Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the August 4th, 2026 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Tom Cinevich and I am the chair. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge Planning Board. All members, applicants, and members of the public will state their name before speaking. And all votes will be taken by roll call. Members of the public will be kept on mute until it is time for public comment. I will give instructions for public comment at that time. And you can also find instructions on the city's web page for remote planning board meetings. This meeting is being video and audio recorded and is being streamed live on the City of Cambridge online meeting portal and on cable television channel 22 within Cambridge. there will also be a transcript made of these proceedings. I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are audible.

Thank you. This is Jeff Roberts from Community Development. H. Theodore Cohen, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Ted. Mary Flynn, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Mary. Mary Lidecker, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Mary. Diego Macias, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Diego. Ashley Tan, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Ashley. Carolyn Zern, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Carolyn. Dan Anderson, are you present? And is the meeting visible and audible to you? Associate Member Dan Anderson, who is is not present. And Thompson-Avich, can you confirm that the meeting is visible and audible to you?

Present, visible and audible.

Thank you, Tom. That means we have a full seven board members present.

Great. Thank you, Jeff. The first item is an update from community development department. So please also introduce staff present at the meeting, Jeff.

Thank you again, Jeff Roberts. I'm the director of zoning and development and with me on the zoning and development team is Swathi Joseph. I'll let the other city staff who are present introduce themselves when we get into the first public hearing and I'll just go through some quick updates first. We do have one public hearing schedule. That's the only business we have scheduled tonight at the planning board. And as we don't have any business scheduled for August and September 1st is a primary ELECTION DAY WE AND THE NEXT WEEK IS THE WEEK OF LABOR DAY WE DON'T ANTICIPATE ANY MORE PLANNING BOARD MEETINGS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 15TH SO THAT'S A LONG BREAK I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU'LL ALL DO WITH THAT TIME I'LL BE HERE WORKING BUT AND YOU CAN DROP BY IF YOU WANT TO DO ANYTHING But it will be a long break, so stay tuned. We do expect we'll have plenty of business in September, so stay tuned. And for members of the public, we'll be updating the website and making sure everybody knows what's scheduled and when and where. So that's the planning board. Over on the city council, just one upcoming meeting to note on August 19th, there'll be an ordinance committee hearing on the short-term rental zoning petition. That's the petition that the planning board will be hearing shortly tonight. and i just thought i'd give a quick recap from last night's city council meeting because there were a few zoning items on the agenda um the uh active use zoning petitions for mass ave and cambridge street which the planning board heard and gave favorable recommendations on WERE BOTH PASSED TO A SECOND READING. THE CITY COUNCIL INCORPORATED THE CHANGES THAT WERE RECOMMENDED BY THE PLANNING BOARD ON THE MASS AB ZONING PETITION. THE CAMBER STREET ZONING PETITION WAS PASSED TO A SECOND READING AS IS WITH NO CHANGES FROM WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED IN THE PETITION. SO THOSE WILL BE MOVING FORWARD AND WILL COME UP AGAIN AT CITY COUNCIL WHICH ALSO INCIDENTALLY WILL NOT BE MEETING AGAIN UNTIL SEPTEMBER 14TH. Um, SO THAT MOVES FORWARD. THE DOUG BROWN AT ALL ZONING PETITION WHICH WAS HEARD A FEW WEEKS AGO BY THE PLANNING BOARD AND DID NOT GET A POSITIVE RECOMMENDATION, THAT WAS BROUGHT TO CITY COUNCIL TO PASS TO A SECOND READING AND IT FAILED TO PASS. SO THAT ZONING PETITION IS NO LONGER CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION. AND WE ALSO FROM LAST NIGHT HAVE A NEW PETITION FROM ALEXANDRIA REAL ESTATE. which is related to a proposed transfer of development rights in exchange for development of affordable housing so that'll be an interesting um proposal that will be uh and that just came up last night so we'll be scheduling a planning board hearing on that um that's that's it um I hope I hope you can think of something to do with all the time in between this and the next uh planning board and City Council meetings in September

Great. Thank you, Jeff. Are there questions from board members for Jeff? I have just one question, Jeff, which relates to an open seat as an associate member here on the board. Has the position been advertised? Where are we in that process? We're anxious, of course, to get a new colleague.

yes that is that is correct so we as the planning board members recall um associate member joy jackson um moved from cambridge and and therefore is no longer on the planning board we uh believe we have a tentative um plan to get that posting um soon um i don't know that I have any more detail than that, but we are in the process of getting the posting drafted and going through the kind of internal city board and commission process. As the board knows, we help facilitate the process, but it's ultimately a city manager office appointment. that needs to get made so we're working with the manager's office to uh to get that scheduled and set up and and we hope to get that soon i'll definitely uh let the planning board members know i'm sure we'll make an announcement when uh when that posting is available for people to look at and apply great thank you just for members of the public that may be dialed in at this point i also wanted to be clear that uh that is pending so thank you jeff for that update

The next agenda, next item tonight is that the board has received transcripts from meetings which were held on June 30th and July 14th of 2026. Are there any questions from board members about these transcripts? If not, I'll entertain a motion to accept the transcripts as the meeting minutes and please remember to say your name. Do I have a motion?

This is Diego. So moved.

Thank you, Diego. A second, please.

Mary Flynn, I'll second.

Thank you, Mary. Roll call vote on accepting the meeting minutes.

On that motion, Ted Cohen. Yes. Mary Flynn.

Yes.

Mary Lidecker.

Yes.

Diego Macias. Yes. Ashley Tan.

Yes.

Carolyn Zern.

Yes.

And Thompson Avage. Yes. That's all board members voting in favor.

Thank you, Jeff. Okay, agenda item number one. The next item on the agenda is a public hearing on a zoning petition by the city council to amend section 4.60 to add definitions, add and revise conditions, add registration requirements with required documentation, limit short-term rentals to 90 days per calendar year, require compliance with all building, zoning, sanitary or fire codes or related regulation, add enforcement mechanisms for violation of the ordinance, authorize ISD to promulgate regulations for implement enforcement of the ordinance and its amendments, and revise other parts of the ordinance for internal consistency. First, I'll ask CDD staff to begin. By presenting the petition and then we'll take comment and then the planning board will discuss the petition to decide whether to transmit a recommendation to the City Council. I believe the law Department tonight will be making that presentation, Jeff.

Yes, I will, and CDD actually has had not much involvement in this petition, so I'll just immediately turn it over. I'll start by turning it over to Elliot Veloso, who is the Deputy City Solicitor, and he can introduce the rest of the team here and start the presentation. Elliot?

Hi, good evening, everyone. Just to introduce also, Assistant City Solicitor Cindy Wright will be doing the presentation on the law side and also flagging James D'Angelo from ISD, who will also be doing the presentation from ISD side. And I believe that is... Oh, sorry. Sorry, I'm just trying to make out.

Peter McLaughlin.

Oh, sorry, Peter. Peter McLaughlin, Commissioner of ISD, is also on the video as well.

Great. Thank you. If you could let it unfold. Let's see what's before us tonight. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you. Do we need to share our screen? I'm not sure how the planning board generally proceeds. I can share our screen or CDD.

Please go ahead, Sydney. We have it in case you have any technical issues, we can run for you.

Okay, great. Please just let me know when you can see the screen and we'll get started.

Yes, we can see the screen.

