Somerville condo conversion ordinance -- the only city in the state to regulate 2- and 3-family properties

Somerville property owners have been asleep when it comes to condo conversion regulation. This city full of 2- and 3-family properties is the only city in the state to regulate condo conversion in these properties. State law only applies to 4-unit and larger buildings. Times have changed since this regulation began in 1985. Now Mayor Joseph Curtatone wants to "update" the 1985 ordinance. But there does not need to be any regulation at all. It's all voluntary. It's up to the Board of Aldermen to decide. Why be the only city to regulate? Why should 2- and 3-family owners put up with it? They don't have to if they act in large numbers. They need to call, email or write the Board of Aldermen. Each citizen has four At-Large Aldermen and one Ward Alderman representing them. Those are the people to contact. Go to www.spoa.com for more information and for contact info for the Aldermen, including easy-to-use clickable links to their email addresses.

Tenant activists kick their own funders

Bank of America just funded an illegal attack against itself. Their funding supports the City Life/Vida Urbana tenant activists who trespassed and got arrested recently (Sept 08). No doubt they thought they were doing an act of civil disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights movement. They were protesting the eviction of a woman who had defaulted on her Bank of America mortgage and wanted to stay in her home in the new status of tenant. The activists tried to stop the removal of her belongings. I don't agree with the activists; owners-turned-tenants living in foreclosed homes will only slow down the turnover of the housing to new owners and aggravate the current foreclosure crisis. That's why the Massachusetts legislature refused to pass a just-cause eviction bill to keep such tenants in possession of their previous homes. I will stay neutral on the issue of civil disobedience itself. What amazes me is that large institutions are financially backing these activists in their illegal activity. The City Life/Vida Urban website (www.clvu.org) lists several banks (Citizens, Bank of America, Sovereign), The Boston Foundation, The Boston Bar Association, the City of Boston itself, and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay among a host of other financial supporters. The targeted mortgage-holder in the reported foreclosure story was Bank of America itself. The bank's own funding was being used against it. There must be a huge "disconnect" between these supporters and the activists at City Life/Vida Urbana. If they knew what they were supporting, they would certainly pull their funding.

Stupid student occupancy limit in Boston

A recent Boston Globe article made it baldly clear that the new student occupancy limit in Boston -- no more than four full-time undergraduate students in any one apartment -- is pretty stupid. Officials can't verify student status because the colleges and university are strictly government by privacy rules. So how can it be enforced? It can't. Owners may be harassed, but only if students themselves admit to their status will they get into trouble. And there are rules against self-incrimination. They don't have to answer questions. Boston City Councilors should do a little more studying before they launch forward with a new law. They voted unanimously in favor of the law. Now it is in court being tested. What a waste of money for the city and for private landlords.

Just-cause eviction in Boston is rent control

Certain Boston City Councilors want to impose rent control in the disguise of just-cause eviction. It's a rent freeze combined with eviction control. Rents are frozen and tenants cannot be evicted except for seriously violating the terms of a lease or tenancy agreement. This rent control would apply to tenants living in foreclosed properties. Just-cause eviction IS rent control. A rent freeze has no allowance for a rent increase based on improvements to the property. It's the worst possible form of rent control.

The distinctive characteristic of this just-cause eviction is that it would apply only to tenants whose landlords are banks and other "foreclosing owners" who owned the mortgage and now own the property. Once these owners sell, the just-cause eviction would no longer apply. So the length of time this just-cause eviction (and rent freeze) would apply would seem to be short. But in fact, this rent control and eviction control make the property LESS valuable and LESS desirable to buy, so it LENGTHENS the time the property is likely to stay in the hands of a foreclosing owner. It worsens the foreclosure crisis. Property needs to pass to a new private owner as fast as possible. The new owner will then take care of the property, fix it up, and get it fully occupied and pulling in the rental income needed to maintain and improve the property.

The real concern is that this rent control and eviction control could be expanded in the future to other groups of tenants perceived to be in danger of displacement. And so a system of rent control could grow and grow as more groups are added. We already have de facto rent control just recently imposed on owners of large apartments who have been renting to large numbers of students. The student occupancy limit now allows a maximum of four full-time undergraduate students per apartment, which is effectively rent control. Less money can be earned by the owner when the number of occupants is restricted.

Now we have rent control and eviction control being proposed for foreclosed tenants. What is the next step towards full-scale rent control? A rent freeze for the elderly and disabled? A rent freeze for families threatened by displacement or gentrification? If these were allowed, we would be far along the road towards full-scale rent control. That's why it is important to oppose "just-cause eviction" and any kind of rent control, even in a limited form.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW: Property owners need to contact all the Boston City Councilors and ask them to vote NO on "just-cause eviction" and any kind of rent control. The main phone number for the City Council is 617-635-3040. Ask to be transferred to your district councilor and to the undecided at-large city councilors: Flaherty, Murphy, and Connolly. You can find email addresses for the councilors on the city website: www.cityofboston.gov.

