Legislative Matters Committee

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Meeting Title: Legislative Matters Committee
City: Somerville, MA
Date Published: 2025-07-01

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AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Time & Speaker	Transcript
Lance Davis	All right. Good evening, everyone. This is a meeting of the Committee on Legislative Matters. I am Lance Davis, serving as chair. I use he, him pronouns. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the City Council Committee on Legislative Matters is being conducted via remote participation. So that means we'll post an audio recording, an audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of all these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website. Would the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum.
SPEAKER_02	Yep, this is roll call. Councilor Strezo. Present. Councilor Mbah. Councilor Ewen-Campen.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Here.
SPEAKER_02	Councilor Scott.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Present.
SPEAKER_02	Chair Davis.
Lance Davis	Here.
SPEAKER_02	All right, with four people here, we do have quorum.
Lance Davis	All right, excellent. Thank you very much. The first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes of the meeting on May 13th, 2025. Councilor Scott moves for approval. Is there any discussion on that motion? It's seeing none. Would the clerk please call the roll?
SPEAKER_02	Yep, this is on the agenda for, or on the minutes, excuse me. Councilor Strezo. Yes. Councilor Mbah. Councilor Ewen-Campen.
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	Councillor Scott?
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	Chair Davis?
Lance Davis	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	With four in favour, the ayes do have it.
Lance Davis	All right. Very well. Thank you. So that takes us to item number two, which is 25-1044, requesting ordainment of an amendments to sections 7-64 and 7-65 of the Code of Ordinances to reduce displacement of tenants and update relocation payments. This is our so-called condo conversion ordinance that has been in place for quite a long time, actually. There was a significant update made a few years back, and then I think maybe another tweak or two along the way. And this was requested to address sort of continued challenges with folks being displaced, particularly when there was a sale of a property prior to a condo conversion. Excuse me. So I know that we are joined this evening by Director Alan Schachter from the Office of Housing and Sustainability, as well as always by Brendan Salisbury, our legislative and policy analyst. Brendan, do you have anything you want to discuss with us or introduce to us in this, or should we, or Director Schachter, or are you... Who wants to take the lead in sort of explaining what we're able to come up with to try and help folks be able to stay in their homes?
SPEAKER_01	Mr. Chair, I do just want to highlight, as I have become in the habit of doing, that this was a really excellent work of collaboration with administrative staff. That being said, I am not inclined to steal Director Schachter's thunder, so if the director of IGA was inclined to say that Director Schachter was available to speak on it, I'm very happy to cede.
Lance Davis	Very good. You anticipated my next move, which was to ask Director Singh. Are you going to Director Schachter here for this one?
SPEAKER_04	Through the Chair, Director Schachter, along with our Housing Council and Housing Policy Coordinator, is available tonight to present this item and answer any question. If I could request the clerks to pull up the slides that were sent to the committee yesterday, that would be great. And with that, I'll give it over to Director Schachter.
Lance Davis	All right, very well. Dr. Schachter, would you just introduce yourself for the record? Not that we don't all know and love you and your work and all your staff as well. And you have the floor.
SPEAKER_06	Well, thank you very much to the chair and to the committee. This is going Morena Zelaya's policy staff for the housing division is going to lead us off. We were all on the committee and have worked closely on this, but she's going to give us the starting presentation.
Lance Davis	All right, very well. Ms. Zelaya, similarly, just give us your name and title and take it away.
SPEAKER_05	Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Committee. My name is Morena Zelaya. I am Housing Policy Coordinator, and I am also staff to the Condo Review Board. Excuse me. So tonight, we're going to be speaking to you about the recommendations resulting from the work of the Anti-Disbasement Task Force and the Condo Ordinance Working Group that was convened earlier this year. Next slide, please. so first i'd like to start off by thanking um the working group members which included counselor scott um two members of the condo review board our vice chair kate byrne and our alternate member uh jennifer solis uh brendan ellen joe and i were also staff um and as brendan said earlier it was a very collaborative effort and i'm um i'm proud of the effort that we put into it and sort of the thoughtfulness that everyone brought to the table and think that we've got hopefully some good recommendations for you all. Next slide, please. So tonight we're gonna be proposing two separate changes to the ordinance. This is gonna relate to the permits that are issued for units that are currently rented or the last use was as rentals. So this is going to, the proposed ordinance changes are an extended notice period for vacant units that were last used as rentals and increased relocation payments for any current tenants who are living in units while conversion is occurring. Next slide, please. So just to give a quick overview of the condo ordinance, so people have the background. Like I mentioned earlier, we've got two sort of tenants, two types of permits that we issue, that the board issues, a rental conversion permit and a non-rental conversion permit. Non-rental conversion permits are permits issued for owner-occupied units or units that were formerly owner-occupied or things where... Yeah, that's basically what it is. So we're not really going to touch those because we're not making any changes for that. We're solely dealing with tenanted or formerly tenanted units. For currently tenanted units, the process is generally that owners must serve tenants with a written notice on a form provided by the board. The notice period for tenants begins as of receiving that notice of intent form. The tenants' protections, however, vest when an owner forms an