total time: 4.9 minutes
total words: 641
total time: 1.32 minutes
total words: 222
total time: 6.54 minutes
total words: 949
total time: 16.61 minutes
total words: 2785
total time: 8.06 minutes
total words: 1320
[Leming]: Okay, apologize for the technical issues, everybody, but I believe we are good right now to start. This is the meeting of the Planning and Permitting Committee, Medford City Council. Clerk, can you please call the roll?
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Present.
[Hurtubise]: Council member present.
[Leming]: Wait. Okay. And I am going to be chairing this committee at the request of Vice President Collins, who's normally the chair of this committee, leave the first item. The first and only item on the agenda is paper 22-310, offered by President Bears and Vice President Collins, housing home rule petitions. And I will leave this to any Yeah, just gonna go ahead and leave this to any individual Councilors that, oh, yes. Just gonna leave this to any individual Councilors that would like to speak. Mr. Chair, if I can. Absolutely, yep.
[Scarpelli]: Uh, just for, um, just for edification tonight, uh, Wednesdays have been a very difficult night for me because I also work on Wednesday, some Wednesday nights. So I'm going to stay in this meeting as long as I can. And unfortunately won't be able to attend the seven o'clock meeting. So I just wanted that, um, that to be no night, not, I'm not disrespecting anyone. I just, uh, unfortunately every other Wednesday, it looks like I've been, uh, had to work my regular job. So thank you. All right.
[Leming]: Thank you. And I would like to pass this off to Vice President Collins as the sponsor of this paper. So feel free to feel free to take it away.
[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. And I thank the Councilor for chairing this meeting because I have to be remote tonight. Appreciate that. So this is the first time that we are talking about this paper in committee, even though it was introduced in 2022. So I wanted to begin with a brief overview of the paper, what it is, what it isn't, why it was brought up, when it was, and just to kind of place us at the beginning of a discussion about this topic. Like I mentioned, this was brought forward by myself and President Bears in 2022. At the time, this was a resolution that bundled together many ideas for housing stability-related home rule petitions. It included, these ideas included rent stabilization, tenant right to purchase, tenant right to counsel, just cause eviction protections, anti-price gouging protections, exemptions for small owner-occupant landlords. This was a resolution that bundled together kind of a roster of different ideas that have been used by various local municipalities all around the goal of trying to introduce some stability into a housing market that is governed by market forces. And I also want to speak a little bit to the particular moment during which this paper arose. This was, I believe, March of 2022. We had just had an issue right here in Medford Square, where a large apartment building on Bradley Road, all of the tenants had been served notices to quit. The story given was renovations to the apartments. But in effect, what we saw play out at the site was that a recent change of hands for the property and the property owners wanted to be able to rent those units at very much higher rates than they had been rented to for years. And we saw a lot of tenants leave the community. We saw a lot of tenants kind of have to react to this with not a lot of information, not a lot of options. and come to the City Council for help and say, what can we do? And unfortunately, we had to say, you know, there's not a lot that we can do. You know, we cannot intervene in this kind of situation. We can't get between, we can't get in the middle of this transaction. We can provide you with folks who are experts in this type of situation, but there's nothing that the City Council can do. to help you stay in your home, stay in your community, keep your commute the same, keep your kid in public schools. So these ideas came out of that conversation with those tenants, I believe almost all of whom eventually ended up getting displaced out of the community. And in that time, of course, we've seen other unfortunate examples of rent increases so exorbitant that they had the same effect of displacing tenants out of the community when they otherwise would have remained community members. So I just wanted to give that framing for why that came up when it did because it's been a little while.
[Scarpelli]: Point of information if I can, Councilor.
[Leming]: Go ahead.
[Scarpelli]: Again, I appreciate this. I just wanted to share just a couple of questions before we get going that people have reached out and I wanted to share that with this topic being very important, it is also a hot topic button that that we had some questions on whether the information that we received today from you was enough time for any legal ramification with the open meeting law, what the information is. And then the other one that I needed to share with you, Councilor Collins, that I had residents calling me asking if we can table this portion for the fact that tonight is a holy night and we have a lot of people that couldn't make this meeting at such a short notice once they understood what was involved. So although I feel some of these points are very important in what we saw with the issue that you talked about, I think as a whole this is something that really has to have more of an open dialogue with from beginning to end with all the stakeholders in the community. So I think that I just wanted to share that with you. I hope you can consider that because I think that with such a hot topic issue right now, making sure that we don't alienate or try to divide with this topic. So thank you.
