Zoning change and occupancy limits

[olszowka.livejournal.com]

Recently, I received a letter in the mail from Neraj Tuli of Zone Smart Somerville (www.zonesmartsomerville.org).  The letter was urging me to oppose a provision in the proposed zoning changes which would prohibit occupancy of a house or unit by more than four unrelated adults regardless of the size of the house or unit or other mitigating factors.  Does anyone know anything about this?  I believe I am opposed to this provision, but would like to learn more.

Comments

Plus or minus four people

[the architexturalist (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, they are rewriting, but plenty of language seems to be carried forward, especially in places (like definitions) where it seems no one had raised objections to language established in or before the 1990 code. If you work in design or real estate in Somerville, there are certainly places where the language sounds very familiar.

Zone Smart Somerville seems to have been put together by the same realtor (Neraj Tuli) who is seeking to get rid of the current 4 person limit. The provision had nothing to do (originally) with brothels but much more to do with trying to get rid of SRO and worker's boarding houses, especially in the pro-suburb/anti-urban 1980s.

The way it is supposed to work is precisely by building type. Dwelling units in areas for 'family' housing (single family, two family, triple decker, etc.) are grouped for a particular density and allowed all over the city. SRO or boarding house uses generate a much higher density, and are only allowed in a few particular places. The 4 or fewer definition applies to 'family' housing, the more than 4 definition applies to boarding houses. If you rent to more than 4 people, you are creating a de facto boarding house where one was not permitted.

ps - Cos, you're getting caught up on the difference between a two family house (a building type), a 'family' definition per Section 2.2.53, and a dwelling unit. A "two family house" has two dwelling units, and according to 2.2.53 each of those dwelling units can potentially house a definitional 'family' of up to four unrelated people per unit. That two family house would have to house a total of 9 adults to be over the limit.

RE: Plus or minus four people

[cos]

Thanks!

Based on what you say, there is in fact no current city-wide rule barring more than 4 unrelated adults from living together. There is instead what I would have imagined - zoning rules that limit houses to a number of different limits depending on what they're zoned for. Seems like some houses are limited to no more than 8, some to no more than 12, some to larger numbers, and only a relatively small set of properties have no limits.

If you're living in a house zoned for "3-family" and one unit has 2 unrelated people, another has 4, and another has 6, you're still fine, right? That it, it doesn't matter that one of the units has more than 4 unrelated people as long as the whole house is within its limit, yes?

What if you're in a house zoned for two-family and one unit has a related family of 4 adults (married couple plus the parents of one of them, say) and the other unit has 6 unrelated people, I think that would still be okay, because the largest set of unrelated adults you can make in this house is 7, which is below the limit of 8 or fewer. Am I right about that?

RE: Plus or minus four people

[the architexturalist (from livejournal.com)]

Almost, but not quite. The letter of the code (the "current city-wide rule") is pretty clear that it permits no more than four unrelated people to occupy a single dwelling unit, regardless of how many dwelling units may be included on a given property.

There are two issues here. First is the relative looseness of fit between the intent of a law and the mechanism it uses to accomplish that intent. The intent seems clearly ("For purposes of controlling residential density") to set overall limits based on type (< 8 person houses, < 12 person houses, etc.), but to do that it sets a per-dwelling-unit number as the legal standard to enforce. The mechanism to accomplish that intent is to limit occupancy of a dwelling unit to no more than four unrelated people.

The second issue is the slippage between what is permitted and what you can get away with. The folks in the 6 person unit are actually non-compliant, though it could be that they could get away with it if the neighbors were not bothered by noise, etc. enough to notice and report them (and if review weren't triggered by some other factor related to density, like someone noticing that six people were trying to register cars using the same address). Since 4 per dwelling unit is the letter of the law, the fact that there was a "gap" of two people in another unit to keep the property under the intended cap would not be legally helpful.

So, in your final example, you would not be correct. The intent is indeed to regulate overall density, but the mechanism used is to regulate the per-dwelling-unit occupancy. The 6 unrelated people are non-compliant because they are unrelated. If they were related (a married couple and both pairs of their parents, for example) no limit would apply, but there are still no more than four unrelated people permitted in a single dwelling unit.