intent, and so intent plays a big role in the ordinance. And so that can be a different date than from when they get the form, because the owner decides that they're going to convert before they actually start collecting all of the forms that they've got to provide to the tenants. So when tenants protections vest, they are entitled to a one year or five year notice period, a right to purchase their unit for the as is price of the unit, a relocation payment if they vacate within their notice period and the current amounts are on the screen there. And they've got a right to actually cancel their lease or move out with 30 days notice to their tenants. now if you've got vacant units where the last use was rental then owners have to notify those tenants that had lived there within the previous 12 months and they receive a written notice just a letter nothing from the nothing that's on a board form or anything and then the one year notice period in that case begins when the board issues a preliminary permit And just to be clear, the notice period is a waiting period. So you get a preliminary permit and then you have to wait for however long that notice period is before you can get a final permit. And then you're not able to sell your units until you've got that final permit. So next slide, please. So the main issue that we've come across is that the condo conversion laws generally protect current tenants. So as I mentioned earlier, the ordinance is triggered when the owner has an intent to convert. So this is difficult to establish. Owners often seek to maximize their profits from sales. But just because you vacated a building in order to sell it, that doesn't mean that they're is or is not an intent to convert. So the problem, the hard part that the board has is trying to establish that intent. So what happens is an original owner decides to sell. The original owner opts not to renew a tenant's leases. And then a purchase and sale will frequently require that the units be vacant at the time of closing. And then the new owner has an intent to convert. And so there's a one-year notice period to the board, but there's no tenant protections because the ordinance is treating this as a vacant unit. These tenants have been displaced. Next slide, please. So what we are proposing, two proposals before you tonight, as I said earlier, the relocation payments, we are proposing for those to be increased to $14,000 for tenants that are not entitled to enhanced protections and $18,000 for those that are. So those would be seniors, disabled tenants, or low to moderate income tenants. And then the second proposal is changing the notice period for vacant units that were former rentals to two years instead of one year which is currently what we've got in place the goal of which is to encourage property owners to keep their tenants in their units since it would be more beneficial because the tenant notice period is not changing so if you've got your tenants they would have generally just the one year if you've got a vacant unit that was formerly tenanted then you would have two years so we're trying to change that calculus um next slide please So we understand that there are pros and cons to taking the two year notice period. We talked about them extensively during the working group. And like I said earlier, we thought that it was beneficial. It could be beneficial to keeping the tenant in their units It would potentially deter emptying out the properties prior to sale and might change that requirement in the purchase and sale agreements. It would grant greater opportunity for tenants to receive an offer to purchase. Not that many tenants have bought their units through the condo ordinance. And then an expanded notice period could provide opportunity for a tenant organizing or a nonprofit to purchase the property in order to restrict it for affordability. And then if the tenants do vacate, they can do so in a more manageable timeline than what generally occurs, which is a month's notice that a lease isn't being renewed or an at-will tenant is just being told that they need to vacate. The problem or the cons that we identified were tenant properties are harder to sell, which could increase the costs for development of condo units down the line. Some developers may have the funds to keep properties vacant. So that would mean higher housing costs in the end and units that aren't being used. And we've already got one of the most stringent conversion bylaws in the Commonwealth. And so there's always the additional aspect of potential for litigation. Next slide, please. And here before you, we've got just some data that we compiled about what, how often applications came to us, came to the board vacant prior to the 2019 change that added in the one-year notice period. So as you can see, we have had, it has had an impact, 92% versus 80%, but it's still, you know, Somerville does not have a vacancy rate of 80%. So obviously, for the most part, applications are coming before us still empty and tenants aren't generally receiving the protections that they're entitled to. And additionally, we do have two requests of this committee. We would recommend that the effective date should the amendments be approved, the effective date should be set to October 1st. This will allow staff time to conduct outreach and educate stakeholders on these changes. And then there's also a typo that we'd like to correct within the ordinance Section 7-64A1A reads a non-tent paying tenant when it should read a non-rent paying tenant. And with that, I think the next slide is just a question slide.
Lance Davis	All right. Very good. Thank you very much, Ms. Leah. Any questions from members of the committee? I'll see you on campus.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. Thank you so much, Marina, Ellen, everyone who worked on this. I think you, forgive me if you kind of just explain this, but if I'm a member of the public following this, can you just explain in like simple terms how these changes make it harder for someone to evict the tenants secretly before applying for the condo conversion ordinance, condo conversion?
SPEAKER_05	through the chair. So it's not so much that it makes it harder for tenants to be evicted. We're hoping that we change the math when folks are deciding if they're going to be evicting or emptying out their buildings. We're hoping that by saying, well, if tenants would only need to stay for a year versus a two-year waiting period, or actually if a tenant vacates earlier, then you can get your final permit earlier. So we're hoping that the math changes. It's not so much that we can sort of prevent the evictions themselves, unfortunately. And I'm...
