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By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

As our city seeks to update its condo conversion ordinance, two things we should keep front and center are displacement and access. Condo conversion may seem like a dull, straightforward process, but the way it works inside our city–and many others–has taken on unforeseen and undesirable consequences. Too many people are being displaced as units move from the more affordable end of the rental market into luxury owner occupancy. Lower- and middle-income households have few genuine opportunities to participate in the process. While we want to create a path toward home ownership for those who seek it in our city, we need to make sure tenants have protections and that the condo conversion process works for everyone.

This is why condo conversion is one of the top-line items in our city’s affordable housing agenda. It is a critical step to building fairness into our local housing market. We don’t want housing to be a gladiator ring where it’s survival of the wealthiest. That means we need to understand and adjust for the human elements in otherwise dry topics like condo conversion.

The way we’ve been doing condo conversion doesn’t work. We need to set up something better.

First and foremost, we need to acknowledge we have a housing emergency, not just in Somerville, but throughout Greater Boston. The housing supply has fallen dramatically behind the number of people who need to live here. Scarcity is causing a hypercompetitive marketplace, which is squeezing out the most vulnerable among us: the elderly, people with disabilities, people with lower incomes. We need to intercede on their behalf to make sure they don’t become victims of a runaway market.

That brings us to displacement. From 2010 to 2017, 5.1% of our rental stock underwent condo conversion—1,130 units in total. I’m not characterizing that number as either good or bad, just noting that conversions are happening on a frequent basis. What we also found in our most recent fiscal year is that 92% of converted units were fully or partially vacant when they applied to be changed over. In a city where the apartment vacancy rate runs at 2%-4%, that is a striking number. It suggests owners are incentivized to vacate their rental units prior to sale, displacing residents who would have been protected by our current condo conversion ordinance.

We need to fix that. There are a number of ways to do that. We need proper notice given for sales and stronger tenant protections. The process of condo conversion should not start with displacement. Increases in moving cost reimbursements are also long overdue. We’re proposing an increase from the outdated $300 moving cost reimbursement now required to a more appropriate $6,000 for standard tenants and up to $10,000 for elderly, handicapped and lower/moderate income tenants (amounts already adopted in Boston). Landlords would need to help that latter group find comparable housing as well.

Expanded market access needs to be enshrined in the process too. We are looking to expand the right to purchase for existing tenants when the unit they live in is being condoized. We’re proposing instead of tenants having only 30 days after being given notice to try to purchase that they be allowed 120 days to put an acceptable offer together (180 for more vulnerable residents). Nonprofits and the City also would also have a 120-day right to purchase in order to preserve the units as affordable. The non-profit/City window also would exist in the case of vacant units.

That would give existing tenants more time to put together a bid. Yet when they can’t make the money work, it opens the door for something like our 100 Homes program, where we partner with the Somerville Community Corporation to buy existing units and keep them affordable. Another part of our affordable housing agenda is the creation of a Somerville Land Trust, which could also step in, buy units and ensure future affordability.

Some owners are concerned these requirements will be too much. But other communities have made this work, and we need everyone to come to the table. Surely Somerville can also find a solution that helps maintain the character and diversity of our community while owners can still benefit overall from conversions.

It would give us a local market where condo conversions benefit people across a broad range of incomes rather than just for people in the upper percentiles, a market that works for the many. That will help to preserve our diversity moving forward. The key is we recognize how the process works now and how we can make it fairer.

Condo conversion isn’t something that exists outside of our control. It is not a force of nature. It is a process we can make far more egalitarian. We can have more positives outcomes for a much wider variety of people. I look forward to working with the Aldermen and community advocates to produce a final product that addresses these core issues of displacement and access. We can help a lot of people by tackling condo conversion.