So you'll be hearing from myself and Jimmy D'Angelo today, as Elliot stated, and please feel free if you have any questions, we're happy to stop. But we wanted just to provide an overview of what we are recommending in terms of amending the ordinance here. By way of some background last year, many of you all may remember that we put forth a petition recommending amendments that many of which are similar to what is before the planning board today. At that time, and we'll reiterate that. THIS ORDINANCE WAS ADOPTED IN AUGUST OF 2017 AND IT TOOK EFFECT IN APRIL OF 2018. THERE HAVE NOT BEEN ANY AMENDMENTS MADE SINCE THAT TIME. AS WE SAID, WE DID PUT FORTH SOME AMENDMENTS LAST YEAR AND THE BOARD DID VOTE FOR A STRONG RECOMMENDATION TO ADOPT THOSE AMENDMENTS. Once we reached the ordinance committee, the council did want to engage in some further conversation, both amidst the council and with the public surrounding some additional changes. And those changes at that time included adding a category for operator occupied owner-occupied short-term rentals, adding a third category for that, as well as adding a day limit for whole unit rentals. THEY ALSO WANTED FURTHER CLARIFICATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR OWNERS WHO LIVE IN A CONDO AND THEY WANTED CLARIFICATIONS ON SOME FURTHER DEFINITIONS. SO WITH THAT FEEDBACK, THE PETITION DID LAPSE AND ISD WITH THE COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT AND THE LAW DEPARTMENT ENGAGED IN SOME PUBLIC OUTREACH WHICH JIMMY CAN GO OVER the methods that we sought feedback on and some of the questions that we sought feedback on. Based on that feedback, we now have presented some additional amendments to what we brought forth last year. I'll turn it to Jimmy to give an overview of where we are in terms of the short-term rental numbers as of last month.

Yeah, so as of June, We use a third party called Host Compliance to help us monitor short-term rentals in the city. So as of June, there is about 716 short-term rentals in Cambridge, of which only 216 were registered. So we have about 500 unregistered units. For comparison, as a breakdown, two-thirds of them are considered operator-occupied units and another one-third are owner-adjacent units. So as Citi highlighted, we conducted a survey at the request of some city counselors to kind of get some feedback. So that survey lasted a little bit over a month this past winter. As part of the survey, we sent it out to all short-term rental operators that are registered within the city, as well as the Cambridge Condo Alliance leaders. We also created flyers that was posted at multiple different city buildings to kind of get the word out. And we also published it on the city website and social media channels. In addition to that, inspectional services had dedicated counter hours in case any member of the public wanted to come in and ask us questions or provide feedback. And the survey itself had up to 23 questions. Some of them were conditional depending on prior answers, and that included three write-in questions. For the survey, we received 928 responses. A breakdown of that would be 74% of people that completed the survey identified themselves as a member of the general public, while 11% said they were short-term rental operators, and 15% said they were neighbors of a short-term rental operator. Additionally, 84% of respondents said they were property owners in Cambridge and 55% were condo unit owners in Cambridge. So some of the survey findings 59% of total respondents indicated that they wanted to see some type of limitation on the number of days and entire short term rental unit can be rented as a whole. Of those 59% 64% of those are members of the general public 68% were neighbors of a short term rental and 11% for short term rental operators. Additionally, of the people that completed the survey, 77% of condo association residents wanted to require a letter of approval from the condo association before an STR is approved. So as a result of that, we proposed an amendment that continues to require the condo association consent for both owners and tenants. Additionally, many respondents requested stronger enforcement, again, unauthorized short-term rentals. So because of that, we added a new enforcement section and included a requirement for booking agent and platforms to become registered and penalties if they did not comply. We also updated the definition of short-term rentals and included a new third category and an autonomous unit. We also added new definitions for booking agent platform, primary residence, registration number, and registration database. We've updated our operator requirements and included compliance with standards with the state and local law. We updated registration requirements for operators and booking agents and proposed a 90-day calendar, a 90-day per calendar year limit to STRs.

Sorry, Jimmy.

This slide just highlights some of the new terms that we've put into the ordinance. At a prior hearing, we did have some confusion regarding what is considered a primary residence. And now, as Jimmy indicated, we've also included autonomous unit STR. So we have added some definitions to the short-term rental ordinance for clarity and to prevent any ambiguity for what applies to whom. Notably, with respect to the autonomous unit short-term rental, adding this new definition is going to create a third type of short-term rental Previously, owner-occupied short-term rentals would include both when an owner was physically present in the unit for the entire duration of the stay and if that operator was away. So for purposes of clearing up any ambiguity, we'd now split that up. So an owner-occupied short-term rental now is going to be when the operator remains on site And an autonomous unit is going to be when an entire primary residence is rented while the operator is temporarily absent. And we're happy to go over any other of the new definitions if there are any questions with respect to that. We have also added a definition for a booking agent and platform, which I did wanna call out as well as booking service. And we've added some new requirements for those definitions. And then, Jimmy, do you want to highlight the changes that we also made to operator occupied and owner adjacent short-term rentals?

Yeah, so owner adjacent will pretty much stay the same. But like Sydney had mentioned, the operator occupied is now kind of going to be branching into two separate and distinct categories. One will still remain operator occupied, but that will be limited to just When an individual rents out the individual bedrooms within their primary residence, while they are staying for during the duration of the rental. And then the other half is now we're going to become an autonomous unit, which is still the operators primary residence, but when it's being rented as a whole in its entirety, so if someone goes away on vacation and they want to rent out the whole unit. That is now broken down and considered an autonomous unit. So as we said, there are going to be three types of STRs that are going to be permitted, autonomous unit, operator occupied, and owner adjacent. All operators will have to register with inspectional services before operating and comply with any building fire, sanitary, and other local codes as well. Operators must maintain liability insurance. They will be given a registration number that they will have to put on all of their listings. And ISD will also be able to immediately revoke a registration if a property is deemed a nuisance. And commercial meetings and hours rental hourly rentals are prohibited and that will stay. We are also going to continue to have condo approval necessary. This will be for both owners and tenants. Registration will be tied to both the unit and operator and does not transfer upon sale. There is a duty to amend an application within 30 days of material changes for the operator. And there will be no transfer or assignment of an STR certification to another person. As always, they will have to provide proof of primary residency upon their application. Pondo approval will be required when it's applicable. Inspectional services will continue to do mandatory inspections before each rental unit is registered. The registration is tied to both the operator and the unit. As I stated again, they'll have 30 days to let us know if there's any material changes and registration cannot be transferred to another person.

In terms of the new section that we've added for booking agents and platforms, previously we have engaged some of the booking platforms with respect to discussing unregistered short-term rentals and how the city can effectively enforce its ordinance against those. The feedback that we heard is that the platform was willing to abide by Cambridge's ordinance. So now we've put forth this language, hoping that the platforms are still going to operate in that spirit and will conform their conduct to the requirements of our ordinance. So now we going forward are suggesting that we require registration with ISD before a platform collects a fee for booking services in Cambridge. It would be against the ordinance to collect a fee for a booking transaction unless that unit is listed on the city's registry. We've added a section to the MAINTAIN COMPLIANCE WITH THE CITY'S ORDINANCE AND REGULATIONS ANNUALLY AND A SECTION THAT REQUIRES THE BOOKING AGENTS TO VERIFY REGISTRATION STATUS BEFORE CHARGING OR COLLECTING A FEE. AND THE PENALTY FOR VIOLATING THE ORDINANCE WOULD BE $300 PER VIOLATION PER DAY. And that's the requirements with respect to booking agents. In terms of procedural requirements, we did add that operators post waste and recycling instructions, emergency exit diagrams, emergency contact information, and the certificate of registration posted within the unit. We did add an enforcement and violations section, and some of this you all may recall from a prior petition, but we're now, you know, vesting with ISD the authority to investigate complaints and enforce the ordinance requirement. We're hoping to strengthen their ability to enforce those requirements. We've again established what the fine and penalty will be for any type of VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION, AND WE'VE ALSO WRITTEN IN THAT ISD IS GOING TO BE VESTED WITH THE ABILITY TO PROMULGATE ITS OWN REGULATIONS IN ORDER TO ENFORCE THIS ORDINANCE. THE CITY DOES COLLECT LOCAL ROOM OCCUPANCY AND EXCISE TAXES, SO WE HAVE JUST REDUCED THAT TO WRITING IN THE ORDINANCE, BUT THAT IS NOT A SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE FROM or the current practices for the city. Any questions?

Great, thank you. So you're done with your presentation at this point, Sydney?

We are.