Ben Ewen-Campen	And just to, because I get a lot of questions about this, I just kind of want to talk through it. I often hear from members of the public who will attend these condo conversion board meetings, like they're concerned, right? And they'll see someone show up and say, yeah, it's vacant. And the condo board often feels like that they're sort of at the limit of what they can do. How would that situation be changed by this?
SPEAKER_09	Absolutely.
Lance Davis	I'm sorry, Dr. Chatterjee, you have your hand up. Did you want to address that or the prior point?
SPEAKER_06	Yes, thank you for a moment. Again, this is Ellen Chatterjee through the chair. I hope this, okay, Maureen, I wasn't sure how we were supposed to do this, but I guess I would just add a couple of things to very, very, very right, clearly explain the problem. The current owner evicts. That current owner may not have any intent one way or the other about what the next owner is going to do. Next owner comes in and converts and there's no sitting tenants. What we hope is by having a two-year period where that new owner purchases, even if the units are building and by saying they have to wait a full two years before they can convert to condominiums, that a number of things would happen. It would change the financial incentives for developers so that first of all, They might decide it's not in their interest to convert at all because it is now more expensive. There's a two-year waiting period before they can do that and begin to recoup any of their investment. So there is some disincentive from this to conversion period. The second thing, as Marina said, that I would just again like to point out is by landlords, new landlords and the old landlords have a choice, right? Sometimes they are communication. Sometimes the first landlord knows that the new buyer intends to convert, that there's conversation about that. But this could create a different kind of incentive so that together it might be more worthwhile for that person to allow that tenant to remain, not to bring that building vacant to us, but to keep that tenant in place and give them that that one year or maybe five years, right, period before they have to relocate. So what this does, we can't control the, we can't prevent the sale from one owner to the other. And we can't change the law to say the new owner is responsible for the old tenants if the old tenants evicted. But what we can do is try to change the financial incentives that really make may make a difference in our ability to get more of these buildings coming to us with tenants in them, as opposed to the first landlord automatically emptying all the buildings in order to sort of get the highest, what they perceive as the highest return on their dollar in that sale, which is typically to develop a vacant, you know, to deliver a vacant building. So we're trying to use this as a way to change some of the financial incentives that underlie the decisions that are being made when people come before the Condor Review Board.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Mr. Sher, thank you. I think that's really, really helpful discussion. I appreciate it. And obviously completely share the goal of slowing down, you know, as much as humanly possible to just like mass scale displacement of people. These, you know, these are oftentimes long time rental units that are permanently being taken off the market, right? That is not something that we, I personally think has a ton of social value that I want to be encouraging. So I'm very glad to see this. Thank you.
Lance Davis	Okay, thank you. Councilor Strazzo?
SPEAKER_10	Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am hoping that I'm excited about these changes. I think they're great. And I'm very proud that I live in a city that is so well prepared to fight against displacement. And I want to very much commend the work of the Office of Housing Stability and the task force for your vigilance on this. I'm working really hard to try to solve a problem. My question is, to Ms. Lea, if I may, Mr. Chair, was there conversations about incentivizing during that waiting period between attempting to squeeze out current residents and the attempt of a cell purchase, et cetera, to Can we expand the Section 8 stock through incentivizing somewhere in the process the potential new purchaser of the building to consider maybe one unit or two unit as affordable homeownership or Section 8, something like that? what, how deep did the anti-displacement task force go on expanding section eight stock and preserving residents that way?
SPEAKER_05	Um, through the chair. So, um, excuse me, I was co-chair of the residential displacement committee for the anti-displacement task force. Uh, we, um, So the work of the task force and the work of this working group were separate. They didn't, neither group worked together. So I do want to separate the two, even though the two amendments, one came from each, I do want to sort of separate the work. The Anti displacement Task Force did not look into a way to expand the section eight stock i'm not sure and and i'll let director factor. speak more clearly on this, but we we did. look into potentially the use of Section 8 vouchers in things like our inclusionary units to try to deepen affordability that way, things like that, but we didn't I'm not sure that we have any control over expanding the stock itself. And my understanding, and again, Director Schachter can correct me if I'm wrong, is that the vouchers themselves, the voucher program is pretty stretched. So I'm not sure how much flexibility there is.
Lance Davis	if i uh actually so council shows let me just caution i i appreciate the question um absolutely a lot of those recommendations from the task force are definitely um things we'd like to see move forward just i'm not sure this is quite on point enough for it to be appropriate for the discussion given the specific amendment we have before us um if so understood I'm happy to suggest that we take another crack in a separate discussion thread. And if the condo conversion ordinance is a way to accomplish that or some of the other goals, then I certainly will. I may or may not be the chair of this committee going forward, but I certainly would support using that as a tool in a subsequent amendment, if there's a way we can do some of those things. Yes.
