Hey, there! Log in / Register

Board rejects plans for Mission Hill apartment with four bedrooms, four baths; didn't buy property owner's story her sister would move in and she just likes lots of bath options

The Zoning Board of Appeal today rejected plans by the owner of a three-family house on Oswald Street on Mission Hill to convert the top unit and attic into a four-bedroom apartment with four bathrooms, after neighborhood groups and the BPDA said the idea sounded like a plan to shoehorn more students into a neighborhood that doesn't want them.

Jennifer Ha, architect for 3 Oswald St. owner Janice Ye, said Ye was only seeking to add more living space to the top floor and attic to accommodate Ye's sister, who plans to move here from Shanghai. The woman now lives in a four-bedroom, four-bath apartment and just likes that layout, Ha said.

Skeptical board members had trouble swallowing that.

"Four bedrooms and four baths sounds like it's a layout for a rental with individuals, not families or anything, right?" board Chairwoman Christine Araujo said.

No, Ha answered, Ye's sister simply enjoys her current four-and-four layout in Shanghai and Ye, who bought the building for $1.78 million in November, 2020, wants to help her out. "This is how she would like this to be renovated," Ha said of Ye's sister.

Like Araujo, though, BPDA planner Jeff Hampton didn't buy that argument and urged the board to turn the proposal down: "Honestly, the four-bedroom, four-bath just doesn't pass the smell test. It kind of reeks of student housing."

Two neighborhood groups and City Councilor Kenzie Bok also opposed the proposal. A couple of residents said the property has deteriorated since Ye bought it and said she owns other properties on Mission Hill that she rents out. Two residents voiced their support, one saying it would increase joy in the neighborhood, but both are related to Ye - and live in a building she is listed as owning.

The board voted 6-0 to deny the request without prejudice, which means Ye can come back with an alternate proposal in less than a year.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

of why a zoning variance would be required?

up
Voting closed 0

Property is already non-conforming, and the work would require altering the part of the building (e.g that part less than the required setback from the property line) that is already in violation of zoning, and therefore requires a variance.

up
Voting closed 0

I think she would be permitted to do what she wants to a property that didn't conform to the zoning code — which is pretty much every property in Boston — provided that it didn't move the needle on any zoning measure (e.g., change the already non-conforming floor-area-ratio), in which case she'd need a variance. So my question is really what is the change.

up
Voting closed 0

I take it you've never tried to get work done on your house.

up
Voting closed 0

1. Side Yard Insufficient -

2. Bldg. Height Excessive

3. Floor Area Ratio Excessive

4. Limitation of Parking Spaces

This owner seems to have a history of playing the system by claiming she lives at the properties and wants to make these improvements for her family but always seems to move out immediately and fill the units with students. One of the people that spoke in favor of this proposal was her son but only said he was "related" when the board chair called him out on it.

up
Voting closed 0

“Playing the system” in order to renovate her own property.

Seeing as Boston’s zoning dates back to the 1960s, it’s a stretch to call it “playing” when it’s clearly ill-suited to today.

Imagine if Boston had a sensible set of guidelines for what’s reasonable, instead of everything being non-conforming.

She’s responding to clearly shown demand, seeing as vacancies in Boston are <1%, renovating a unit to give 4 students a home seems like a good thing, even if it’s barely anything.

As an aside, the bigotry towards students shown in the article is galling; students need somewhere to live, and many of us who were or are students needed to live in market-rate apartments. I spent my entire time at college in Boston living in a market apartment, b/c my alma mater doesn’t have a campus, like so many in Boston metro.

Boston’s a college city, and if you’ve got issues w/ a specific household of students, work it out with them or call the cops to enforce your concerns. Maintaining a specific hate of ⅓ of your neighbors is super uncool.

up
Voting closed 0

The other part not mentioned about playing the system is that Ye claims a Boston Homestead Exemption for all of her properties which is not allowed especially since she does not even live in Boston.

1. You have to actually physically live there as you primary residence.

2. LLC's are prohibited from filing a Homestead so she has knowingly gone around this. All of her property is held in an LLC.