Great, thank you. So at this point, this is a zoning petition, by the way, and so from the city council. So the board's role here is to hold this hearing and make a recommendation to that city council, as most board members here understand, At this point, what we'll do, it's a public hearing. We're going to collect public comment if there are people who would like to be heard. So any members of the public who wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand if you're calling in by phone. You can raise your hand by pressing star nine. So as of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received comments on this petition from Councillor Patty Nolan. from Cindy and Daniel Palin, from Joseph Rose, from Michael Harrison, from Jody Westerman, from Danielle Mishkin, from a person identifying themselves as Sean and Nanette Ciano. Written communications received after 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record. So I'll ask staff to see if we've got a queue and unmute speakers one at a time. Let's just see if we've got a queue before I go into the next instance.

I believe there is a queue forming, so that's great.

You should begin by saying your name and address, and the staff will confirm that we can hear you. And after that, you'll have up to three minutes to speak before I'll be asking you to wrap up.

Thank you, and I will I'll read, then I apologize in advance for mispronouncing anybody's name, but I'm going to read the name as it comes up here on zoom and then I'll read the following name, just so that the next speaker can be ready to begin. So the first speaker is Daniel Palin followed by Quinn Charbonneau. And you can unmute yourself, speaking with your name and address.

Hi, my name is Danny Palin, and I live at 52 Kinnaird. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Yes. Okay, good. And I guess I'm not on video. Is that correct?

That's correct.

I want to thank everyone for your work on behalf of all of us who live in Cambridge. Where I'm coming from is I live here and I have a two-family house. I pay the mortgage in part by doing a short-term rental. It's been a terrific experience all around. We have students, visiting professors, business people. Jimmy D'Angelo was in my place a year ago for my five-year renewal of my certification. It's just been a delightful experience and a very positive part of our lives, much more positive than when we had long-term rentals. And we also have higher income, which makes it possible for us to live here. With that introduction, I want to say that I'm really gratified at the changes that are being put forth by Sidney Wright in the legal department and Jimmy D'Angelo in ISD. I was really shocked when I first learned that it's more than a two to one ratio of unregistered units to registered units. And I can understand that some people in Cambridge are really upset about Roche motels that are owned by people who probably don't even live in Cambridge. So I really support this effort to improve things. What I would like to say in this opportunity to speak publicly to the planning board as an advisory body to the city council is I'd like to begin with what may sound like a small detail. There's a lot to discuss, but I think the most important thing I can contribute is an item that relates to my expertise as an operator of an owner adjacent short-term rental, which is a 90 day limit to owner adjacent short-term rentals will effectively outlaw them. It is not possible. I don't have time to go into it, but it is absolutely impossible. We will not be able to do it. The position that was advocated by Patty Nolan and has been put forth and discussed by Sidney Wright and others was that the autonomous units and the owner occupied units would have a 90 day limit. And there's a robust argument for that. There are, I think Jimmy said, 74 of us who have owner-adjacent short-term units. If you think about this in terms of minority rights of people coming from the middle class, we live here in Cambridge. We're not rich people who don't need that kind of income. We're not running roach motels. And this small number of us are going to lose the opportunity to do this. And I want to let you know that as somebody who has expertise that you may not have, because you're not sort of in that business. So please consider that if you do enact a universal 90 day limit, you will be outlawing it throughout the city. And if that's not your intention, I would plead with you not to do it. Out of respect for your tight schedule, I'll stop there, although there's so much to discuss, and I would plead with you to take a look at the extensive written materials I submitted before the meeting. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Powell, and thank you for your letter. I'm sure all the board members have read it, so thank you.

The next speaker is Quinn Charbonneau, who's followed by Jody Westerman.

Hi there, my name is Quinn Charbonneau. Thank you so much for hearing me out. I think as a board, I appreciate the work you're doing and it sounds like you're very much on the right track. My husband and I are longtime residents of Cambridge and both work in the healthcare sector. As a researcher who focuses on skin cancer and a podiatrist whose practice includes providing nursing home care to elderly impoverished residents, the work we do represent some of the lowest paying work in medicine. We are straddled with student debt, the cost of child care, and the rising cost of living in the city. We are not developers. We are not independently wealthy. We are a family with two small children. We operate legal registered taxpaying units out of our own home. This property is our primary residence where we live year-round and carefully oversee all operations relating to our Airbnbs. We provide critical employment to our co-host and cleaning staff who are single mothers working legally and doing their best to raise their young children. Any changes that could compromise the income of these incredible hardworking women could have devastating ripple effects for their families. Our Airbnbs include individual rooms which could never function as long-term housing. We hosted essential workers throughout the COVID pandemic, and the units we offer continue to function as isolation rooms for any guests who require medical isolation from their families, including our own family members who are transplant recipients. Guests coming from medical travel, families of hospitalized patients, parents of college students, and international academic leaders bringing ideas to our institutions are among the typical guest demographic we serve. We are advocates for improved access to housing and will struggle to maintain housing for ourselves without these units. Restricting legal registered Airbnbs will worsen housing access by pushing middle-class families like us who are trying to survive out of Cambridge. Restricting Airbnbs will disproportionately affect the honest Airbnb hosts who choose to maintain legal Airbnbs and follow the law, while the multitude of illegal operators will continue to break the law and may even resort to underground cash operations. These illegal unrestricted Airbnbs represent the majority of the units operating in Cambridge. These are the units that need to be targeted. In fact, legal operators could serve to help with enforcement by reporting illegal Airbnbs to the city through a reporting system. because we're incentivized to eliminate illegal operators more than anyone. Any restrictions that include capping the number of days or months per year are also bound to be problematic from a practical standpoint. Increasing access to housing is not achieved by giving a family six or nine months of housing and then forcing them out to find another solution. Renters need year-round housing so they can maintain jobs as well as a home and school for their children. A three-month cap on Airbnbs would make it even more difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal operators. We love the city of Cambridge and strand in strong support of all residents of the city, including homeowners and renters. For all of the above reasons, please consider avoiding any annual cap on short-term rentals or restrictions that prevent homeowners from renting rooms out of their homes or owner-adjacent units. Instead, please target the huge number of illegal absentee operators of the units that are not in an owner-occupied dwelling. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jody Westerman, followed by Rick Barry. If you're speaking Jody Westerman, we can't hear you testing. We can hear you now.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. My name is Jody Westerman. I am a longtime resident of Cambridge. I live at 4 Trowbridge Place in Cambridge. And I am coming to you, I believe you did reference my letter. I'm coming to you on a specific concern of phrasing the way that the policy is currently written. I am a travel coordinator, so I work with visiting academics to the area, specifically those who are visiting Harvard and MIT. These are often grad students, PhD candidates, and folks who are looking to collaborate with Harvard and MIT. Oftentimes they're being sponsored by these universities. So as you can imagine, a lot of these folks are on a shoestring budget. So where we focus our efforts are on the private rooms. The private rooms often give these visiting academics affordable options to live in the heart of the city. They're really important to what we do. My concern with the way that the policy is currently written is it's pitting whole home rentals against private room rentals. By saying that we have a maximum of 90 days for both whole home rentals and private room rentals, What I anticipate happening, and this kind of echoes what some of the other speakers have said, people are really focusing on these whole home rentals. They are comparatively more lucrative. And I'm concerned that we're going to see a substantial reduction in the private room rentals when folks start weighing, okay, well, I only have 90 days. You know, what am I going to do with those days? They'll probably focus on the more profitable of the two, the whole home rentals. And we can't really afford to completely drop the supply of private room rentals for these academics. And they really add to the character of Cambridge. I mean, these are people who are traveling specifically to Cambridge. collaborate with researchers at our universities and are really adding to the flavor and the character of our community. So what I would urge, and I put this in my letter as well, is to just consider adding one single word to section 4.62G, where it says the following types of short-term rentals may be offered up to 90 days per calendar year, if we add the word each to the end of that, it will no longer be a competition between the two. And folks who leave for the summer or leave for the winter and those folks who opt to use their whole home rental days will no longer take their private rooms off the market for the rest of the year. They would at least have 90 days to offer a private room. I hope that wasn't too confusing. I think I said it a little better in my letter, but please feel welcome to follow up with me with any questions.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Westerman.