SPEAKER_10	The direction I was going with that, as it ties in, is the incentivizing during that wiggle period. That is what I was aiming. But yes, we want to stay on topic and don't feel if it makes you feel uncomfortable that we're heading into a different topic. But the goal or point is the incentivizing developers or to do the right thing. Not specifically on the... So I want to clarify, not speaking on the... A specific program of Section 8 expansion. That's not the entity I was going to, so I want to clarify that. But the incentivizing through the condo ordinance. And that's fine. We should have another discussion on it, I think. But happy to take that up in another agenda item. And yeah, I was going to ask about litigation, but that's okay. I can go back in the queue or ask a different time.
Lance Davis	No, no. If you have further questions, go ahead.
SPEAKER_10	Yes.
Lance Davis	I will caution, as always, when we're talking about litigation, we should be careful what we're discussing, the potentialities we're discussing in an open meeting.
SPEAKER_10	Right. And that's that, you know, to and and on that, I think I'm OK asking following up via email or another way. For that reason, I was on the fence about it. That's OK. I can wait. So back in the cube.
Lance Davis	Peter Haslund, All right, very good Thank you. Peter Haslund, All right. Peter Haslund, I see is it oops I saw him there for a minute, where did it go. Peter Haslund, Oh, they are.
SPEAKER_09	Peter Haslund, Yes, through.
Lance Davis	Okay, thank you. Your audio was, at least on mine, was a little bit tough. So I think what I heard was that the law department has reviewed this, believes that these changes, that we're on solid ground with these proposed changes. If any councillors have questions they'd like to discuss directly, you're happy to do that. Did I get that right? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Much appreciated. Okay, Director Singh, did you have something you wanted to add?
SPEAKER_04	Thank you. Not in the substance of the proposal before you, I just wanted to share with the committee that we've received some outreach from constituents and the administration is supportive of keeping the item in committee if that's what the chair decides to allow community to provide additional feedback before the next legislative matters meeting. Thank you.
Lance Davis	Okay. Thank you, Dr. Singh, for that. This was submitted to the council on June 12th. So that's what? About two and a half, three and a half weeks ago, two and a half weeks, one, two, about two and a half weeks. You know, I went back and looked, I don't have any emails raising, reflecting that request. I think I'm, open to the will of the committee um but these are pretty straightforward changes i'm not sure how much math there is to be done really um and actually we haven't actually seen the the text changes so um why don't we why don't we um table that aspect of the discussion for the moment if if that's okay and we can pull up the actual proposed amendment so we can look at the um you know, the actual language changes that are being proposed. Councillor Scott, I see your hand up. Is it on that or?
J.T. Scott	We were still in discussion, Mr. Chair. I was just gonna. Very well then, go ahead. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. uh I just wanted to first let me put in a plug for the summer vip program I think which was uh which is an actual direct payment uh to landlords who are willing to get uh section 8 tenants into their units but uh on the on the matter before us I just want to say that it was incredible to serve with these folks in this working group uh everybody really brought a feeling of wanting to explore every possible venue for improving the ordinance. The co-chair who was there in it is somebody who I'm sure has reached out to, if not all of us, many of us with concerns over the Condor Review Board and their ability to actually exercise or help tenants exercise their rights. Um, so there was, I don't think I can do justice to the breadth of things that were discussed in that committee. Um, but I can say that city staff really did dig in, uh, and, and pursued every wild idea that we could, we could come up with. Um, I'm not sure what the nature of community comment, uh, That was a pretty vague update, Mr. Chair. I don't see this as anything other than a very simple increase of the relocation costs to reflect the actual cost of relocating and an extension which, from a policy perspective, has a chance of making things better. So I'd be inclined to pass these and just get them out of the box. But, you know, will of the chair.
Lance Davis	Thank you very much for your indulgence. All right, very well. Thank you, Councillor Scott. Would the clerk be able to put the actual proposed amendment on the screen? Or if not, if I'm able to share, I'm happy to do that as well. I think it would be helpful, like I said, just to see the very limited actual text changes that you know, that are brought about by this here.
SPEAKER_02	Chair Davis, I don't believe I have that at least not easily accessible. If you do, it might be easier if you could share.
Lance Davis	No, I think looks like I have to request sharing.
SPEAKER_02	I just allowed permission.