[Collins]: Chair Leming, if I may.
[Leming]: Absolutely, Councilor Collins or Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you so much. And thank you, Councilor Scarpelli, for raising that. I appreciate that. I know that rent stabilization is absolutely an issue that gets people's hackles up, you know, wherever they feel about it. I completely appreciate that. I do want to, you know, and I think that Councilor Scarpelli, we're coming at this meeting actually in a similar frame of mind, you know, as you and I know through going through this process on various resolutions and ordinances. This is the beginning of a process. I think it's probably going to be a fairly lengthy and thorough process because this is such a delicate issue. Let me return to sort of the framing of the issue, because I hope that I can speak to some of the concerns that you brought up, and I think that they're important ones. For those folks who don't know, a home rule petition is when any city says to the state, All right, state, here's a thing that ordinarily cities can't do. We'd like for you to make an exception. So I think that one way we can think about this process is that we're beginning the process of collaboratively drafting a piece of legislation that we would like the permission to do. I know I heard from some folks this afternoon who said, please do not pass this bill. We're not passing a bill tonight. This is conversation number one of many about a topic that's going to take a lot of time to talk about. This is just the beginning. You know, there were meeting documents circulated before the meeting, which is common practice for us to circulate common drafts for Councilors to read before the meeting starts. My intent, and I'll make these motions later in the meeting, is for us to open up a conversation in this meeting. Afterwards, we'll circulate the documents to relevant city staff, stakeholders, and then we'll use them as a jumping off point for our next conversation on this. And just to follow up on the point I was making about the Home Rule petition, In the hypothetical scenario that we finish a home brawl petition about rent stabilization and just cause eviction, which is kind of the jumping off point that I created for a conversation tonight. If that were to go through, if this council were to approve it, then it would go to our state delegation and the jurisdiction would be with them to approve or not. And that is just the standard procedure for for any Home Rule petition. So I just wanted to make that clear, because I know these things are often opaque outside of City Hall in terms of the process that we're looking at here. Pause there in case there are any questions from fellow Councilors on the process, or if not, I can just quickly run through more of the table setting.
[Scarpelli]: If I can, to the Chair,
[Leming]: Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: Thank you. So I appreciate that Councilor, but I also wanted to make sure it was addressed that we did have, being that even if it is a kicking off point, we do have residents that, you know, looked at what we had, but then the information that was sent out that that was shared that it was it's pretty intense and it's pretty like we know it's it's a volatile hot topic button so I think that you know the the understanding that a lot of There are a lot of homeowners that are at 6 o'clock mass tonight for a holy night. So I just want to make sure that we address that. That's something that, again, when we talk about this new process, because this is a new process, and how we're doing our subcommittees and different committees, this is new. So I think even with me, I was a little confused with the process. And getting the information now that will be outlining something that I think that people need to know from the jump. That's my input. I respect what you're trying to do. You know that, but I just wanted to make sure that I was heard. So thank you.
[Leming]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Are there comments from any other councilors before Vice President Collins continues with her presentation? Seeing none, go ahead, Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, Chair Leming, and thank you, Councilor Sparkely. I appreciate, and of course, I think it's obviously a goal that we share that everybody who'd like to weigh in has the opportunity to. It's not my, as one councilor, it's not my intent that we're going to take any substantive action or vote to take actions on this draft tonight, but rather that this can be a draft that constituents, councilors, stakeholders, and city staff can continue to review starting tonight and in the run-up to our next meeting on the topic, giving everybody ample time to review it, and then we'll revisit the same draft. So I hope that that'll provide a lot of opportunity for people to read it and digest it before we revisit it again. Having said that, and of course, happy to circle back to the process at any point. I just, I think that I'm sure that there are other people in the room and on the Zoom tonight who can speak to the potential uses of rent stabilization and how it's been used in Massachusetts before later in the meeting, but just to quickly kind of frame the conversation. Like I mentioned, rent stabilization, I think most people know what it is. It's a way for a government entity, usually a city, to set a cap by which rent costs may not increase above that amount in a given year. And then it sets forth the exceptions to that. Let me find the... Trying to find a handy quote that I found in my research about this. Okay, this is from, and pulling together some resources as I was preparing just myself for this meeting. This is one of the strategies that the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission touches on on its website. I think that they have a pretty handy encapsulation of what rent control does and doesn't do. They say rent control denies unlimited excessive rent increases, thus limiting profits. Rent control does, however, allow for annual increases that provide owners a fair return on investment with sufficient income to maintain property in a satisfactory manner. They go on to say rent control laws usually include provisions that protect a landlord's investment in these ways. For example, sometimes defining fair return, a hardship appeals process. So there are There are many levers and exemptions and ways to tailor these policies that I think we can look to other cities, including cities in Massachusetts, to guide our discussion as we start looking at drafts, as we get beyond the preliminary table setting stage and into crafting a home rule petition. I think that there's a lot of ways that cities have worked really hard to tailor this to their communities. And I think that that if this project goes forward, we'll be looking to do here in Medford is to say, what does this community need? And how can we tailor this to Medford? Like I said, the idea for this in Medford came out of a particularly visible displacement event. And that displacement in general in Medford continues to, we continue to see that happening in the community. I know for myself, I'm sure for some of my other Councilors, this is something that we hear about, unfortunately, from time to time, housing scarcity.