Thank you. The next speaker is Rick Barry, who's followed by Shelly Evans. We can just hear you. We just heard the last bit of that.

Okay. Thank you. I just became aware of it. Are you here?

There it's it's a bit choppy and can you be and you might want to turn turn your audio down if you're okay through a speaker and and start with your name and address, please.

Okay, thank you, my name is rick Barry 45 cottage street and we have an owner Jason str I did not send a letter, because I just became aware of this meeting today so. I support all of these more careful regulations and so forth that are in this proposal. We have had a legal SDR since the beginning, and I support not having any illegal ones. AND, YOU KNOW, THE INCREASED REGULATION IS FINE WITH ME. THE CHALLENGE FOR ME IS THIS 90-DAY LIMIT, AS THE FIRST SPEAKER SAID, THAT MAKES IT EFFECTIVELY VERY DIFFICULT IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTINUE TO DO AN STR BECAUSE OF THE INCOME LIMITATIONS. I think we should be focusing on, so I looked at your surveys. 25% of people say there are too many, which means 75% of people don't say there are too many. There's 216 STRs out of 57,000 apartments or rental units in Gainesville. 57,000, there's 216 STRs. If they're problematic, I support strict regulation of problems, and I understand why neighbors would feel that way. 20% in your survey, 928 people out of 57,000 units, say they cause hardship, and 20% say they are a benefit. On my street, we have lots of families who come and stay, people bringing their kids to university DC, Harvard, MIT. They would be paying three times as much per night, but in a two-bedroom STR like we have, they save a lot of money. We offer discounted rates to our neighbors when their families come to visit. So there are benefits that this provides that I don't see acknowledged in your survey and I'm just going to say all of it does not bother me except the 90-day limit. Also, the income is important to us. We're retired. We need that income. Taking us down to 90 days when we can't really effectively rent it out just is devastating, and we'd have to figure out something else to do or move. So if you need a limit, make it. eight or nine months a year, not 90 days, if it's at all possible, I'd like you to consider that. Or perhaps there may be exceptions that can allow more people to be able to have more of a chance to take, make use of this opportunity. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Berry.

The next speaker is Shelly Evans, who's followed by Sid Misra.

hi thank you can you hear me yes um i'm shelly evans i live at 181 fairweather street and like some of the other speakers i'm sorry i feel hastily prepared because i actually didn't know about this meeting or this issue until today um I want to just say that we have lived in our two-family home for 32 years and for the last five years have operated a legal registered owner-adjacent short-term rental. For us, this is not the absentee investor model that people often picture. For 20 years in Cambridge, we rented our downstairs apartment to the same tenant. But today our grown children no longer live in Cambridge and they regularly use the downstairs apartment, stay there. The short-term rental income allows us to keep the apartment available for them while also helping us meet the cost of staying in Cambridge. As other people have said, it would be very difficult for us to manage that given our careers If we didn't have that income in the city survey that I read 96% of the short term rental operators who answered the question said that they do rely on it as an important source of income and a 90 day cap would reduce that household income. Without you know clearly to me, creating housing in for a Cambridge tenant in our case, because the apartment is actually being used by our family. it would not become a long-term rental. I fully agree with the legislation or the proposed controls around STRs. And I also agree that Cambridge urgently needs more middle-income housing. But I wonder if the goal of the cap is to return housing to the long-term market, will restricting these particular 74, 200 rentals actually accomplish that? There's 216 registered units compared with an estimated 500 unregistered units. And I just wanted to say before imposing a blanket 90-day cap on residents who depend on the income, AND ARE COMPLYING WITH THE LAW THAT THE CITY FOCUS ON ENFORCING EXISTING REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS AND SEE WHETHER THAT PRODUCES MORE AVAILABLE HOUSING. IT'S A VERY COMPLICATED ISSUE AND I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I SUPPORT THE WORK THAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING FULLY, 100%. THANKS.

THANK YOU, MS. EVANS.

more in the queue Jeff yep then the next speaker is Sid Mishra followed by Janice Yee hello everyone my name is Sid Mishra at 12 Sycamore Street my wife sent in the letter her name is Shaolin Yin so she will speak today on our behalf

Hi, everyone. My name is Shaolin. I live in 12 Sigma with my husband and my six-year-old daughter. Thank you for everyone to think about the great future for the people. I understand the goodwill behind all this move. My concern basically lays on when we consider the wellness of the public, do we really... need to do more detailed work and do we really need to sacrifice one group's benefit and interest for different purpose? So my family, both me and my husband, we are first generation immigrants. our parents they are over 70 years old they're in asian countries and as asian we really take care of our parents so every year they come here to stay two to four months and that's why our formal condo which is seven eight hundred square feet is not enough to host our parents and it's too expensive for us to rent somewhere else So we said, okay, what to do? Then we decided to buy a house so close to this public road. It's not the fancy one, it's just a functional one for our family's usage. in order to cover this very high mortgage because our family is a single income family. I do not have a day-to-day work. So in order to cover that part, we said, okay, we're going to do some short-term rental based on the law that the city write down on the website. We feel like the trust is there and we feel like very clear. We are going to be so respectful. So that's why we moved into this current house last October. And with the current change, we support take down this illegal rentals, but this 90 days is very, very concerning to us. Even if this really happens, as a single income family, we probably cannot really afford the mortgage. We probably have to move out of this town. The reason we stay here is my daughter is in a Mandarin immersion program, which is where I'm from. So we want her to stay here growing as a great citizen and love Cambridge, but the mortgage and all that is really adding up. During our short term as the host, we receive full score from our guest. The one guest decide this for Boston people are mean, but by meeting with us, be hosted by us, they feel so warm and welcomed. I think we are doing our best here to represent the city and bring these customers to consume. I think the 90 days is very, very going to be very stressful for us. I think I would like people to consider a more detailed policy. 10 months or even no limitation will be probably better for our family. Thank you.

Thank you.

And the next speaker is Janice Yee. There are no other speakers, so if you have not spoken yet and you still wanted to speak on this issue, please push the raise hand button now so that we can make sure that we get you before we end.

Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

That's great. Janice, my name is Janice Yi, and my husband and I live at 16 Surrey Street in Cambridge. We used to live in the city of Boston, and then when my daughter died, but you know started MIT in 2017 and my husband and I decided to move to Cambridge because at that time my I know that my son was trying to get into Harvard Business School and I thought that okay the whole family will be in Cambridge that'll be great and but this house I my husband and I live in a three-family building and we live in a one-bedroom apartment and we you know, long-term rent, the one unit, and then we LBNB'd the one adjacent unit, and then we rent a room, you know, from our apartment as an owner-occupied unit. Before, you know, we wanted to live in Cambridge, but this building is the most expensive in our whole life. My husband and I are in our early 60s. So this is the most expensive one, but it's the smallest one. But before we decided to buy this building, we run the calculation because we took the very expensive mortgage, the maximum amount of mortgage. And we knew that if we run it long-term, it won't be able to support it, support the house. And we figured out only by doing LVMB, we were able to support it and that's how we did it. So we started in 2018 and we had a permit at the first place and we have been very carefully follow the city's guidelines and this served our family very well. And my two children, my son and my daughter, you know, they all came, you know, stay in this house when they went to MIT and Harvard for two years and then COVID. And then after they graduated, they left. And now, you know, I'm LVMB, you know, the rooms we don't need. And I was shocked when I heard about this 90-day cap. I don't know how, you know, who would benefit for such policy. You know, for our family, if you're going to put 90 days cap, then what I'm going to do with another nine months, because long-term rental is a one year, right? So this is not going to work. And I don't know if, if, you know, I believe that, you know, when I'm doing LBMB, Citi will be able to collect more tax. If I cannot do it, then Citi will not be able to collect tax. I guess I'm not very prepared, but I just want, you know, want to say that I've completed a group with Daniels. So he's, you know, I just support all his points. And thank you.

Thank you.

So that seems to be the full list of speakers. I'll turn it back to the chair.