Lance Davis	Okay. So let's see, I'm going to share this document. all right so this is the ordinance can you all see that now is it is it um reasonable size we can see it but i will say you might want to just zoom in a tad bit so we can see the words more clearly how's that perfect all right so this is actually the marked up version so as you can see no changes for a good bit until we get to 764. And this is changing one year to two years. Here is the, excuse me, here's the non-tent paying tenant. I think unless the clerk disagrees, I think that is probably a correction that could be made by the clerk's office without needing to vote. It's fairly clearly just a typo. And then And just for the members of the public, this is actually the document that's attached to the item. So folks watching at home can pull this up as well, take a look through the agenda. So here's the second set of changes as was noted to 18,000 and 14,000 for the relocation payments. I think that was it. Oh, one more. Here's another, changing the one year to two years. Okay. Yeah, so that's it. And I think this is relevant to the discussion here because in terms of the actual textual changes, it's very limited, very straightforward. It's really just the concept that was presented here. So we heard, Councillor Scott, any other discussion in terms of moving this forward? I'll just share my thought as chair is, I'm going to stop sharing here if the clerk wants to put the agenda back up. Thank you. You know, Look, I appreciate it, and we often have kept things in committee to give folks a chance to review it and take a look. We've been talking about this for many, many, many, many, many months. It was submitted two and a half weeks ago. It won't be taken up by the council for another week and a half. Actually, is it even longer than that? No, it's a week and a half. The 10th, I think, of July is the next council meeting. So certainly if there's an outpouring of concern or substantive issues that are raised, the full council could elect to send it back to committee at that time. But I think there's also the question of the effective date in that request, which I want to come back to, but I'm not sure I see a... a compelling argument to hold off any further in terms of what we have for us. Councilman Kampen, I see your hand raised.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Mr. Chair, just my two cents on the timing. I mean, on a certain level, we've been wanting to do this for many years. And so I'm in a hurry in that sense. If there's a motion, I'll be voting for it, clearly. The only thing I wanted to say is if we are going to have an effective date of October, and if there is some benefit that I'm not totally understanding of having time for people to try to influence our vote, as long as it's kind of, I think... hopefully very clear to the staff that this or something extremely close to this will pass when it comes. Um, if that effective date were to stay and we were to pass it in mid August, instead of now, you know, there's basically no harm, no foul either way. Um, it's really hard for me to imagine public feedback. That's going to change my support for this. So in that sense, you know, I, I don't want to, you know, patronize the public and pretend, right. Like I, I, I value the input of this working group is what I'm saying. But I have certainly been wrong before. And if there is some value that I'm missing and it's not going to change the time that this actually goes into effect, it's not the end of the world if we wait until August to take this up. But again, I'm supportive of these changes. Yeah.
Lance Davis	Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Councilor Kemp. So, I mean, let's talk about that suggestion that there be an effective date of October 1st in order for the administration to undertake some communication about this. I mean, I'm always of the mind that like, once we have something that we think is the right way to do it, we should get on it. And I'm not sure not sure i see the value of of you know pushing this back so many so many months given how long we've been you know working to try and get something in place here but um i certainly i see counselor scott's hand up and as you were you know in the working group i'd love to hear your thoughts on that if uh uh certainly thank you mr chair uh on that um i
J.T. Scott	I don't really have a problem with the effective date being October if that's what staff feels like they need in order to get appropriate outreach on it. You know, however, I certainly wouldn't want to delay the passage of this. And just for folks who are curious at home, this is simply the Legislative Matters Committee recommending this ordinance update for approval. It would still be up to a full debate by the council and discussion there. As the chair pointed out, it could get sent back if there's some very notable objection that's raised. I certainly I'd be curious, Mr. Chair, if any amendment to the document before us would be necessary to create that effective date. I know 768 has the old effective date of July 31st, 2019. I didn't know if we would have to have a subsequent effective date referencing these amendments. So procedurally, Mr. Chair, what is recommended if we are going to take up that October effective date?
Lance Davis	All right, thank you, Councillor Scott, for that. Mr. Salisbury, our legislative policy analyst, I have a note that you have some thoughts on the effective date. I don't know if they're to the administrative procedures aspect of it, but I'm happy to give you the floor and hear your input on that issue or the substantive issue.
SPEAKER_01	Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me turn my video on to respect that other people have done so as well and also prove that I do have a face. For the record, legislative and policy analyst Brendan Salisbury, So this has been a thing that has come up before the committee before with regard to the implementation of an effective date on an amendment. And I would like to say that for an amendment such as this in particular, it is extremely difficult to include an effective date. The inclusion of an effective date in the effective date section notwithstanding my opinion on the use of effective date sections in their entirety, is that if we were to say the amendment of X date takes effect on X date, we would eventually have an extremely unwieldy and difficult to parse effective date section. With these text changes where they are as you have noted, very minor text changes within the text. It would be a relatively simple thing to add an effective date if an entire new section was being added or even an entire new subsection. We could say this subsection shall take effect on X date. But where we're literally changing only a few words throughout the entirety of this ordinance, it would become a very difficult exercise to include the change from one to two years in, you know, subsection A of 764 paragraph one takes effect on October of 2025. So I do want to caution against attempting to make any addition of an effective date on the fly in committee, because it will lead to a bit of a nightmare in terms of drafting.
J.T. Scott	Okay. Mr. Chair, can I follow up on that?
SPEAKER_01	Go right ahead, Kyle Scott.