[Scarpelli]: Sorry, point of information. Mr. Chair? Go ahead. Again, I hate to interrupt, please forgive me, but as we're going down this road, I think we need to be very careful that we're not without any legal representation, as we're looking to go further with this, we're not looking at what we say and then coming back to bite us because there are financial ramifications that do affect the community and individuals in this community. So I, you know, I, you know, I know that I've asked, I just don't, I don't want to, you know, go down this hole and then find us in that BJ situation that we, we made a big faux pas and we're, uh, then backpedaling. So I would, I would caution to move forward with this. I, you know, I, I, I would second 22 it, but, um, I right now that, that, that, that's coming close. I just don't, this is too much in play with this, this, um, I know that if we're talking about pieces of this that talked about this issue that's brought apart apart, but as we're looking at rent control, that's a whole different, different animal. This is this is something that's going to change this community drastically. And that will affect every homeowner and also what it would look like financially tax purposes as we move forward in in revenue. So I I think we need to really understand as we're going forward. It's like I said, if I received this information, Madam Vice President, early, you know, with some time, I could have vetted this, but I honestly got this, the whole breakdown of what your resolution reads. about an hour and a half ago. So I would ask that we would table this to another date and move on to something else, because I think that this is something that might come back to us. So thank you.
[Leming]: Councilor Callahan, then back to Councilor Collins. And I would like, sorry. All right, oh, sorry, yep. Councilor Scarpelli, was that a motion to table? Councilor Scarpelli? Yes. Do we have a second? Seeing no, seeing no second for that, for the motion to table. I'm going to move on to Councilor Callaghan and then Councilor Collins.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I have a few questions. First, I don't, I don't see. So there are seven different Home Rule petitions listed, potential Home Rule petitions listed. Do we have any actual legal language for any of these seven?
[Leming]: Councilor Collins, or Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan, for the question. I circulated around noon today through the city clerk some example language from the city of Somerville, a draft jumping off point document for our discussion for a potential home rule petition here in Medford, and a link to some background info from the MAPC. So you're correct, the original resolution included those ideas for seven home rule petitions. I thought that, you know, seven is a lot to do in one meeting. I'm not sure if it's the will of the council to advance with all of them. I thought that this meeting, we could begin a conversation about rent stabilization in other communities. They've bundled rent stabilization and just cause eviction together. So that's what the document circulated by the clerk does.
[Callahan]: My second question, if I may, if I may just ask my second question. So I just wanted to double check. So we are, right now we're not discussing the other six. We're discussing the rent stabilization, which is referenced in a separate email. Is that correct? We're only discussing the rent stabilization today? Correct. Thank you.
[Scarpelli]: Point of information to the clerk, please, Mr. Chairperson. Go ahead. If it wasn't in, what is the ruling on open meeting law regulations with material that wasn't in place just a few hours ago? Clerk.
[Hurtubise]: I believe that supporting materials that are in the packets are allowed. As long as the item is on the agenda, there are often discussion items that go into the packets or are circulated ahead of the meetings, whether they're in the packet or not. But the open meeting law requires that the agenda spell it out in enough specificity that a reasonable person could know what was going on at the meeting.
[Scarpelli]: So that's the question, because I'm getting phone calls and emails from that talk about home repetitions on stabilization. But what I got today was pretty in-depth and pretty lengthy and pretty intense. And I think that's where the slippery slope comes in. But thank you for the clarification.
[Leming]: I'm going to go back to Vice President Collins. And then after that, we're going to let some of our speakers talk and then open it up for public comments. So Vice President Collins and then the speakers.
