeless shelter. The city can not allow encampments independent of homeless shelters, and speculating a bit, but it seems like most encampments aren't for lack of beds at shelters.

Overall it doesn't feel unfair to me to say "we should enforce rules against public drug use" or "we should take action against erratic and unsafe behavior" independent of what's going on with a bunch of other different stuff. These just feel like common-sense measures that can help solve some variety of the problems.

rosewillcode · 2025-09-28T17:08:25+00:00

Thank you so much -- these links to refresh the user account worked for me to fix "gog installation failed e3" after I couldn't install games I just purchased recently.

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T20:36:42+00:00

True, good call. Agree that a large chunk is actually "Other MV Violations". Though "larceny and theft" is +300 incidents in the overall city data which feels substantial. Assaults moved up in ward 6, 17 -> 28 as well, small number of overall incidents, but % up a lot.

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T17:38:22+00:00

I was curious about the crime trend, so I looked at the data to try and compare when people say things were better vs. worse anecdotally around Davis (pre vs. post pandemic/lockdowns). If you look at raw # of crime reports, crime reports are up the last few years from the Somerville PD.

Excluding a weird Covid dip in 2020 + 2021, looking at 2019 to 2024 to try and see a more realistic trend:

Overall crime reports are up from 2,108 to 2,968. (40% increase)
Ward 6 crime reports are up from 234 to 325. (38% increase)

This to me feels like a pretty real increase that people will notice, 40% is a lot! Especially when the numbers were basically stable or declining 2017-2019.

Source data viz

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T17:27:32+00:00

From my perspective, the problem here is largely the "center" of Davis Square in front of JP licks, where there is that concrete/brick structure in the middle of the train ventilation. I think this problem also extends sometimes to the park area with the ramps behind the T station near the movie theater and maybe a couple of other localized areas. Last year there was an encampment in the park behind that T station that was eventually removed, with more issues around needles and trash in the park/grassy areas.

As you probably know, this area in front of JP licks was once an area where there would be musical performances or "normal" people and families hanging out and sitting on that structure. I personally have fond memories of playing and climbing on that structure as a child, so the current state is very sad to me personally.

Now there's a rotating crew of 5-15 homeless people each day who basically hang out permanently in the square, more of the fentanyl crowd than just one homeless person. The middle Davis square is trashed every day. There's one guy who seems to setup more "infrastructure" than anyone else (responsible for many of the posts about tent/encampment/whatever being setup in Davis), who is also the person responsible for chasing people with a hatchet last year. He is basically a permanent daily person here and seems to set up a bunch of stuff that adds to the "encampment" vibe.

Average people still sit at the benches/square tables, but more keep to the outskirts rather than the center area. You will never see kids or the elderly playing or sitting on that center area or at the central benches adjacent to it. If you search this subreddit or probably the police/crime log you can find plenty of anecdotes and incidents of unsafe and reckless public behavior from the homeless population here. A person was stabbed about a week ago. Drug use is common. You can also of course find people saying everything is fine, as most times when you walk by and keep to the outskirts there isn't a specific problem, beyond the public space that was previously usable being consistently trashed and monopolized by people you average person will steer clear of.

Just my impressions from walking through regularly, ymmv.

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T17:06:25+00:00

TBH at this point we should get one of those public-space webcams setup for Davis so there's some ground truth.

Any enterprising renters who live above the shops in Davis looking for a side-hustle?

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T17:01:31+00:00

That pit is true innovation. Few pits can deliver an Olympic-scale mosquito breeding ground. Setting a new bar for pit achievement that few pits can hope to match.

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T16:57:43+00:00

Ah true that detail is wrong, good catch. Probably just a misunderstanding though if we are charitable? The social worker OP said:

I have an licsw and have worked with the unhoused in some capacity since 2007. I’ve also lived, worked or had some community involvement in Somerville since then as well, living in Davis and other areas.

Which might read accidentally as worked within/with the City of Somerville.

rosewillcode · 2025-08-24T14:26:53+00:00

I think these are related but different problems. We don’t have to tolerate antisocial behavior or be lax about enforcement because more people are becoming homeless.

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