J.T. Scott	Thank you. I really appreciate that. That was my point of concern on the effective date piece of it. Mr. Chair, at the risk of showing my bitter experience, we pass laws all the time that don't get enforced until the administration decides to. I'm thinking of the vacant property ordinance in particular. So if there's an administrative decision to pause the implementation of this until a certain date, let that be so and let that be a choice that the administration makes. Um, but I, given that, I think very compelling explanation there, uh, my inclination, whenever you feel it's appropriate is to move, to recommend, uh, the document before us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Lance Davis	Okay. Thank you, Councillor Scott. I guess, while I certainly understand and appreciate your point, I guess I would reject the premise that I'm comfortable with, and not to put words in your mouth, but I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with just allowing that the administration can decide when they want to enforce laws, I think. I'd love for the vacant property ordinance to be enforced at some point ever in its many, many years of existence. But alas, here we are. But fair point, I think what I'm inclined to suggest at this stage is that a motion is in order and that in the 10 or so days between now and when the council meets and its final meeting before the recess, you know certainly as always if there are um significant concerns that are that arise that are that are brought to the council's attention um it's always uh there's always the opportunity to uh to send something back to committee um and uh similarly uh in in the meantime if there's a um a streamlined way without uh you know messing up the batter to, uh, to add an effective date to this. Um, that's certainly something that we could, um, you know, that, that we could, we could take up at the, uh, at the meeting on Thursday. Um, I happen to, uh, have a close connection with the person who will be presiding over that meeting. And I can tell you that I think he'd be willing to allow it. Um, so, uh, so it's fine with me, um, you know, want to get things right. And I don't have, I, I, you know, Other than just wanting to get this in place, if there's a significant reason to do that, that's fine, but definitely don't want to mess up things. So I see Councillor Ewen Campin and Scott.
Ben Ewen-Campen	Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the risk of having a longer conversation, we need to. Through you, with immense respect to our legislative analysts, I don't quite understand why it's impossible to have an effective date for amendments. It's never been an issue in the past that I'm aware of. I certainly respect that drafting might be less aesthetically clean or something, but Isn't having an effective date for a series of amendments like a completely de rigueur thing that is commonly done in ordinance drafting across the country? Am I, am I misunderstanding something?
Lance Davis	I mean, I think council union camp, and I guess what I'm suggesting is that, um, if that is in fact the case, which it may well be, I don't see any concern with having that presented to us between now and next Thursday. Um, And, you know, rather than trying to sort out what, if there is a, if it is there and it's done all the time, what that is here tonight, we've got a few other items on the agenda. You know, I think, you know, we could, you know, we could certainly take that up at city council level. Now, if folks want to debate whether or not we should, you know, whether we should delay the effect of this. That's a different discussion, but it sounds like there's a willingness to agree to that request if there's a streamlined way to do it. Councilor Scott, I think that's what I effectively heard you say. You do have your hand up, so happy to give you the floor on that or whatever else you wanted to add.
J.T. Scott	Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I think you summarized it quite well. If there is a way to do that and there's language that can be prepared either by our policy analyst or anybody else, I'm happy to take that up on the floor in two weeks and have a policy discussion. Would not be a long one, I think, between our colleagues. But also, like I said, I was open to entertaining it, but I really want to move this out of committee tonight. So as you said, motion is on order. I will move to recommend for approval.
Lance Davis	All right, Councillor Scott moves to recommend approval of the proposed amendment that is before us. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, seeing none, would the clerk please call the roll?
SPEAKER_02	Yep, this is to recommend approval on item number two. Councillor Strezo? Yes. Councillor Mbatha? Councillor Ewen-Campen?
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	Councillor Scott?
J.T. Scott	Yes, please.
SPEAKER_02	Chair Davis?
Lance Davis	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	All right, with four in favor, the ayes do have it.
Lance Davis	All right, very good. Thank you very much, and thanks to all the folks on that working group, and especially those who are here tonight to help us understand. Really appreciate all the hard work. I know that I personally pushed very hard towards all of you to to put something before us. And I'm really happy to see something that not only will hopefully make a difference in folks' lives, but has the full sign-off from the law department as being something on which we are on very solid ground, as was said. So again, thank you all for that. Peter Haslund, All right, and that brings us to the next item on our agenda, which is 24 dash 1740 This is just a. Peter Haslund, companion item, I believe that was this is actually the initial discussion if i'm correct so. Peter Haslund, I would recommend that we place this one on file if that's if the park would confirm that's the right disposition of that really. I guess it's an order, so yeah. So maybe it would be work complete.
SPEAKER_09	Yes.