Thank you, Jeff. And thank you members of the public for your thoughtful comments. At this point, we'll now move from public comment to board discussion and additional comments from the public will be submitted to the record of the hearing. So first we'll see if board members have questions for the law department on the proposal. Ted.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I guess I have the $64,000 question. What is the rationale for any cap on short-term rentals? And what is the rationale for limiting it to 90 days? Because I was, you know, we haven't seen anything that says there's a problem that needs to be addressed i mean one of the comments was that it was a solution in search of a problem and uh i i'd really like to know if there is some problem that this 90-day cap or any cap is trying to address so i guess it's for the law committee

Through you, Mr. Chair.

Sure.

Thank you for the question. Just to be clear, and I understand this maybe wasn't articulated great by me through the presentation. While the law department and ISD have made the majority of the recommendations here that are coming before the planning board, the city council has requested the opportunity to discuss a nine a cap on the calendar days.

In order to We lost the audio. We've lost audio and or Sydney is frozen. Swathi, do you have something you can do about that? Can you thaw her?

While we're trying to get Sidney back, just to carry on from what she was discussing, the city council has sort of opened up further discussions relative to the cap proposals that were presented as part of the original petition. As noted, public comment has been submitted by counselors, including Councilor Nolan, who is proposing amendments to the cap such to remove the cap from those categories except the autonomous unit new category that has been created. uh, in the ordinance. Um, and, uh, you know, because this is zoning position, the city council has the authority to make those amendments as, um, and which would not change the character of the zoning petition because of the fact that the default is unlimited, uh, time. So removing those caps would just essentially restore the default. So, um, uh, again, uh, Just to add on to, you know, before we lost Sydney, the city council in the ordinance committee is planning to have further discussions on these proposed caps. And as already noted in public comment, councils have already proposed amendments to this petition to remove the cap for certain of the categories for STRs.

Well, can I follow up? Has the city council or ordinance committee articulated any rationale for the cap or for the 90 days to the law department?

My understanding based on the initial petitions was that public input to counselors when the petition was first presented was concern over what are now being designated as autonomous units. So those were residential properties that were listed as a primary residence by the owners. But in fact, the residents weren't living in the units and were in fact, just simply renting them out and using. So instead of them being designated as actual rental properties, they were referring to them as short-term rentals and not living on the property so there was concern about um that being a potential abuse of what was intended originally in the short-term rental ordinance as well as other concerns that that arrangements such as that uh were reducing the available housing stock uh in the city from those that actually wanted to long-term rent or actually own properties so i believe Those were the motivations relative to how the initial proposal was presented, adding these caps. And again, I believe that was the rationale at the time for the initial proposals.

Well, unless I misunderstand it for the autonomous category does not have to be the owner's primary residence who happens to not be there. So, I mean, I don't understand if there's fear that they're just going to rent things out while not living there. I mean, it has to be their primary residence.

That is correct. And can you all hear me now?

Yes.

That is correct. But presently, as the ordinance stands, primary residence is not defined. And so... It has been up for debate what is an individual's primary residence. So if the board is to give a favorable recommendation to the definition that we've provided and the council is to accept it, then that would be correct that there would only be a 30-day window where an autonomous unit could be rented.

All right. I would still like to know what the problem is and why the 90 days was selected rather than 120 days, 180 or none whatsoever. And I'm not sure if.

Elliot mentioned this, the 90 days we've used as sort of a placeholder to allow for the council to discuss whether or not they intend to place a cap and what that number is going to be because the council cannot on their own initiative without having gone through the process consider a cap on the amount of days or a more restrictive CAP WITHOUT SUBSTANTIALLY CHANGING THE CHARACTER OF THE PETITION, WE'VE USED 90 DAYS AS A PLACE FOR THEM TO START.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. GREAT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, TED. DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS? NOT RIGHT NOW. GREAT. THANK YOU. OKAY. ASHLEY.

THANK YOU, MR. CHAIR. MY QUESTIONS ARE VERY HIGH LEVEL. I THINK I BROUGHT THIS UP LAST TIME. Kind of 3 questions all similar, but the 1st, 1 is. I'm sure there's some history to this, but I still am having a hard time understanding why. A lot of the detailed, like, you know, the registration booking details. Process enforcement, why that's all in. The zoning were proposed to be in a zoning ordinance. Um. You know, so much of this is, I'm going to call it. runs with the applicant, whereas zoning really should be running with the land. And I get a little nervous. I don't want Airbnb to try to sue us next year. And so that's the first question. The second question is on a similar vein. I did my own research. I looked up Boston, Somerville, Salem, and some of the major cities around here in from what I can tell, most of them either have a short-term rental ordinance elsewhere, or maybe just like the use in the zoning, but all the detailed, the fines, the how to register, that's in a separate ordinance. And so I was curious if you have seen other cities that have a similar setup as what's being proposed here, because I did not find any. And bringing it back to zoning, so am I correct that other than what is being proposed, if it wasn't for these things, short-term rentals would be allowed in all districts, is that right? And yeah, I'm just trying to wrap my head around why and how this pertains to us. Thank you.

SO IN TERMS OF SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER SURROUNDING MUNICIPALITIES GENERALLY, WE HAVE AND PRIMARILY JIMMY HAS EXTENSIVELY REVIEWED HOW SHORT-TERM RENTALS ARE BEING ENFORCED IN OTHER MUNICIPALITIES INCLUDING OTHER MUNICIPALITIES OF SIMILAR SIZE AND OTHER MUNICIPALITIES with similar enforcement tools. I would say most of the language that we have proposed is very similar in nature to what we're seeing around short-term rental enforcement. I'll also say that WHEN I HAVE SPOKEN ON THE PHONE WITH OTHER REPRESENTATIVES FROM CITIES WHO ARE TRYING TO ENFORCE SHORT-TERM RENTALS, A LOT OF MUNICIPALITIES FIND THEMSELVES IN A SIMILAR SITUATION AS WE ARE RIGHT NOW WHERE THERE'S A LARGE NUMBER OF UNREGISTERED SHORT-TERM RENTALS THEY'RE TRYING TO EITHER GET INTO COMPLIANCE OR FIGURE OUT HOW TO GRAPPLE WITH. FOR THE ENFORCEMENT portion of it. The enforcement by ISD is contemplated both by the statute and case law. And specifically, I think it's a styler. I think it's I always mess up the name styler or stryler. It sort of outlines the interplay between the short-term rental ordinance and the city zoning requirements. For purposes of THE CITY'S ZONING, I THINK YOUR QUESTION IS IF WE WERE NOT DEFINING SHORT-TERM RENTALS THROUGH EITHER OWNER OCCUPIED AS WE DEFINED IT, OWNER ADJACENT NOW AUTONOMOUS, IF WE DIDN'T RESTRICT IT TO THOSE THREE CATEGORIES, IS IT SUCH THAT THE ZONING WOULD PERMIT ANY TYPE OF RESIDENTS TO BE A PERMISSIBLE SHORT-TERM RENTAL ORDINANCE. AND SO I THINK THAT ANSWER, IF I HAVE THAT QUESTION CORRECT, I THINK THAT IS CORRECT. WE HAVE LIMITED IT TO THOSE CATEGORIES. WE HAVEN'T LIMITED IT TO, LIKE, SOME OTHER MUNICIPALITIES BY ZONE, DISTRICT. THAT IS ANOTHER MECHANISM. OURS IS THROUGH THESE CATEGORIES OF SHORT-TERM RENTALS THAT WE are deeming permissible.

Ashley, do you have a follow-up?