[Collins]: Thank you, Chair Leming. I appreciate that. And yes, I think it would be great to start hearing from some of the other city staff and advocates that I know are in the room. Just quickly, I want to say, you know, I think in my experience, it's, you know, I, sorry, two thoughts happening in my head at the same time. I just want to really emphasize that for the purposes of this conversation, we are beginning a discussion about something that has been brought up by the City Council two years ago. The intent to pursue this at some point has been public record for some time. The content of this resolution has been public record. I hear that people would like more time to look at the documents that have been circulated in support. It is true that we very often get supporting documents for meetings pretty close to the meeting time. At least that's been my experience for the past term. And I completely respect that people want more time to look through a draft. That's why I was hoping that the purpose of this meeting could be to begin the conversation and then give people the intervening two or four weeks to read it and develop feedback and bring that to our next committee meeting on this topic. So I think that we're all aligned on that. Before we turn it over to other speakers and people who have comments that they'd like to contribute to this discussion, I just want to again really emphasize that It's true that rent stabilization is talked about as if it's one thing, and it has one set of consequences, and those are always the same, and they're always bad. But that's really not true, and I think that we have the capacity and the creativity in this community to say, we have this issue. We know that there are people who want to move out of their parents' homes and get their own apartment in Medford. We know that there are people who want to have their own place. We know that there are couples that want to move in together. We know that there are people who can't afford to buy a home, but love it here and want to stay. And we know that rent costs are a huge problem. for all of those types of people. And I think that knowing this council, this is a proactive council, every member, I think that it is well worth our time to say, before we dismiss this, let's take a good long look at rent stabilization, something that other communities have looked at, and see if there's a way to tailor this to Medford so that we could keep more Medford residents in Medford. And I also want to note, again, And people will see this when they take more time with the examples from other communities and with the draft home repetition for Medford that are created as a jumping off point. But there are myriad exemptions that we can build in to make sure that this is not anything that is going to be dramatic or drastic for people who do own rental units in Medford, exemptions for smaller types of properties, exemptions for certain types of owners. That's all on the table. So I hope that we can proceed with cool heads because I think that everybody's going to have something productive to continue to contribute to this conversation. I'll leave it there.
[Leming]: We are now going to open it up to members of the public. I'd first like to recognize some of our invited speakers. Katie McCann, and Eduardo Palacios from City Light, Fever, and Bona. If you'd like to say anything, go ahead.
[Palacios]: Hey, my name is, thank you. And hello, everybody. How's everybody doing tonight? I hope everybody's staying holy and warm in this cold day. My name is Eduardo Palacios. I am a community organizer of City Light, Fever, and Bona. I've been organizing in the Mallard Metro neighborhood area. And I think that this is a great step in the right direction to help protect citizens, the residents of the city of Medford. But we have already seen what it is to have someone from outside of the Medford city come into the Medford, buy up the property, and start mass evictions through the tenants of Medford that have been living there, many of them for over a decade. And this is why we are pushing for this whole petition to help protect the rest of the presidents of the city of Medford for what's coming next. I feel like that was only a small step that real estate and maximized profit is taking. And unless we act quickly, and preemptively try to defend this is going to be an issue that we're seeing in Chelsea, that we're seeing in East Boston, that we're seeing in parts of Everett, you know, that we're seeing all over the state where The rents are being raised dramatically, $500, $600, $700 is a common thing now. Properties are being bought up and tenants are being forced out for no fault of their own, no fault of their own. It's not because they owe rent, it's not because they destroyed a property, it's simply because an investor is trying to maximize their profits from these buildings. Medford has always been the safe zone that we've always been able to go to. I remember the Meadow Glen Mall. We've seen it change. We've seen gentrification start slowly happening, but in a way that we can still protect the residents, the citizens of the city of Medford. And I think it's I mean, these are your constituents, right? This is why we come to you. We're asking for this help and helping us prevent this fallout war that's going to come eventually if we do not take the step forward to help protect it. So we're asking not just as neighbors, not just as tenants from sister neighborhoods and sister cities, but as organizers, as workers, as people that have to work nine to five to be able to pay the bills and pay the rent. We're asking you to help us protect the city of Medford and its constituents from a maximized profit gain that doesn't benefit us. While they extract, you know, what we see from other places, they extract everything that came from our community and push everyone else out. So we're asking you to please take this into consideration. This is a great step in the right direction and it will help protect the residents of Mexico. And with that example, we lead by it and help establish that in the city of Maui, and so on and so forth. So we're asking that we be leaders in this world of followers. Thank you.
