Boston Council Votes Against Law Halting Condo Conversion

The Boston City Council voted down both a permanent and a one-year moratorium on condominium conversion yesterday, and instead sent the issue to a council subcommittee for a report.

The council voted 5-4 not to allow a vote on the permanent ban, proposed by councilor Raymond Flynn after a recent attempt by a Brighton landlord to evict tenants in a large apartment complex.

The council also voted 5-4 against Boston Mayor Kevin H. White's proposal to ban condominium conversions for a year.

Councilors cited legal confusion and broad language as reasons for voting down the plans.

"Any lawyer that looks at this ordinance would never vote for it, because it makes no damn sense," councilor Joseph Tierney said. "We can't not have condo conversion, because that's unreasonable and unfair," Tierney added.

Flynn, who has sponsored similar legislation for more than a year in the council, called the permanent ban on condominium conversion "our moral obligation. When are we going to respond to this crisis?" Flynn asked. "When all the rental units are converted to condominiums and we become a city of elites?"

"The Jesse James Gang were amateurs compared with crowd who want to put our elderly out in the streets," councilor Albert L. "Dapper" O'Neill said, adding, "I wouldn't put it past my landlord to evict me."

Several hundred tenants--many of them from Towne Estates in Brighton, which a developer is trying to turn into a condominium--attended the meeting, cheering when Flynn introduced his order and hissing the councilors who spoke against it.

Councilor Patrick F. McDonough, who sponsored the motion to turn the issue over to the laws and ordinance subcommittee of the Council, said the move "gives us at least a couple of weeks to consider what is a very complicated problem."

"We've referred this to everyone except the United Nations," Flynn said. "This is reminiscent of a T.V. commercial where a guy goes to a bank looking for a loan and he gets a rain hat and a balloon but they don't give him any money. These people come here looking for significant relief and what are we going to give them? Further research?" he asked.