Yeah, but I'm still confused. Are there any other municipalities? All the ones I've looked at so far, the registration, what's the best word? All the condo requirements, all of that, that's not in zoning, right? Those aren't a separate general ordinance that doesn't have to you know for example if um if um peter or isd wants to change something in two months do they have to go through us again whereas if it's not if it's not in the zoning they can go to city council directly and make those changes and not have to go through this whole process and so i was just curious

That is correct. If we were to want to make a change to this ordinance again, we would have to go back through you. And it is because this ordinance is situated in the zoning ordinance. And I didn't appreciate that. I didn't take your earlier question to mean what I now understand. Could this be COULD WE HAVE DISCIPLE CODE AS OPPOSED TO THROUGH OUR ZONING CODE? THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION. I DON'T KNOW. I WOULD HAVE TO LOOK INTO THE REASON WHY WE INITIALLY SITUATED IT WITHIN THE ZONING. I KNOW THAT IS ALLOWABLE AND THAT IS A PERFECTLY PERMISSIBLE WAY TO ENFORCE OUR ORDINANCE, BUT I'M NOT SURE IF with the history behind why we haven't considered placing it in the municipal code.

Yeah, and I think to add to what Cindy has presented, not only is it permissible that such regulation be done through a zoning ordinance as compared to a regular ordinance, I think when we are looking at amending and providing changes and strengthening enforcement, often you have to deal with the structures that are in place at the time or what you're dealing with now. So because our short-term rentals are governed under the zoning ordinance, this is really, amending the zoning ordinance is at this point the proper mechanism in which to make these requested and required changes to ensure enforcement. Now, we can certainly, in the future, look at potentially either doing further amendments or maybe adding additional enforcement or policy mechanisms outside of this Ordinance. either through ordinance or through ISD policy. But I think sort of at the stage we are at right now, if we want to make additional changes and improvements to the short-term rental ordinance, it has to be done at this stage through the zoning ordinance as it is currently in Article 4.60 of our code.

Great. Thank you. I noticed the Commissioner of Buildings has turned on his video. Mr. McLaughlin, do you have an opinion on the topic at hand here?

Thank you, Chair. Unfortunately, like Sydney said, this was placed in the zoning by-law at the beginning. And I don't know why it was when it was placed there, but if it wasn't a municipal code, I think it would be a much easier task at hand. But like Elliot said, we have to go with what we have now. Yeah.

And I think one other thing I just remembered and I'd have to check. all of the uh all of the edits but i believe there has also been a proposed as among these amendments there is a proposal that would enable isd to establish certain policies and procedures outside of zoning you know further amendments to the zoning ordinance that would help effectuate enforcement of this so i think even during our revision process we also recognized an ability to make it easier for ISD to set their own policies as necessary to further enforce whatever changes that are made or recommended relative to this proposal. So unfortunately, I don't remember the specific amendment offhand, but we can we can look that up.

Okay. Thank you. Ashley. You're done with your line of questioning at this point?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mary Flynn.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just curious about the booking platforms. I only really know of two, Airbnb and VRBO, but I'm assuming there probably are more. And so my question is, do you know how many booking sites are out there and people are are dealing with in terms of these unregistered sites and and then as part of that do the booking sites uh require proof of city registration for any other city or town in massachusetts that you're aware of or would this be brand new for them i get into the first

I get into the first part. There are probably over 50 different booking platforms. Obviously, there's a couple that are the most prominent, such as Airbnb, Furbo, Booking.com. Those are probably the... top three and even within that airbnb probably has 90 percent of the listings at least that are in cambridge yeah um and i'll probably have heard a lot about a little bit but there are some other cities and towns that do require them to verify the listing before it's put up

And Boston is one of the cities that requires that Airbnb verify that a short-term rental is registered before the hosting platform collects a fee for booking. And I would say the trend that... I have been seeing is that municipalities who are looking to strengthen their short-term rental ordinances are increasingly building in language that is trying to bring in the hosting platforms into compliance with those ordinances. And that's sort of across, that's spanning across the country. New York City, New Orleans, there are a couple that I didn't think of that we've reviewed. Okay, thank you.

So it sounds like even if we didn't get every platform to cooperate, as long as we get the big three or four, we're going to capture most of the illegal short-term rentals. So that I think is a good thing. There isn't a question. I guess that was just a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mary. Diego.

Hi, I have two questions. The first one is. So I generally. I'm kind of not sure. About distinguishing between, like, owner adjacent short term rental and autonomous unit short term rental. I understand the definitions and why they're different. Um, as opposed to, like, why 1 of them will require 90 days as opposed to, or an arbitrary amount of days and 1 wouldn't. Um, I think is like a secondary thing that I'm thinking about, but the primary thing I think about when I think about these definitions is. at the end of the day, if this passes, we'll have a collection or a data set of these STRs that are registered. And then at that point, you'd be able to see of those three groups that we have, how it's going in a sense, is that going to be something that's possible? And that's my first question. My second question is, we've heard a couple of public commenters about talking about how they had a mortgage and they were using short-term rentals to help pay for that for various reasons. And I'm sure there's, you know, lots of other stories like that. And I was wondering if there was any way to have like an exception for that, or is it like a grandfather rule for people like that, that they can apply for? Those are my questions. Thank you.

Jimmy, do you want to talk about the data that we're trying to collect and how that could be useful?

yeah I mean as far as the data like once they are registered, we can get a good idea of of the breakdown of each different type, obviously the most common was operator occupied, which is going to get split into those two different categories so like you mentioned the autonomous unit that is going to become its own So if you had like a two family. and you have an owner adjacent or you live in the first unit, you want to rent out that second, that would be owner adjacent. If you want to rent out that first unit that you do live in when you're on vacation or something like that, that is going to be the autonomous unit. And again, the idea of the limit on that would be, you know, if you're not living there for six months out of the year and you're renting your whole unit, are you considered a primary resident? And that's why during the survey, we kind of put out there what people considered to be a primary resident. Is it six months out of the year? Is it nine months out of the year? Or is it full year? So that's kind of where the limit came in for that piece. But once everyone's registered, we will have more kind of data on what the breakdown is. Yeah.

Okay, great. And the question about grandfathering, I think that's a wonderful point. Is there a way to do that?

In terms of grandfathering, in terms of if there is a limit imposed for the calendars. So that's a great question. I don't know that we have fully fleshed out when the... Regulations would be promulgated. It would take some time. We're hoping to sort of make more widely available a registry. So I don't think that we have contemplated how to handle those individuals who currently have registered their units, although I will say we've We have given them a registration for a period of years. So I think we would certainly look very carefully at how any type of restriction would be a burden upon individuals who are currently registered and compliant with our ordinance today.

Yeah, great. A great, great point, Diego. Ted, the second round here.

Sitting the wrong thing. So of the 500 estimated unregistered STRs, are they listing things on Airbnb and VRBO? And so if that's the case, there's no way to have pulled them in now. And that's what the whole point of this registration and the booking agency is going to do. I mean, I guess that's two parts. But are they listed now on the big three, let's say?

Yeah, I would say the... If not all, the vast majority of those 500 are all listed on those three websites.

And there's no way now of insisting that they get registered?

So we will send out violation letters when we can find the address of where these places are and confirm that they're not registered with the city. From there, it kind of becomes part of our enforcement process where once that letter gets sent out, a period of days go by, then we can send a cease and desist letter and fines, and then if they still aren't complying, then it has to go to court, which is obviously a much longer process. not all 500 of those are probably going to be eligible to be able to become a short-term rental because many of these people probably aren't living at the property and they're just doing it as a way to gain money. I would say a lot of the people that would be eligible that do receive a letter, some of them might not know about the rules. And then once they receive that letter, they will start the application process. But there is a vast majority probably of the unregistered ones that most likely would never be eligible because it's not a primary residence at this point.

Thank you. Mary.

So just to follow up on what you just said, James, so you know from talking to the booking platforms that there are 500 illegal units, but you don't know where they are. I mean, you can see the Cambridge listings, but they don't show you the address until you book, I believe.

Correct. So they won't give you the listing bills or they won't give you the address. They'll give you an approximate location. But what we, what the city uses is we have a third party called host compliance. That's a short-term rental monitoring company, which can help identify where these places are based off like information listing the pictures and stuff like that. So they can, it's not a hundred percent. We're not going to find a hundred percent of where these places are. but I think we'll probably capture about 70% of where these units are and find these locations, even though the addresses aren't being publicized.

