ORDER-2017-124 : Petition to the Great and General Court to enact a Special Act: “An Act Authorizing the City of Melrose to allow the Installation of Secondary Water Meters in Two-Family, Owner Occupied Residential Properties”.

Transcript (~10 min @ 1:48)

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▶ 1:32 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you, we have a motion to close public participation by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Zwirko. On the motion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed, seeing none, public participation is now concluded. The first order, first and only order of business on the Legal and Legislative Committee is order number 2017-124. It's a petition to the great and general court to enact a special act, noted as an act authorizing the city of Melrose to allow the installation of secondary water meters in two family owner occupied residential properties. This order is sponsored by Vice Chairman Alderman Francis Wright, who has the floor.

▶ 2:17 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 2:24 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I propose this order, I've talked to people in my ward, Thorp a number of two families in ward three. Many of them are properties that not only owner occupied, but the second unit is occupied by a family member. unfortunately state law does not allow for a second meter in a property so in order to what I think would be a beneficial act on our part I proposed

▶ 2:55 Francis X. Wright Jr.: this special act that we sent to the legislature to allow us to do to allow property owners to do that because as we all know when you have one meter you

▶ 3:13 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and you've got two units you've got a situation where you're going to go into tier two and potentially tier three when when it comes to your billing and I just think you know in this age where you know we're trying to allow people to not only stay in their homes but allow families members to help one another and allow renters to live in apartments that are more affordable than than what they might otherwise find in the Boston area that we allow our owner occupied

▶ 3:53 Francis X. Wright Jr.: properties to benefit from the second meter so that both units can be built out separately and through water conservation methods keep their billing down um and you know this will allow um you know potentially particularly where you've got owner occupied and other family members living in the same two-family building uh home to uh to keep you know the rent down keep the cost down across the board for both units now ultimately uh because of the way the law is structured and because of the way collection works when it comes to unpaid bills both bills will be paid for by or be billed to i should say the owner of the property but they'll have a meter for unit one and immediately for unit two and um again because they're separately built hopefully they can keep it keep below you know in the first tier or eliminate um amount of water usage in the second tier so with that in mind i would propose that um this order be sent to the um the water committee commission i'm sorry um which i believe

▶ 5:12 Francis X. Wright Jr.: is scheduled to meet later this week and i'd also like to have the city solicit our way in on it as

▶ 5:19 John N. Tramontozzi: well second the motion very good um before we take a vote on it i would like some discussion

▶ 5:27 Speaker 2: i see president khan yeah um through the chair to alderman forbes um if you could bring up at the water rate setting committee meeting um whether this order could be applied to uh owner-occupied residences of up one to four units certainly it would it would seem to me that if if we're going

▶ 5:50 Speaker 2: to propose this for owner-occupied two families then we we may consider extending it to three and four unit dwellings that are owner occupied so i'd like to have some feedback from the committee

▶ 6:08 John N. Tramontozzi: relative to that please i will pass that along very good um alderman medeiros was up next

▶ 6:12 Monica C. Medeiros: as i'm not a voting member of this committee i'll give you leeway thank you i appreciate it uh you know i'm i'm supportive of the theory of this uh this order as you may recall I had proposed something about two years ago that was similar but not the same to allow units in non owner-occupied units to be separately metered allowing therefore if we had a two-family and we had one unit owner-occupied in one unit

▶ 6:48 Monica C. Medeiros: non owner-occupied that we could have separate meters unfortunately that that order really never got action taken on and expired but I appreciate this and I'd like to see as President Kahn would that we look at going up to the four

▶ 7:15 Monica C. Medeiros: unit residential buildings but some of my bigger concerns are that I've gotten much conflicting information from our you know water and sewer department and

▶ 7:31 Monica C. Medeiros: you know the water rate committee about whether or not this practice is being allowed currently or not I've been told here in this chamber that it has been being allowed to be individually metered and at the same time that it's not so if this does go forward I think we should get a definitive answer on how that is being handled I would hope chairman mr. Forbes alderman Forbes would be able to asset of the committee to see how are these situations being handled are they being allowed to be separately metered right now or not and

▶ 8:09 Monica C. Medeiros: in fact you know whether or not state law does as weighing in from the city solicitor whether or not state law does actually prohibit this or not because I also have conflicting information over the years on that in particular if you

▶ 8:23 Monica C. Medeiros: do move forward with this I would hope that you might consider changing the word to family to two unit is it's a more inclusive term for those who may not be families per se and I hope we can move forward and find some resolution and assistance for those residents thank you thank you mr. chairman Thorp a

▶ 8:50 Michael P. Zwirko: question through the chair for the maker of the order I was just curious if any other cities currently have passed similar special legislation that you

▶ 9:04 Francis X. Wright Jr.: know good question I was thinking about that too I am unaware but I haven't done any great amount of research either so I can't say it hasn't been done but yeah the statute does prohibit it yeah it's it's it's I guess I'm it's a strange

▶ 9:16 Michael P. Zwirko: statute is to have the Commonwealth bar meters so I think this is some interesting work on the maker Alderman's rights part so I'm very interested in seeing what the committee and also the city solicitor has to say about this this is hopefully can alleviate some of the burden that families have faced with uh some of the water bills recently so i uh you know initially i'm supportive of it but i'm looking forward to hearing some feedback um that was all the questions i had thank you very good

▶ 9:51 John N. Tramontozzi: any further discussion seeing none so we have a motion uh to uh send it to the uh water commission

▶ 9:59 Monica C. Medeiros: yes alderman monica madero thank you thank you sorry and and also if this is going to the water commission if they might be able to weigh in and see whether or not how feasible it is to determine which units are you know do we have a method right now to determine which units are in fact owner occupied and which aren't especially if they're changing hands or if they the owner decides to leave the building you know will we be applying this uniformly throughout the city where

▶ 10:29 Monica C. Medeiros: some well some two families where the owner occupant may leave and no longer occupy that building as their primary residence and the building remains separately metered you know would be providing a benefit to one over another so just to kind of see if maybe they could flush

▶ 10:48 John N. Tramontozzi: that out i think alderman forbes has those questions under control and do more questions and i i think we're we're good are we good there yes mr chairman just to just to summarize we're

▶ 10:56 Scott M. Forbes: We're going to question some of your concerns with the legality, if other communities in the commonwealth were practicing this if they did have multiple meters in a multi-family residence or a multi-unit residence. Can this be applied to one to four family units? No, so is there a method or practice in determining the owner occupancy of a residence within the community?

▶ 11:21 John N. Tramontozzi: Good job, thank you. Thank you, sir. So we do have that motion made by the author of the order. Alderman Wright is seconded by Alderman Forbes. Any further discussion, seeing none, on that vote to send it to the Water and Sewer Commission with the recommendations and advice, and also to our city solicitor. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Paul, seeing none, that will go that way. And at this time, nothing further on our agenda.