[Leming]: Eduardo, could you also state your name and address for record? Apologies that I forgot to ask you that explicitly.
[Palacios]: No problem. You said my name and address?
[Leming]: Yeah, just just say your name and address.
[Palacios]: All right, Eduardo Palacios. I live in 766 Broadway in Everett, Massachusetts. Number 2149.
[Leming]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Katie, name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes. Hi, I'm Katie McCann. 91 Rossmoor Road, number two, Jamaica plan.
[Leming]: Good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, my name is Katie McCann and I'm a community organizer at City Light Theatre Urbana, a grassroots passive justice organization in Boston, which organizes with renters and homeowners against displacement in the greater Boston area, including Medford for several years. I, along with my colleague Eduardo, I've worked with Metro residents facing large rent increases and no-fall evictions from large corporate landlords to organize for their agreements so that they could stay in their homes, including at the building that Vice President Collins mentioned on Bradley Road. I would like to express my strong support for this rent stabilization on-roll petition. This rent stabilization on-roll petition is one of the most important tools this community needs to address the affordable housing and displacement crisis. In Medford and communities across the state, we're seeing families be displaced from their homes, and even out of Massachusetts altogether, by mass no fault evictions, investor building sales, and enormous rent increases by corporate landlords. Most of the residents of the Bradley Road building were displaced very far away from Medford. The displacement of children from their schools causes serious lasting impacts on their education and causes serious lasting impacts on physical and mental health for all residents. This statewide crisis is urgent and this crisis in Medford is particularly urgent and cities and towns including Medford need every tool that stabilizes community members in their homes. Rent control is a solution that immediately addresses the housing crisis and would protect the broadest number of working class families seniors, people of color, and immigrants. And this is a strong model for how cities and towns can protect residents from displacement, very similar to Summerville's Home Rule petition, which recently passed unanimously. We must do everything that we can to keep community members in their homes by giving Medford the ability to protect working class renters from displacement now. Thank you, Vice President Collins, for your leadership on this.
[Leming]: I'd like to open it up to members of the public. Do we have anyone that would like to comment on this? Name and address for the record.
[Catalo]: Kelly Catalo, and I live at 9A Mountain Road in Burlington. I am a former Medford resident that was displaced as a property owner. I couldn't afford to buy a house in Medford, and that's how my family ended up in Burlington two years ago. Are you going to do anything to stop the price of the increased cost of housing? I don't think so. I think it should be pointed out to the public that both of your speakers that you just had are actually an organization that comes in and they organize tenants to get them to fight against landlords. So if we go back to the building on Bradley Road, everybody should know the person who bought that building paid millions and millions of dollars for a building that needed a ton of work. The people that were living in the building, I happened to replace quite a few of them. Their rent was well below what anybody else was paying. So there is a big attrition there. There is no way that those people were going to be made whole, whether they stayed there or they went somewhere else. Their rent was brought up. Medford is a victim of its own success. It's not a bad thing. Everyone said, bring in the green line. We want the amenity of the green line. We call that the money line, because where does it go? It goes to Kendall Square. It goes down to the medical buildings. People that work in those high paying jobs, that's where they travel to, is on that train. They're coming to Medford, and I'll tell you, I represent 732 landlords in the city of Medford. So if you need me to come back with a petition, I will. They would like to be heard on this. They don't want just the tenant end of it being heard. There really is not a problem with a lot of the landlords and a lot of the tenants in Medford. They communicate very well because the majority of the landlords in Medford are small property owners. They own one or two units. I have an email here, which I am going to read into the record, and it's from one of my clients who emailed everyone on this council today. Dear housing members, as a homeowner of a three-family house in Medford for almost 60 years, I have never written to the mayor or city council before. But when a friend told me today that there was a meeting at city hall tonight at 6 p.m. where the Medford City Council's Housing Self Committee will propose creating zoning that will control rent And also, and landlord rights to evict a tenant for any reason, I was appalled and had to write to all those concerned in this matter. Firstly, regarding rent control around 1970 Boston, Cambridge, Sumbul instituted rent control, Medford did not. It ended in the late 70s there about with Boston abolishing it around 1994. Voters voted it out for the simple reason that the homes in those cities were deteriorating at a rapid pace. The landlords, mostly small, did not garner enough revenue to fix important breakdowns. So the apartments eventually were like trash. The carpenters, electricians, plumbers wages were going up during that time, but not the rents. So it was difficult to