Which is it? Lead or stress

Impaired neural development. Impaired language development and memory. Impaired ability to escape poverty for the rest of the child's life. These are the effects that neuroscientists have found in many children growing up in very poor families with low social status. These scientists claim these children have high levels of...no, not lead, they have high levels of "stress hormones."

These are indeed the findings presented recently at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Stress hormones are associated with poverty, they claim, and these stress hormones permanently trap these children into lifetime poverty.

But if research shows that very much the same effects result from elevated blood lead levels in children, which is it that is causing the effect: lead or stress?

The scientists who claim it is lead also claim that they have made sure in their research to eliminate "confounding" factors, that is, other causes of the observed effects. But they missed this one, apparently. Maybe stress leads to lifetime poverty and elevated lead levels in poor children. Meanwhile, the scientists who are focusing on stress hormones may be forgetting about lead as a confounding factor in
THEIR research. Maybe lead causes stress which causes impaired neural development and lifetime poverty.

Are the scientists telling us the truth? Or are they all mixed up and confused? We think the latter.

Freeloading tenant attacks landlord

A tenant who had not paid rent for a year attacked a Marlborough landlord with a frying pan, sending the landlord to the hospital for stitches in numerous locations on his head. The landlord has been ordered not to drive until he recuperates, estimated to take about a month.

The tenant stopped paying rent a year ago. The owner sent him an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent. The tenant then called the local health inspector, who cited only two code violations: a missing (stolen) fire extinguisher and improper egress from the third floor where the tenant lived in a studio apartment. Those code violations show that the building and apartment were in otherwise good shape. Moreover, the local building department inspected the third floor and said there were adequate egresses. The health department still insists they are improper. However, those code violations allowed the tenant to claim that he was "withholding" the rent and blocked the owner's efforts to evict him.

We call this tenant strategy the "free rent trick," and it is entirely legal in Massachusetts. What is lacking in this state is a rent escrow law that would require tenants who withhold rent to escrow it (pay it to the court) as it would otherwise become due to the landlord. A rent escrow law would thus retain all the tenant's powers to stop paying rent to the landlord and force him to make neglected repairs, but it would stop the abuse of our state's rent withholding law that lacks a mandatory escrow provision.

The attack on the landlord shows how intense the hostility can become when a tenant plays the "free rent trick."

Read the full story from the Boston Globe at this web address:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/01/elderly_landlor.html

What is blocking our rent escrow bill?

Basically, our rent escrow bill (S.780) is stuck in the Housing Committee, which is co-chaired by Rep. Kevin Honan on the House side and Sen. Susan Tucker on the Senate side. Sen. Tucker signed on to our bill as a co-sponsor, so she would like to see it move forward. Rep. Honan appears to be the fly in the ointment. It is bothersome that he also happens to be a sponsor of S.1241, one of the two domestic violence bills that, if passed, would slowly bring rent control back across the state. What we can say that is good is that that domestic violence bill is also stuck in the Housing Committee, although as far as we can tell, its proponents have not been active.

Back in 2002, a rent escrow bill was reported favorably out of the Housing Committee and was voted on in both the House and the Senate. The House passed it, thinking they had passed a good bill. In the Senate, we had the votes for it, but then President Tom Birmingham "twisted arms" and called in some political favors and it was narrowly defeated. So if our escrow bill gets reported out of Committee, we feel we can today round up the needed votes to pass it.

Also factors are the House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray. If they are opposed to rent escrow, that may explain why it has not moved out of committee. We need to target our emails, phone calls and letters to all these people. When they hear mostly from our side, they will vote on our side. We have done it in the past. We can do it again.

Representative Kevin Honan
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 38
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2470
Rep.KevinHonan@hou.state.ma.us

Senator Susan Tucker
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 424
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1612
Susan.Tucker@state.ma.us

House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi
State House, Room 356
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2500
Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us

Senate President Therese Murray
State House, Room 332
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1500
Therese.Murray@state.ma.us


And you need to contact your own senator and rep. Follow this link to find out who they are:
www.wheredoivotema.com

Special housing rights for battered women?

