Somerville West Branch Library Renovation/Garden Destruction

[jbcampbe]

Greetings Davisonians

Comments

[ron_newman]

I would like to preserve as much greenery as possible, but I'd also like to see the library become more useful as a place for authors' readings and performances of all kinds. There is no reason at all to care about traffic or parking issues, since the Red Line is right there and so are many bus lines and the Community Path. I hope an agreement can be reached that gives us both greenery and a performance space.

[pekmez]

My impression from the meeting I went to was that the plaza architecture and the addition were much more about getting a lot of valued improvements in conjunction with the primary minimum goal of making the space ADA accessible from street level -- while preserving the historic portion of the building and the front steps and having the whole landscape and building be visually and architecturally workable

[chenoameg]

I concur.

[ceo]

I was going to say, I looked over the plan and have nothing bad to say about it. Some of the landscaping options include eliminating the staff parking lot and making it green space.

Meeting Space

[katiemwallace]

An accessible community meeting space is SO Needed. There are few in Somerville. I think that will be such a great addition to Davis Square. I am very excited about that part. I don't think that we should worry about traffic or parking issues based on a new community meeting room. This is a city people! A busy city square with lots of connecting public transportation. The positives of a meeting space far outweigh the possibility of parking problems. I bet most people walk to this library branch. Its for the community's benefit. If I were worried about parking places I would move to the suburbs. Yes the city needs many things...green line, High School...but this branch needs to be ADA accessible.

[safirerings]

Oh no! I love that little garden! But... that library is in desperate need of repairs. There's so much damp and peeling paint inside.

Library Renovation/Garden Destruction

[jbcampbe]

Oh yes--the library is in bad shape--we're all agreed on that! The "opposition" is just against the proposed new addition and "plaza". We'd really like to see the existing building spiffed up and made ADA compliant. It would be great if the city spent some of the money they were planning to spend on the addition and "plaza" on not only renovating the building, but growing the collection, extending library hours, extra programs--etc.

There's also much more space in the existing building than people generally realize--certainly enough for most meetings and small performances (such as author readings). There really isn't any need to sacrifice any more of the garden than is necessary to create some sort of wheelchair entrance . . .

RE: Library Renovation/Garden Destruction

[nomacmac]

That the city needs to borrow or rent space from Tufts University to have community meetings is proof that our neighborhood NEEDS a community room that can be used independent of library activities. We cannot depend on Tufts to provide our community space