Got it. Okay. You really have to be a detective in this line of work. Interesting. So my other question has to do with this question, particularly for the autonomous units of residency. Is there anything in Massachusetts law, whether it's tax code or something else that sets how long you have to live in a property in Massachusetts? I know some states have that because I have a number of friends who go back and forth between Florida and New England. You know, they spend so many months in each place. And I think there is a requirement in Florida for, you know, you have to be there a minimum number of months in order to qualify to be a resident. So I just don't know if Massachusetts has something like that. And if so, would that help to... set a standard for the autonomous units?

I'm not aware of, so let me speak specifically to the frame under mass general law chapter 64g which sort of outlines a municipality's authority to regulate and within that there is not a specific definition for primary residence um or a length of days we are given sort of broad um authority to craft our own ordinance in order to enforce or restrict short-term rentals um and so there is um you know factors that are used to determine primary residence within case law there's a framework for domicile but in terms of speaking like specifically to what length of time statute and so um we can use this as an area um to for ourselves to determine what is going to satisfy for purposes of the short-term rental of primary resident.

Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Any more questions at this point? Yes, Mr. Bellazzo.

this isn't a question i just wanted to um just provide some additional information response to uh planning board member uh tan's uh question regarding uh whether or not certain things could be done through policy uh rather than amendments to the zoning ordinance uh in the proposed uh amendments under this petition. There is an amendment to what is currently zoning ordinance 4.66 regulations, where the commissioner of inspectional services shall have the authority to promulgate regulations to carry out and enforce the provisions of this section 4.60 short-term rentals. The petition amends that to also add and its subsections that thus removes ambiguity relative to whether ISD can promulgate policies that enforce the not only the ordinance as a whole, but any additional subsections that are added. Additionally, the petition also proposes an amendment to 4.65, which this is the in the petition. adds additional language relative to regulations on booking agents and things like that. Under proposed 4.65 subsection A, where a booking agent platform is prohibited for performing booking services in the city of Cambridge without registering with the city through ISD, there's also language there that says that ISD shall establish a booking agent platform registration system through regulations and or policy promulgated by the department. So under the petition, there is language and amendments there that will enable ISD to promulgate regulations and policy independent of further amendment to the zoning ordinance that will enable and effectuate enhanced enforcement through ISD outside of further amendments, or at least that's what's being proposed. So I just wanted to provide that additional explanation and language to Member Tan. Thank you.

And then if I could add in the spirit of adding more information to Vice Chair's question about the primary residence, there is a separate and not related to the short-term rental ordinance and authority. Within the general administration of local Housing authorities, there is a definition for primary residence within that. I don't want to conflate that it's applicable here, but within that there is primary residence and that is defined by a nine month period as well, in addition to some other factors. So there is some regulatory conformance there with that period of time.

Right. Okay. Thank you, Sydney. So discussion. Who would like to open it up here? If I don't have volunteers, I'll jump in. Mary, thank you.

You're welcome. So I congratulate ISD and the law department in this effort. I mean, I understand that the illegal units really can be problematic. And I think this ordinance, the amendments to the ordinance will help. help you to enforce the regulations. So I'm in support of those in general. I do think, though, based on the comments that we've heard from the public, as well as the bit of reasoning that we are hearing for the 90 day limitations. It doesn't seem to be necessary to me. It's my guess is that the operators who are registered are doing a fine job and it's And if they're not, then we should be able to find out about it through whatever enforcement capabilities we already have. So I don't really see the need for the restriction, and I certainly understand the negative financial implication that will have for a lot of of people who are raising families or trying to, you know, house their elders or whatever it may be, but extended families, whatever. They need the flexibility to be able to do something other than a long-term rental, and it's going to have a negative impact, I think, on... you know, a certain number of homes. So I would not want to see that happen. And then also in terms of the autonomous units, again, I'm just going to use the example of friends that I have. None of them live in Cambridge, but these are people who, you know, some are in Massachusetts, some are in Connecticut, whatever, and they spent part of their year up here and then maybe in Florida or Arizona or whatever. And I don't know that any of them choose to rent out, but it would seem to me that If you're not going to be in your primary residence for five months or so, then you might want to be able to rent it out as a short-term rental. So I'm not sure that a 90-day restriction on the autonomous units makes any sense either. But with those exceptions, I think the changes are very well-suited to what the problem is.

Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Mary Lidecker.

Thank you, and thank you to all my colleagues for such good, smart questions and discussion leading up to this. my feeling is maybe what folks are getting at it's it's the owner occupied in particular relative to the cap um that feels like that one doesn't seem necessary to me this is when someone is sharing a space in your home um owner jason is a little bit different and then autonomous i think that does start to stretch into we're in a an environment where housing is very tight And so my understanding or my guess is obviously the reason to do this is to, to, um, discourage uh um um home rentals taking over where people can live for their homes so for the autonomous i can certainly understand that having um a cap you know maybe it's 120 days maybe that's considered in order to discourage full units becoming full-time um short-term rentals, essentially. And then it's the owner adjacent that's a little bit, it's that in between. I would still kind of lean, I think, maybe towards Mary. What you're describing is if it's working fine, not fine, but like if it's working, and certainly there's a lot of people coming for lots of different reasons through Cambridge. And so having lots of flexibility and different opportunities at different price points makes a lot of sense to me. And so hopefully this is something that council will consider, as Sydney described, if this is a bit of a placeholder situation. SO THAT IT CAN BE USED IF IT'S CHOSEN. BUT I WOULD CERTAINLY SAY FOR THE OWNER OCCUPIED, I DON'T SEE A NEED FOR A CAP ON THAT. I'M ALL FOR MAKING ISDs WORK EASIER AND MORE EFFICIENT. AND SO I THINK REALLY ASHLEY BROUGHT UP AN INCREDIBLY THOUGHTFUL POINT. IT REALLY PUT ME IN MIND OF, DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE DID THE BACKYARD CHICKEN? ORDINANCE WHERE THERE'S A POINT AT WHICH DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH REALLY NEEDS TO BE IN CHARGE OF MAKING CHANGES AND MANAGING THINGS. SO THERE ARE A FAIR NUMBER OF THINGS IN HERE LIKE HOW DO YOU DEFINE, HOW DO YOU REGISTER, RIGHT, HAVING A PROOF OF THIS. THOSE JUST SEEM LIKE THINGS THAT MAYBE THIS IS SOMETHING SENDING TO COUNCIL SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF HOW DO PIECES OF THIS GET STRIPPED BECAUSE THIS IS industry market, right? And I'm sure it will keep changing. And I don't think that this is probably the right forum for it to continuously come back to. So making sure that ISD has enough flexibility to keep kind of being nimble as the environment changes, I think would be ideal for that. AND THEN MY LAST SORT OF, AND THIS IS A BIT OF A QUESTION, I THINK YOU GUYS KIND OF JUST ANSWERED THIS AND MAYBE I DIDN'T QUITE CATCH OR UNDERSTAND IT. IS THIS THE FIRST TIME THAT A DEFINITION OF PRIMARY RESIDENCE AS NINE MONTH OCCUPANCY IS SOMEWHERE IN ZONING CODE? IT DOES NOT EXIST IN A DIFFERENT LOCATION? And I'm asking this because primary residence has implications across so many things, right? Your taxes, your voting registration, all these things. Are there any unintentional fallouts from all of a sudden having codified that Mary's friend who lives in Florida six months, this is no longer her primary residence, that someone could point to this as a... So that's kind of just a general question of curiosity, really. Thank you.

I was wondering whether that was a rhetorical question for city council or whether you want that discussed at this point. We're in discussion rather than questions at this point. I want to move along if we can. So that's a question to you, Mary. Do you want that answered or do you want to leave it as a rhetorical?

Unless I missed something and you're saying it is written somewhere else. If this is kind of the first time it's codified in some way, it's just a point of thinking about what is it. Yeah.

Okay. So we'll leave it as rhetorical. Ted.

