The Boston City Council approved all three of Councilor Jerry McDermott’s orders to hold hearings, including one to discuss overcrowding in McDermott’s district of Allston-Brighton, before leaving the Council Chambers for a private executive session on Wednesday.
McDermott said his goal for the hearing was to clarify the Boston Zoning Code to make it more enforceable for alleviating overcrowding.
“Overcrowding is a real problem in Allston-Brighton,” he said. “We want to clarify what is allowable in terms of the number of people living in one building.
“Some homes are turning into lodging houses, which tend to get rowdy,” McDermott continued, adding that overcrowding has historically caused sanitation problems as well.
The Council also passed McDermott’s order for a hearing to discuss ways to help elderly and disabled Boston citizens pay taxes.
McDermott proposed establishing a fund for voluntary contributions by putting that option on the tax forms of suburban Massachusetts residents.
“With property taxes up, many go into nursing homes sooner than they need to because they can no longer afford to pay taxes,” McDermott said.
He also proposed an option for seniors to defer their tax payments until after selling their homes, a move that comes a week after the Council approved a hearing to discuss charging Boston students $100 per student per semester to alleviate the burden on Boston property taxpayers.
The Council also passed an order to hold a hearing to amend the distribution of blame for residents who park on the front lawns of their buildings.
McDermott said that in conjunction with overcrowding, this issue is especially a problematic in Allston-Brighton.
“We have only gone after landlords in the past, but we need to place blame on the owners of the cars as well,” McDermott said. “It’s offensive to see cars all over front lawns.
“People have continually violated this law because they knew the bill would just go to the property owner,” he said, proposing that half the bill should go to the property owner and half to the car owner to make the law more enforceable.
The Council yesterday vacated the chamber and deliberated in a private session for more than an hour. Councilors last deliberated in an executive session on Sept. 21, when, as was later disclosed, they discussed the Justice Department’s accusation that the city discriminated against non-English-speaking voters during the last election.