Lance Davis	Correct. Very good. All right. Thank you, Clark. All right. So that brings us to item four in the agenda, which is 24-0256, that the city solicitor discussed with this council whether elements of Boston's proposed ordinance for road safety and accountability for delivery providers could be used to disincentivize mopeds on the community path. This is apparently the disincentivization meeting tonight. Um, So this was a suggestion that was put forth by Councillor Burnley a little while back, a good while back actually. And I wanted to get it on the agenda so we have a chance to kind of queue up the conversation. I know that there are, I know we have folks from the law department here that may be able to speak to some of the questions and issues, but certainly there's no expectation that there's a fully fledged sort of response or proposal here. I wanted to, kind of you know have the discussion on this and then you know in hopes that perhaps over the recess we could you know folks could kind of put pen to paper and when we when we come back at the end of the summer if there is anywhere to any improvements we can make here then maybe have some some concrete suggestions on that so I just want to I want to say that at the outset so there's no you know expectations that we're going to have you know a fully fledged response or proposal but Just want to get the conversation started, if you will. So with that context in mind, Mr. Salisbury, you mentioned that you have some background or some input that you'd like to share with the committee on this item. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01	To some extent, Mr. Chair, yes. So through you to the committee, I did want to flag just one thing, that in review of the ordinance that was passed in Boston, I did want to highlight that while Councillor Burnley's intent does appear to be about disincentivizing mo community path it's my opinion that the ordinance that was passed in boston and that was initially proposed would would not accomplish that um the ordinance that was passed and initially proposed in boston uh was essentially to establish accountability um for uh all delivery drivers in the event of a crash um so requiring the use of insurance I obviously cannot speak to the legality of that. I know that members of the law department are here and may be able to. But I do have... I've done a glancing analysis of this, and I'd be interested to know how things are shaking out in Boston. They do, of course, have a significantly more substantial apparatus in place to make this work. But I'd be very interested to know how this is going in Boston, because I... To be frank, this looks like a logistical nightmare.
Lance Davis	Okay. Very well. Thank you for that. Any question or discussion from the committee? Councilor Schozo?
SPEAKER_10	Thank you. I went analog right there. See what I did?
Lance Davis	Exactly. Old school.
SPEAKER_10	Retro raising hand. Did you see that? Okay. Very good.
Lance Davis	The floor is yours.
SPEAKER_10	Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to our legislative analysis team, Did the proposed ordinance ordinance pass or is it being discussed still at the council and in Boston?
SPEAKER_01	Through the chair, it did pass, I believe, in, yes, April 2nd. There were some minor amendments to it, nothing that really substantively changed the thrust of the ordinance, just a few bits of cleaning up the language. But it did pass in its amended form April 2nd.
SPEAKER_10	Thank you. And second, is... remind me again on the community path that's that's somerville and are there parts of it that are mbta uh owned or and and if so how how exactly would that even be logistically possible for our for us to enforce a part of the community path that we don't own if we don't own our
SPEAKER_01	So, Councillor, Mr. Chair, through you to the Councillor, I don't have an answer to that off the top of my head. I do see that City Attorney Amara is on deck, so I'd be happy to defer.
Lance Davis	Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Salisbury. Our City Attorney is here. Senator Amara, welcome. If you would just introduce yourself for the record, and then happy to hear any thoughts you'd like to share.
SPEAKER_08	Hi, I am... City Attorney Amara and I am here to help assist on this. I can tell you the path itself, the land is owned by the MBTA. So there would be a lot of issues about what if anything we could do, particularly unilaterally without MBTA. The good news is we have a lease for the community path with the MBTA and the lease prohibits motorized vehicles. and mopeds are not currently allowed on the community path. That's my understanding. So I'm not quite sure how the Boston Ordinance and what the Somerville goal on the community path mesh together because the Boston Ordinance is designed more to deal with insurance for people delivery services so that when there is a problem or an accident that they're covered or more importantly, the people that are harmed have coverage that they can go to. Whereas I believe the question about the community path is not wanting to have motorized vehicles. And apparently my understanding is there is also a sign that says no motorized vehicles. That's the extent of my knowledge.
Lance Davis	Okay, thank you, attorneys Amara. I think we're all gonna pause for a minute while we get used to our new, but apparently old naming system that we've never realized we'd made the change many years ago. So I think, look, I mean, the language of this item is fairly clear in terms of the intent, in terms of... some type of motorized vehicle on the community path. There is also some nuance, if I understand it correctly, and the letter, the Boston ordinance, at least the letter we have from the mayor here, lists when referencing the 311 calls, lists mopeds, motorbikes, scooters, and e-bikes. And so my understanding is that the state legal structure does recognize a distinction between certain types of vehicles that have some sort of a motor, right? And there's categories or classes of e-bikes at some point moving up towards what we would call a moped or a motorbike. First, is that right? Do I have that correct, Attorney Amara?
SPEAKER_08	Yes, by statute, e-bikes would be allowed. And that's, you know, much to the chagrin of the MBTA because of the state statute, e-bikes currently as it's drafted would be allowed and are allowed. But my understanding is mopeds are not.
Lance Davis	Okay. Thank you for that. To the extent that you know, and if not, then no worries. I'll make a request. To what extent do we have the ability to augment signage at path entrances? As you correctly noted, there are signs that say no motorized vehicles. As we've just experienced now, there's some ambiguity to what that means, right? What is a motorized vehicle? Is there perhaps an opportunity for additional clarity or information there? And if so, do you know if we have the ability to put signs up?
SPEAKER_08	I think if you were to put forward some options of what you would like to do, then the first thing I would want to do is to have my department look at the lease and what is or is not allowed under the lease and whether we already have protections in place or not. And then probably want to work with the MBTA to see what there is that we could do or not. But without knowing specifically what you want signs to say or what exactly our rights are to put up independently signs without working with the MBTA, I am not prepared to answer that right now.
