That is Somerville's biggest problem right now: very tight and inappropriate zoning and building regulations, but they only take effect in if you demolish your

That is Somerville's biggest problem right now: very tight and inappropriate zoning and building regulations, but they only take effect in if you demolish your house and build something new. So Somerville is frozen in amber. A few years ago, I saw developers in Somerville get around that problem when they wanted to replace one 3-apartment house with one exactly the same shape, minus a whole lot of rotten wood, and plus a whole lot of good insulation and the like. So instead of tearing the building down and building it anew, they tore down half of it, all the way down to the foundation, then removed all the parts connecting to the foundation, leaving half of the building on stilts, and then started building the new building, with the shell still in place. They did good work. They replaced a well-designed but badly neglected building with one that is also well designed and more liveable. They should not have had to do this charade that they were just "renovating" it, but that was the only way to do it legally.