3. Ye does not cancel the Homestead upon "moving out" and currently has multiple Homesteads of which she avoids thousands of dollars in property taxes.

4. If she wants to add space to rent to students fine, why create this long story about her family moving in when it can easily be debunked?

up
Voting closed 0

Ye is going to get burned

up
Voting closed 0

This scam has been discussed by my neighborhood association as well. We've also had a number of people in our neighborhood say they're buying/renovating a unit for a relative, then suddenly it's rented to students and the owner is a complete absentee slumlord. Sometimes they buy in two-/three-family associations that require units to be owner-occupied, then say there's been a sudden issue, the family member had a visa problem or got transferred out of state or whatever, and they have to rent it out now, knowing the association isn't going to do anything about it. They leave the homestead exemption and the residential tax exemption in place. They also frequently say they're new to living in the city and/or new to the U.S., except they have a bunch of other properties in Boston in their name that we find out they've done the same thing with.

up
Voting closed 0

I haven't heard of this rule unless it is an accessory apartment.

up
Voting closed 0

Was not asked if she was related, possibly because she has a different last name. But she gave the same address as Related Guy, and if you do a Google search on her name and his name, you'll quickly find they're married.

up
Voting closed 0

I remember friends who were grad students, post docs, and med students at Harvard Medical School wanting to live in Mission Hill. I understand not wanting an apartment built 4 by 4, but they don’t want grad students renting at all in Mission Hill?

up
Voting closed 0

Mission Hill certainly has its share of students and the majority of them are great kids and respectful. Like anything it is the few that cause issues and disrespect their long-time neighbors that don't want to be up to 3am listening to a party or yelling. It seem the issue with this case is the owner has used the story of providing housing for her family to get neighborhood support but her family never moves in so neighbors have had enough of that.

up
Voting closed 0

Students and young adults that live alone go out to party. They sleep and study at home.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah, sure. We want those medical students and residents driving in on very little sleep because GOD FORBID WE HAVE STUDENTS ALLOWED TO LIVE ANYWHERE!

up
Voting closed 0

of little faith

up
Voting closed 0

Um.. Geez, hate to have to clean all of those. Already dispise cleaning the one that I have.

Lady might have a point if they were half baths (sink+toilet), cuz alot of ppl have those. But full baths.. yeah this smells rotten, and I agree, this sounds like a front for illegal studios or 'student housing'

up
Voting closed 0

"No people of a certain type". Yeah. Look at a redline map and see how that worked out.

How about "let's build more housing units for singles and couples" and just put a nice little box around the rest of it that says "none of the city's goddamn business what they do for a living"?

I doubt this conversion idea is about undergraduates - a bedroom with its own private bath is something that a graduate student or a medical resident or young professional medical area researcher would value highly enough to outbid the undergrads.

Nitpicky discriminatory bullshit like this is what drives rent high enough that a flight attendant will sleep eight to a room in an illegally converted garage.

up
Voting closed 0

Give us your address and I’ll buy the property next to yours and put up a 8 storey building that takes up the entire lot.

That’s why it’s the city’s business.

up
Voting closed 0

Because my sons could afford to live in the neighborhood that they grew up in.

It would also mean that I could efficiently downsize so that a family could use my house and I could have a smaller more accessible space in the neighborhood where I've lived half my life.

This sort of mix of buildings to make neighborhoods serve all life stages is considered to be normal land use in other parts of the country and urbanized parts of the world, dear.

Note that the houses in my neighborhood already take up over half their lots with parking underneath.

up
Voting closed 0

Lots of us YIMBYs would be happy to have an actual 8 story building next door if it meant there were actual units available to rent or buy in our area.

up
Voting closed 0

No it is.. the person owns other properties in the neighborhood. She is looking for for a way to cram more people into her building than legally possible so she can charge more rent.

these aren't for some doctor or someone $$$ who is going to live here. It will be students who have extra money and want to live off campus.