Lance Davis	Yeah. Okay. Very well. No, no worries. Yeah. If you could, if you or someone on your team could, could take a look at that. I mean, obviously it's, you know, I'm thinking just something with some more clarity as to, you know, mopeds, motorbikes, e-bikes, what class, something a little bit more than just some people haven't determined whether they are or are not on a motorized vehicle as they wing whiz past the sign.
SPEAKER_10	I see.
Lance Davis	Yeah. Councilor Johnson, go ahead.
SPEAKER_10	Thank you. Um, fair point city uh attorney on on the legality of a sign but i ask an open-ended question that if we took a sandwich board and put pictures that said no no no mopeds or yes and a sandwich board that can be picked up If we hurt the feelings of the MBTA from us just putting a simple sandwich board up at an intersection, whoops, our bad, we can take it down. Without having to ask for permission, I would much rather just ask for an apology on that if it's saving someone from being hurt or not. So thank you.
Lance Davis	Okay. Thank you, Councilor Stresso. Councilor Scott.
J.T. Scott	Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Solicitor Amara. Man, I'm going to have to look that one up. My apologies, though. So to Attorney Amara, I would love to see if you have a citation on which modes of conveyance are considered to be motorized vehicles for the purposes of that law. I'm sure of course, electric wheelchairs would be excluded as well, but I just, you know how much I love a good citation. So if you could pass that along, I'd appreciate it. And you know what, I'd also be happy to take a look at that lease for the community path to see if anything tickles my fancy in terms of ideas we can implement. That said, Mr. Chair, I think we're having the discussion that's being requested. It sounds like the answer to me is that the Boston ordinance doesn't have any particular relevance here, but that there's some good ideas for signage, which in my opinion would be outside of the scope of this order and would be best handled with a council order at our next meeting.
Lance Davis	Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Councilor Scott. So, yeah, I think, look, to Mr. Salisbury's points initially, if there's some feedback in terms of the experience here at Boston and something we may be able to do that we think makes sense as far as creating an insurance system, then we could certainly consider taking that to me that aspect of the request up and But if that is all that's in the Boston Ordinance, then it probably doesn't quite get us to the suggested intent here of the community path. So I'm inclined to leave this one to committee. And then, you know, Attorney Amara, thank you for listening to our questions and requests. If there's some feedback or, Scott, you want to... work with the law department over the recess to take a peek at those documents and see what we might be able to do in terms of some signs, then I do agree that, you know, if so, a separate order would be appropriate to, you know, or I mean, frankly, we don't necessarily even need an order, just do it. But if you want to have the discussion about what makes sense, you know, that is something that I would think could probably be taken up in, you know, traffic and parking or another committee. Okay. since it's really outside of the legislative piece of the equation. So any further discussion on this item? Okay. As I said, I'm inclined to leave it committee just in case there's something that folks want to pursue once we come out of the recess. If not, it can certainly be marked work complete. But as I said, we were going to start the conversation on it. I'm inclined to stick to my word. and leave it in committee for a future discussion, whatever direction that might go. And so that brings us to the items five and six on the agenda. I would thank you, Attorney Amar. I appreciate your input on that one. The last two items here I put on the agenda so that they can be placed on file or marked complete. So 25-007 is Chris Duan submitting comments regarding the Urban Forestry Committee recommendations. Those recommendations have been codified and passed. We just must have missed putting that one on the agenda as a cleanup item. So I will suggest that we place that on file. And then item 25-0154 is an order that the Director of Economic Development presented this Council a plan to ensure compliance with Section 8-18 of the Code of Ordinances. This is sort of a companion item to an item that was discussed in the Licensing Commission last week, basically the exact same topic. Council Burnley, who put this item in, of course, chairs the Committee on Licenses and Permits. And we had a lengthy discussion with the administration on the status of that ordinance. And so I would encourage folks to take a look at that if you're interested in it. But I think there's certainly, I serve on licenses and permits. So my view is that that discussion effectively covered the entirety of the substance of this. And so I'm inclined to mark it work complete, unless there's any objections. Any discussion on this disposition of those two items? All right, seeing none, that brings us to the end of our agenda. Is that correct, Madam Clerk?
SPEAKER_02	Yep, that is correct.
Lance Davis	All right. Very well. Thank you, everyone, for this. This is the last meeting of this committee. And perhaps the last time you'll have to hear my voice so much for quite a while. So I appreciate all of your help and work and input into everyone in the administration over these many, many years. It's been an incredible pleasure. I'm not going anywhere, but someone else is going to have the gavel next time around is my expectation. So they might be sitting in the vice chair seat. With that, Councilor Scott moves for adjournment. Would the clerk please call the roll on adjournment?
SPEAKER_02	All right. On adjournment until the end of summer. Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Emba? Councilor Ewen-Campen?
J.T. Scott	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	Councilor Scott?
J.T. Scott	Excitedly, yes.
SPEAKER_02	Chair Davis.
J.T. Scott	Yes.
SPEAKER_02	All right. With all four in favor, we are adjourning at 7.05 PM. Enjoy your summer.
Lance Davis	Thanks everyone.