New condo conversion ordinance up to expectations?

By Nathalie Moskal

SOMERVILLE – When Mayor Joseph Curtatone first proposed a rewrite to the city’s condominium conversion ordinance two years ago, residents and real estate companies criticized the extensive rights granted to tenants in the proposal. 

Opposition held back the proposal for two years.

In May, Curtatone announced that the proposal was to be revised by the Condominium Conversion Task Force, a group assembled and chaired by Rebekah Gewirtz, Ward 6 Alderman.

The task force included tenant advocates, representatives from the real estate community and staff from the Office of Strategic Planning and Development, said Lesley Delaney Hawkins, a spokesman for Curtatone, in an Oct. 7 press release.

The proposal expands on the 1985 ordinance, which mandates a two-year notice of conversion to elderly, disabled and low-income tenants, and a one-year notice to all other tenants. 

The old ordinance also mandates a reimbursement of relocation costs for tenants, requiring landlords to pay out the higher of $300 or one month’s rent to displaced tenants.

The new revisions raise relocation reimbursements to the higher of one month’s rent or $4,000 for elderly, disabled and low-income tenants and $2,000 for all other tenants.

Small Property Owners of America, a local organization, opposes the proposal. They argue that the rules for two and three-family homes in the proposal are unjustified because Somerville is the only city in the state to regulate buildings with fewer than four units, according to the organization’s website.

The organization's president, Lenore Monello Schloming, encourages residents to contact their aldermen to protest the proposal’s limits to property owners’ powers and the financial burdens the proposal would potentially force on the city and the property owners.

However, the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee, a faction of the Somerville Community Corporation argues the changes benefit low-income tenants through extended notice periods and greater compensation for relocations.

The committee worked closely with Curtatone on the proposal, which the mayor said would create an equal system of rights for property owners and their tenants.

The proposal is being considered by the Board of Aldermen’s Legislative Matters Committee, and a public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Nov. 18 at City Hall, Hawkins said.