Thank you. I think Mary Flynn has articulated all of my positions on this. I think giving ISD the power to enforce and to pick up the 500 unregistered SRTs is really the need and the purpose of this zoning ordinance. I don't see any reason for any cap without having heard any real rationale for it. Certainly for the owner occupied and owner adjacent, and given that the autonomous has to be the owner's primary resident, but they happen not to be there for some particular period of time, I don't really see a need for any cap there either. If there was going to be any cap, I guess, you know, the autonomous would be the only one I could support. But I think the 90 days is still too short. A lot of, you know, this is a university community. A lot of people take a semester off or take a year off, plan to come back to their own home. And so I don't see 90 days just doesn't seem long enough for them at all. Assuming AI is correct in my quick search, it said that in Massachusetts for tax purposes, primary residence is 183 days out of the year. um whether it's anywhere in the zoning ordinance or not i don't recall um you know i i think we need to give isd the the powers it needs to really make this uh an enforceable ordinance uh but i have been really impressed by all the people who spoke about the income they get that helps them pay their mortgages, helps them stay in Cambridge and allows, you know, a lot of different family arrangements to exist. And so I think it's a good thing and I would not support the cap.

Thank you, Ted. Carolyn.

Thank you. So Mary Latiker articulated kind of the two points that I wanted to make. One of which is thank you all for asking the questions that I was going to ask. I appreciate that. The second is, Yeah, that I also am compelled by all of the public feedback that we got regarding the cap. And I do think that for the autonomous units, there is reason to, I think we could catch some people who are fudging the definition of primary residence, and that may be a five-month cap. I think, Ted, my definition of primary residence is six months and a day, which I think is similar to that 183 days gap. And so, you know, whether if we put a five-month cap on the autonomous short-term rentals, whether or not that effectively eliminates the people that are doing it illegally. I don't know if illegal is the right word, but the unregistered units where they're not here at all. Yeah. and just pretending like it's their primary residence. But I certainly recommend removing it from the other two definitions of the short, the other two short term rental categories. Thank you.

Thank you. Ashley.

Thank you. I was just going to say, you know, I understand at some point maybe the thought was like having a cap would help us or help people who want to rent short-term not to and to rent long-term and open up the number of units that are available to people. And it sounds like if there's only 500, not only, but if there's 500 and not like, you know, 3000 units or more than that, that are unlisted, but out there, that property is a lesser concern than everyone expected to be. So I'm in agreement with that. PB, Lupita D Montoya, rest of the board that I you know 90 days or even if it's like a more longer time, maybe we don't even need that CAP so. PB, Lupita D Montoya, Other than that. you know, whatever we can do to give ISD the power they need to do their job and be able to enforce, I think is great. And so if this gets us there, that's great. I generally lean towards wanting fewer things in the zoning and having more elsewhere to give that flexibility. But if this is where we start, you know, so be it. And yeah, I guess we'll just have to come back when tweaks to all this language comes.

Great. Thank you, Ashley. Diego?

Yeah, just agreeing again with all the colleagues. I think everyone said a lot of great points. I agree with no cap. If there is one for autonomous, I feel like it should be done after the fact, not in the first place. I think that it'd be interesting to see some data for that and see if that's being abused. And then I think I heard some stories about the, you know, living in one place in Cambridge and then buying in Cambridge. So your previous Cambridge place became your short-term rental. To me, that's like another level above autonomous where you're still a resident of Cambridge. So I don't know how that plays into it. I don't know if it was, you know, qualifies as illegal before. And I think that's one of those hardship grandfather things that I'd worry about. So I would just think about that more, you know, that'd be my, my message for that, it would suck to like, you know, be a resident of Cambridge and then you have a short-term rental and then zoning changes and you can't afford to live here anymore. I think that sounds like a bummer. And then I think that's all I had to say, but I will also add one note is that the survey was really well done. I think seeing all those responses was really informative and surprising in some cases. So thank you for that in the memo.

Great. Thank you. Well, My thoughts as I was listening to this really rich discussion and the feedback from the community, the well-prepared statements from the community tonight. Central question, of course, is how does this affect housing supply? We as a community are desperate for more housing and to the extent to which it might pinch that, and we've talked about that, that's really what's at issue, right? So we want housing in Cambridge, but we also want homes, right? And homes are different than housing. And I think that's also a central issue. But what I learned tonight from Ms. Evans and also my good neighbors on Sycamore Street, they're creating homes using this as a vehicle to create homes. Their children get to use units and they're here periodically. And so it's supporting families and home life in a way that I hadn't imagined. And so there is a way in which the 90 day the time restrictions might affect it. But these are unique things about our city, right? That we need housing. It's the central issue that comes before this board every single night and before the city council virtually every night. We're unified as a community around that. It's wonderful. Secondly, we're an academic city, as Ted pointed out, and sabbaticals go on a year. They go on six months. And furthermore, we have the wonderful advantage in this community of having visiting scholars as has been stated. And they often are here for more than 90 days. They're in the requisite one year position. As I was a child, my father was on sabbatical. I lived in Europe for a year. We traded houses and it was an amazing experience. And lastly, I think we're, you know, proudly one of America's top tourist spots as well. Today on this amazing day, I'm walking in Harvard Square. I wasn't quite at the water pistol level that our friends in Barcelona have gotten to, but it was approaching that. You know, I think this is wonderful. What a vibrant city on this extraordinary day. By the way, downtown Boston did make me want to get a water pistol out. I couldn't walk down the street. There were so many excited Americans celebrating the 250 this year. So we're a tourist. a destination and this vehicle supports that. I think in a very positive way and the cultural exchange that happens through it is also an incredibly positive thing. So I think there are lots of very specific things, planning issues, about peculiar and particular things in our community that we all agree that short-term rentals support and help. So around the restrictions, I came into this thinking, well, maybe this was something that was good because it didn't support homes, but... I guess if I was to consider it at all, and we know that 59% of the people responding said they wanted some control over the time limit, it would be strictly for the autonomous units. But even there, I'm not sure it's necessary. Diego, in his wisdom, is saying our data man here you're going to get data, you get these all licensed, then we're going to find out what's going on. And let's make an adjustment after that, see if we have an issue and need a time restriction at that point. So that would be my recommendation. So at this point, unless there's other discussion, I sense that the board is in favor of to support the Commissioner of Buildings and others in the city which are charged with reinforcing this. reinforcing and enforcing the ordinance that we're going to send this up to city council with a positive recommendation and further that we'll make comments on the time limit and other good thoughts around how there could be some minor tweaks and adjustments here. I think that's the sense I have of the board. I am seeing some nods, some winks. Nobody's giving me a thumbs down or drawing their fingers across their throat. So at that point, I guess I've framed a motion. Is there somebody that wants to move that or amend that?

This is Mary Flynn. I can make that motion.

Thank you, Mary, for the support. Let's see if we can find a second somewhere on the tiles here.

This is Ted. I second.

Yes.

Jeff, can we have a roll call on that motion, please?

On that motion, Ted Cohen? Yes. Mary Flynn?

Yes.

Mary Lidecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Carolyn Zern?

Yes.

And Thompson Avich? Yes. That's all members voting in favor.

Great, thank you so much. Okay, so at this point, that concludes our business on our agenda tonight. Are there additional comments from staff or to staff?

Mr. Chair, I have a question. Sure. For Swathi, probably, maybe Jeff. It was particularly noticeable in the comments we got today that a lot of the emails only had the sender's first name and no address. I was wondering if there was some way that when we get emails, that we can see who they are actually from and the address. Because, you know, when they speak here, they are supposed to be doing that.

We can discuss that. I don't know the answer to that question and how we would ensure that that's the case, but we'll check.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I did notice that as well, Ted, and somebody named Sean said, vote in, which probably includes about 5,000 people in this town. So, okay. Any other comments at this point? If not, I think I propose that we adjourn. So, I want to thank the ISD and the law department for all their hard work on this tonight and their very clear presentation and their willingness to enter in a pretty detailed discussion about it. With that, let's adjourn. I'll see everybody on the 15th of September. Well rested.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, everyone. Bye.