fix deteriorating structures without the proper income. Please don't let that happen in Medford. As far as ending landlord's rights to evict a tenant for any reason, whoa, that's not a good idea. In our almost 60 years of marriage and many tenants, last year found us with a tenant who always missed paying his monthly rent with unbelievable excuses. We had to call him three to four times the week before the first of each month to remind him that the rent was almost due. Even then the rent was not received until two to three weeks later. Also, we told him that another tenant had an allergy to cats for so pets were not allowed within three months he's serendipitously brought in a cat. My other tenant was about to give us notice for that reason. So I told the cat tenant that since we're not on the same page, and he has about two to three months to find another apartment. He left quietly on the first of the month. Imagine if I did not have the right to evict him for any reason. Also, that was the first time in all those years that I've had to evict someone. I have more to say, but I want to get this email over to you all before the 6 p.m. meeting tonight. I wish we all knew sooner about this meeting. So I am going to ask you, maybe you could publish the entire community, a lot of communities, they send their notices out with their water bills, you're mailing it anyways, you're mailing a tax bill, send a notice to the whole city that you would like to discuss the landlord and the tenant issue here. The problem is if you cannot come up with a solution that is going to help the rising interest rates, what?
[Leming]: just notifying you you have 30 seconds.
[Catalo]: Oh, sorry. Thanks. We need a little clock. If you're not going to be able to stop the rising cost of the repairs, stop the rising cost of real estate, stop the rising interest rates, we're not gonna be able to fix the problems because right now you're trying to handicap people and just trying to help the community. Thank you.
[Bears]: Mr. Chair, President Bears, thank you. And, you know, I think as we discuss these issues of housing and housing affordability and accessibility in our community, It's important that we have all the tools on the table as possible. I know that there are groups of folks who say supply is the only way out. There's groups of folks who don't want anything new to be built. There's groups of folks who want as few regulations on the landlord-tenant relationship as possible. And certainly there are people who want you know, extreme regulations on the landlord-tenant relationship. And, you know, the answer is actually somewhere in all of those. we're going to continue to work with the city to improve policies. Um. And we have on our agenda. I mean, we have passed, uh, already is only recalibration in 2022 that has brought some significant new projects to the city. We are going to be over this term, passing a complete zoning reform update based on the housing production and comprehensive plan that I think will, um, That's part of the conversation we're having. We're also having a conversation tonight here about having the state give us more tools in our toolbox when it comes to anti displacement regulations. I want to say a few things, just put them out there. And if they have already been said, I apologize, I had to step out for a minute. rent control rent stabilization laws were allowed in this state until 1994 when a ballot question passed by less than 1% of the vote is about 50.5 to 49.5 to overrule them. At that time, there were only three communities that had rent control. maybe actually even just two, Boston and Cambridge, I think Somerville had repealed at the time already. Maybe Somerville had them in 94 too, but either way, the point being that the voters in those cities that had rent control overwhelmingly voted in favor of keeping it. It was voters in Wellesley and Weston and Newton who voted against it. And those are the reasons that rent control ended. So someone from outside of the cities that wanted this have put a ballot question, you know, property owners put a ballot, landlords put a ballot question on the agenda to restrict communities from making decisions at the local level and giving communities the local authority to pass policies that they felt would best address issues of displacement in their community. Overruling the voices of the people in the communities that had rent control at the time who overwhelmingly again voted to keep it. Now, There was a few other things that have come up tonight around what this is going to mean, what this is going to do. I think at the end of the day, when you look at the policy, and I just read through the details of what Vice President Collins submitted earlier today, what this policy does, A, it exempts properties with two or fewer dwelling units on which one of the dwelling units is the owner's principal residence. So if you're a two-family owner and you live in one unit and you're renting the other, this wouldn't apply to you. It exempts to several other examples as well, dormitories, hotels, public housing, etc. It's really targeted at the price gouging. It's targeted at the hundreds and thousands dollar increases from year to year at the multiple, at the two digit percent increases per year. It says that there should be no increase greater than 5% in this language, but it also says that there'll be an exemption for fair return standards. So that if you have, if you can go up above 5%, if you can show that your maintenance and capital costs are going up, that your utility costs are going up, that your property taxes are going up. So it actually addresses all of these concerns that have come out and says if, you know, It's 5% seems reasonable and most years that's significantly above inflation. If you have costs that are going up above that, the city can put that