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‘Progressive’ City Council abuses vulnerable persons—and free speech
This could be the big one
East Cambridge Property
CCURE initiative petition 1999
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At 55 Magazine Street, tenants are under pressure
Readers of the November Bridge may remember the basic story. A group of investors (Kensington Chambres L.L.C.) buys the apartment house at 55 Magazine Street for $12.5 million (appraised value: $7.5 million).
55 Magazine Street has more than eighty apartments [photo: annie butler]
On June 18th, just before the sale is completed, the previous owner, Arthur Serino, terminates existing leases and imposes rent increases of $200 to $530. Section 8 rules exempt some tenants.
On July 24, the owners file papers closing the sale, and immediately open an office in the building, administered by a building manager. Almost everyone familiar with these events sees what Kensington Chambres is up to. They are going to do a condominium conversion, but don’t say so because they want to push people out of their homes without the protection of the State condo conversion law.
This law gives current tenants one year to move out of their homes. Elderly and disabled tenants get an extra year. Landlords must pay each household $750 toward moving expenses. The elderly and disabled get $1000. Most importantly, current rents are frozen.
So, the June rent increases create a win-win situation for Kensington LLC: if tenants are forced out by the higher rents, so much the better; if they stay and pay, the new owners get a nice income stream because the condo-conversion rent freeze will be applied to the new sky-high rents.
When the owners were challenged on this strategy, they insisted, both verbally and in writing, that they in fact had formed no intention to condo-ize the building. They claimed to be weighing the difference between continuing in the rental business or clearing twenty million dollars give or take in condo sales over a relatively short period of time.
After this, Kensington Chambres did what other such landlords do: raised the discomfort level for their tenants. Renovations provide a convenient cover for “tenants out” harassment campaigns: excessive noise, excessive dust (possibly lead-laden), dangerous building materials left piled up in the hallways, building temperatures mysteriously set to dangerously low levels, malfunctioning elevators left unrepaired. This leaves some elderly and disabled tenants stranded.
Tenants at 55 Magazine were subjected to most of these tricks.After repeated calls to Inspectional Services the owners cleaned up some of the worst conditions, such as the malfunctioning elevator.
Kensington LLC was facing increasing public scrutiny. The prospect that some of its silent partners might be unveiled in legal discovery motions led them in December to deliver a letter to each tenant, announcing that after much thought they were, yes, going to convert their homes into very expensive condos.
Tenants who met certain standards were offered an eight-year 95 percent promissory note at 5 percent interest—really a promissory note secured by a mortgage. The terms were those of a “balloon” mortgage, where the last payment can amount to the entire principal of the loan. These are notoriously dangerous for a payee of limited resources. They are favorites of predatory lenders.
What is happening at 55 Magazine Street is part of a broad attack on the tenant population that flared up in 1994, when Massachusetts ended rent control. Rents were raised. Tenants were harassed and evicted. The condo conversion law was evaded. Better-off tenants were able to cope with these attacks. Working-class and minority people have been driven out of their homes and out of our city.
The ending of rent control in 1994 eliminated legal limits on rents and on the landlords’ right to evict. The Massachusetts condo conversion law has serious weaknesses which the City has refused to remedy. It will take a lengthy battle to restore those protections, but this battle must be fought.
It is the same as the battle that workers are waging against corporations’ attempts to cut wages, benefits and jobs. It is like the battle that African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities against the persistent racism they have to endure everywhere. It is like the battle that immigrants against ICE raids.
All—from the tenants at 55 Magazine fighting for their apartments, to General Motors workers fighting for their pensions—are pert of a battle between those who want only to live out their lives in peace and comfort, and those whose only aim in life is to amass profits.