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.