in the regulations that that can be addressed as part of it as well. So to be honest, this is pretty balanced policy when it comes to the eviction protections here. Every reason that was cited by the resident in their email for reasons that they would be afraid, that they would want to evict someone, having a cat against the lease, not paying their rent, otherwise violating their lease policies. All of that is just cause under this policy. This is going and saying, when a corporation buys a building and tells everyone it's time to get out, we're renovating and we're jacking up the rights by double. Is that a just cause? I don't think anyone would dispute that non-payment of rent or violating the lease or causing health effects by having pets in the home against the terms of the lease. Of course, those are things that shouldn't be happening. That's why they're specifically listed as just causes in this document. So it's about putting on paper and saying, and as we are seeing with the MAPC released recently, that over 20% of our housing stock is being bought up by large corporations, Wall Street investors, BlackRock, Vanguard, et cetera, to further financialize and corporatize shelter and housing, that there needs to be balance. And that while we are going to look at supply and increasing supply and allowing what this community has not allowed for a long time, private property owners to do, which is build the things that they want to build on their land, that there also has to be an anti-displacement part of that contract as well. And that there are reasonable regulations that can be adopted such as the ones here to ensure that while we try to get to a better place, while we try to get more affordable housing, more naturally affordable housing, to lower the cost of housing, which I know people don't necessarily, you know, it's funny, everyone says housing costs too much, but nobody wants their housing price to go down, right? So there is a bit of a cash 22 there. But as we move more towards balance, there needs to be something in place in the interim to prevent the displacement of people. Whoever's left at this point, as Kelly Catala noted and many others have noted, many people have already been displaced. If we just say, okay, we're gonna do the zoning and we're gonna wait for supply to come up, thousands more people will be displaced. So that's why policies like these are important. And I appreciate the draft that is before us. Thank you.
[Leming]: and I did see that Councilor Callahan had her hand raised twice, but I would like to finish up the public comments period before moving on. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? Name and address for the record.
[Hunt]: Good evening, Alicia Hunt. I'm the director of planning, development and sustainability for the city of Medford. I just wanted to just say a few brief words. I did want to introduce to you all that I have with me this evening, Aditi Mugar, who is our new housing planner. Aditi and I have not actually had a chance to review this document as well before this evening, but we would love to offer that Aditi would be happy to review it, to do some research, to provide some feedback, to look at stuff from other communities as well. So we're happy to provide feedback, just not tonight, because not on the short notice. I did want to mention a couple of things that we have been noticing, and I would love for, be curious as to whether this would address it or something else. So you all know, as we've all talked about, Medford has traditionally been a starter home community where people could afford to buy first homes. I myself bought my first home here in Medford for exactly that reason. And we're finding that with corporations buying up houses and with developers buying houses and doing major renovations on them, it's not leaving very much for starter homes. And that is an issue that we're interested in researching. I don't think that rent stabilization will deal with that. Um, but that is one. And the other is that we'd love to better understand the numbers in Medford for corporations buying homes, um, and then holding them and renting them out and taking them off the open market. Um, so that's something that's on our list for me to look into. Um, and just as a side thought, I just wanted to share that in the past, um, when we have had ordinances and things that we'd like to pass, legal counsel has advised my office specifically that they would really like for the staff and the council to come to an agreement on what language they would like to be including before they start doing their legal reviews. If one wants to ask them, is a home rule petition allowed, they could give advice on that. but they don't want to spend time reviewing language until there's been some agreement on what the council would like to pass. So I just wanted to share that that's been my experience for other ordinances. Thank you. Have a good evening.
[Leming]: Thank you. Any other members of the public? Okay, seeing none, the chambers are on zoom going to close the public comments period. Uh, Councilor Callahan was there. Is there anything that you'd like to like, just like to speak to.
[Callahan]: No, really, President Bayer said what I was going to say. I think the person who wrote in that was read in public comment misunderstood what is in this draft with the idea that currently you can evict people for any reason. And if we change that, that doesn't mean that you can't evict them for any reason. There are many reasons that you certainly can evict people. You can evict them if they don't pay their rent. You can evict them if they have a cat and that's against the lease. You know, any of these things are perfectly valid reasons to evict someone. So I think there was a misunderstanding and I hope that that came through in President Bears's message. Thanks.