This isn't the way to stop the housing crunch. These would be an illegal rooming house. It also would be a severe fire hazard, as you know since she says this was all for one person and not 'illegal' apartments. So no need for fire escapes on the third floor, that would be required if these were single units.

As someone who lives on a street who has MANY of these places.. many illegal. That's what this lady is doing here. She doesn't want to pay the variance or $$$ to actually do this the right way and is scapegoating a family member to get her way.

She's obviously done this before as others have brought it up.

You know, if you want to have micro apartments, then build them. No need to be shady about it.

Ye is a scummy landlord trying to squeeze as many bucks out of her renters as possible. Not sure why you are sticking up for her. She's apart of the problem, not the solution.

PS - Not sure why you dragged 'redlining' into this. It doesn't apply at all here. No banks are involved. No one is scaring people into selling properties cuz 'black people will move here'. This is plain and simple a scummy landlord want to cash in more. That is all.

up
Voting closed 0

But the nonsense about OH NOES STUDENTS is both ridiculous and discriminatory.

And what, exactly, constitutes a student? Seriously - I was in grad school while working part time and raising a family, about as far from an undergraduate as it gets. I have many friends from graduate school who were technically students, but were grownass adults - sometimes in their 30s and 40s - with stable incomes from their stipends.

I really doubt that the target market for this unit was undergrads. This sounds like an ideal situation for a graduate researcher, medical student, or resident.

p.s. you need to learn more about the impacts of redlining. Start here: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/

up
Voting closed 0

It's a legitimate concern that people don't want party houses and absentee slumlords. The colleges say they have strict penalties for students hosting parties that bother neighbors, but they actually are just as unresponsive as the slumlords. The NU police department in particular is super unresponsive to neighborhood associations.

But yeah, we don't want hard-and-fast policies that no one of any age or work ethic who is attending college can live somewhere. If a parent raising a family starts taking college classes, do they become "a student" and risk getting kicked out of their housing? And why should quiet, respectful college students who recognize themselves as newcomers to an established community have trouble renting?

(BTW, I strongly believe that Northeastern contributes to this "we aren't actually part of the neighborhood" mentality. Friends who are faculty there tell me about how the NU police freshman safety orientation tells them they better not be seen setting food in the BHA developments near Northeastern. Uh, what if you're from there, have relatives there, or want to help out seniors or take a babysitting job there? Also, because no UHub comment is complete without a mention of bike lanes, NU police think the bike lanes that we permanent neighborhood residents use to get places are parking spots for their squad cars, so yeah, not thinking they really care about their university's relationship with the neighborhood.)

up
Voting closed 0

You know, if you want to have micro apartments, then build them. No need to be shady about it.

That’s the problem, the regs are written so you can’t, therefore any who tries has to be shady. The system encourages dishonest landlords and discourages people trying to be upfront. Even though, in the words of Nigel Tufnel “Boston is not a big college town,” the students have to live somewhere.

up
Voting closed 0

Ha Ha, we say.

up
Voting closed 0

In my day one bathroom per five students was considered pretty damn good.

up
Voting closed 0

I actually looked at this unit about 10 years ago when I was a student. The building has housed students for decades. Here is a recent listing for the unit that would be expanded into the attic: https://www.placesforless.com/ma/boston/mission-hill/oswald-street/33827656

The unit is currently a 4bed 1bath. Adding 3 bathrooms (for whatever reason) wouldn't increase the amount of students living there since the number of bedrooms stays the same. If anything, it would just make the unit more expensive to rent? I get not wanting more housing to go to students, but this one is already gone even with this no vote. Am I missing something here?

up
Voting closed 0

That's not a 4 bed, they are using the living room and dining room as bedrooms..

up
Voting closed 0

90% of triple deckers in Boston, all rental units has turned dining rooms into bedrooms. Why rent a 2 bedroom apartment when I can maximize income as a 3 bedroom? Investment property. This section they can get no less than $6k a floor @ $2000 a room…

up
Voting closed 0

No, they all have closets added. My point is that this wouldn't have changed the number of bedrooms in the unit.

up
Voting closed 0

think we are all imbeciles.

up
Voting closed 0