The latest news of a restraining order against New England Patriots player Randy Moss serves as an example of a temporary restraining order and how easy it is to get. Two bills at the State House (S.755 and H.1241) would make it easier than a temporary restraining order for alleged battered women (or men) to get special housing rights -- including protection against eviction. Under either of these bills, the person seeking special housing rights merely tells any one of a number of designated people (social worker, advocate in a domestic violence center, etc.) that they are a victim of domestic violence and sign a piece of paper. That gets them the rights that easily, based solely on the alleged victim's word. With protection against eviction, the alleged victim of domestic violence can continue engaging with their partner in the domestic violence -- late-night loud fights, property damage, etc. -- without fear of eviction, leaving landlords helpless to do anything about it.

These domestic violence bills introduce a form of "just cause" eviction, as the owner must prove that the reason for any eviction is not related to domestic violence. We do not have "just cause" eviction in Massachusetts, but this bill would start it. With "just cause" eviction comes a form of rent control. If you can't evict for a reason that might be related to domestic violence and you raise the rent too high, a judge may say you are evicting the tenant by imposing an unreasonable rent increase. That is rent control.

For more information, go to www.spoa.com and scroll down the home page to "Special housing rights for 'battered women'?" The state legislators that need to be contacted are:

Representative Kevin Honan
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 38
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2470
Rep.KevinHonan@hou.state.ma.us

Senator Susan Tucker
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 424
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1612
Susan.Tucker@state.ma.us

And you need to contact your own senator and rep. Follow this link to find out who they are:
www.wheredoivotema.com

Proposed rule: No more than 4 students per Boston apartment

The Boston City Council wants to limit the number of college students that can occupy Boston apartments to no more than 4 students per apartment. This very serious decision was arrived at by behind-the-scenes meetings and negotiations until all the Councilors were unanimously in favor of it. Then the action was fast. The petition had its public hearing this past December 11, 2007, and the Council voted unanimously the very next day, December 12.

Obviously, landlords including the smallest of us were not consulted at all. The decision has two more steps of approval, at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Boston Zoning Commission, in that order. The process could take a couple of months up to a year. Speaking our minds to these bodies is our chance to influence the decision-making and stop this very ill-conceived idea of limiting student occupancy. Go to the Small Property Owners Association website: http://www.spoa.com/ and read more and get contact information for the people that need to hear from you.

Here is what would happen. The excess students would seek apartments in surrounding non-student neighborhoods, displacing families and long-time residents and bringing all the problems of students into yet more Boston neighhborhoods. A housing shortage would be created. People in these newly student-occupied neighborhoods would have to pay more rent and live more compactly with more persons per unit than at present. Meanwhile, in the current student neighborhoods, rents would decline since a cap on the occupants effectively puts a cap on the rents. Individual students in these four-students-only apartments probably would pay a bit more in rent, but the overall rent per apartment would decline. Tax revenues from the devalued four-only apartments would also decline as assessed values dropped. That drop would shift the tax burden to the non-student occupied properties, raising their property taxes.

All these miserable effects occur for what goal? To stop student noise, late-night partying, and excessive trash badly handled. Limiting the students to a maximum of four per apartment will not stop noise or partying or trash. It will all continue. But the Council's action does give permission to Boston's Inspectional Services Department to invade apartments, question individuals, and get them evicted.

The Council's action is attempting to get around a recent consent decree filed in the Federal District Court of Massachusetts. That consent decree throws out a common but incorrect interpretation of the state's lodging house law. That common but incorrect interpretation says that occupancies in all apartments are limited to no more than four unrelated persons, unrelated that is to each other. If four or more unrelated persons occupy, then supposedly they constitute a lodging house or a rooming house and the owner must either evict the tenants or seek a lodging house license and conform to special building code requirements for lodging houses. But the state lodging house law insists that tenants become "lodgers" only when four or more of them are unrelated to the "person conducting" the lodging house. If the owner rents to three individuals and they in turn bring in more tenants, it does not become a lodging or rooming house. In other words, families do not have this number restriction, nor do roommate situations where the roommates decide who lives with them, so long as the landlord does not contract with the four or more roommates individually.

Until recently, Boston's Inspectional Services Department has been enforcing the incorrect interpretation of the law. Now the City Council's action is targeting students and trying to get around this new interpretation of the law. There are legal questions in this action targeting students. It probably is an unlawful search and seizure and invasion of privacy to ask someone if they are a student (it's not illegal to be a student), and based on that status to evict them from their apartment (or force the owner to get a lodging house license, which would not be granted even if the owner wants it). The Council's action also is unequal protection of the law, since it targets students when other types of occupancy may have the same problems.

On the issue of overcrowding, the State Sanitary Code already covers it by requiring at least 150 square feet of space for the first person occupying an apartment and 100 square feet for each additional person. If the City Councilors think that is too crowded, then state law needs to be changed, not Boston's zoning code.

Again, please go to the Small Property Owners Association website http://www.spoa.com/ for more information and for contact information for the people who need to hear from you.