[Leming]: Thank you, Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Thank you, Chair Levening, and thank you to all of the constituents, advocates, city staff that has spoken. Really appreciate getting some preliminary voices into the discussion. And I think that this is What our conversation just in the past 15 minutes has, I think, reinforced for me is that this is a topic and a term that is so heavily connotated that using these meetings to bring that nuance into the conversation and just to really recenter on what exactly is being proposed and how it differs from the idea that we have in our heads about what rent control is or must be, I think that that'll be where we get a lot of really productive work done. I appreciate raising some of the details around what we mean when we say just cause eviction. And I hope that as we continue to enter into the details of this process, whether we're talking about just cause eviction or whether we're talking about really finessing the styles and levers around the specific numbers and exemptions and conditions around rent stabilization, I hope that we can, I think that we'll have a really quick conversation around the nuance and how to, again, make this something that is more helpful than not. And I think that grounding this in the overall context of how big of a problem displacement is in Medford and how increasing housing supply is deeply crucial and the council is very enmeshed in that work and it can never be fast enough to deal with the displacement that we have been seeing for years and continue to see. And I think we just have to challenge ourselves to do more than one thing at a time. So I really appreciate everybody being a part of this conversation from the outset and trying to help us do that as well as we can. I would like to make a motion to recirculate the background information. sample Home Rule Petition from Somerville and first draft of our Home Rule Petition from Medford that was circulated earlier today to all councillors, the Director of the Planning Development and Sustainability Office, to the Senior Planner, Housing Staff Planner, Of course, these will be available on the city website under the report for this committee meeting and to request feedback and comments by February 28th. And Mr. Clerk, I'd be happy to email that language over to you so you have it. That's just a motion to recirculate all of the meeting documents to Councilors and staff and request feedback by the 28th.
[Leming]: Okay, we have a motion from Vice President Collins, second from Councilor Callahan. Let's do it. Clerk, would you please call the roll? President Bears.
[Bears]: Just before we vote on the motion, Vice President Collins, I just had a question for you on the TOPA, the right to council. Are we gonna look at those at a later date or did we decide we didn't wanna Two home rolls on those?
[Collins]: I am interested in, I think my next priority would be TOPA. Okay. And I believe that that is included in the governing agenda. I don't know that the others are.
[Bears]: Okay. I just think we should maybe give the new proposal that you have drafted a new paper number. That would be my amendment to the motion. I just think we need to, uh, I just I think we're splitting it off now. Um, there's now a specific proposal. Pursuant to the right, like it said, be it resolved for me to discuss the potential drafting of formal petitions on a variety. Now we have a specific draft on rent stabilization and just cause eviction. So if we could just amend that when it's recirculated to also give it a new paper number, I think that would be great.
[Leming]: Vice President Collins made a motion, seconded by Councilor Cal, and President Bears amended the motion. Sorry, that was a parliamentary procedure for doing that. Do I have to get Vice President Collins' permission to amend the motion, or is that too different?
[Bears]: If she doesn't object.
[Leming]: Okay.
[Collins]: I have no objection.
[Leming]: Okay, do you have the text for that clerk?
[Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins is gonna email me the text of her motion. I've got most of it down, but she's gonna email me the text.
[Leming]: Okay, well, in that case, could you please call the roll?
[Hurtubise]: Sure. President Bears? Yes. Councilor Callahan?
[Callahan]: Yes.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Scapelli is absent. Vice President Collins? Yes. And then Vice Chair Leming.
[Leming]: Yes, motion passes. All right, we are right at 7 p.m. Is there any further comment?
[Collins]: Chair Leming.
[Leming]: Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Even though we're splitting off this project, I would still motion to keep the paper in committee because we haven't met on TOPA yet. So I would motion to keep the paper in committee and motion to adjourn.
[Leming]: Second. All right, motion from Vice President Collins to keep the paper in committee. Second from Councilor Callahan.
[Bears]: Clerk, will you please call the roll once you're ready? I think it was keep the paper in committee and adjourn. Oh, keep the paper in committee and adjourn.
[Leming]: So two birds, one stone.
[Hurtubise]: present bears? Yes. Councilor Callahan? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli is absent. Vice President Collins? Yes. Chair Leming? Yes. Meeting is adjourned.
|
total time: 4.9 minutes total words: 641 |
total time: 1.32 minutes total words: 222 |
total time: 6.54 minutes total words: 949 |
total time: 16.61 minutes total words: 2785 |
|
total time: 8.06 minutes total words: 1320 |
|||