http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/townslams29.htm

September 29, 2006

Town slams door on overcrowding
By SEAN GONSALVES
STAFF WRITER
BARNSTABLE - A pair of new bylaws aimed at curbing overcrowded housing will go into effect Monday.

As Barnstable town officials gear up to enforce the rental registration and comprehensive occupancy bylaws, housing advocates are concerned the new measures will further stigmatize renters as second-class citizens. They also fear the laws will exacerbate the town's affordable housing problems.

The ordinances require Barnstable landlords to apply for a board of health certificate. The bylaws limit the number of people who can live in an apartment or house. It also requires landlords to keep a list of names of occupants and make the list available to health officials and police.

One provision of the occupancy ordinance would apply to apartments and single family homes only, limiting the maximum number of people who can occupy a bedroom - two people in each of the first two bedrooms, and one in each additional room.

Individuals under the age of 22 would be exempt from the total occupancy count.

Once rental properties are registered, an inspection appointment will be arranged. The inspector will check for smoke alarms, carbon-monoxide detectors and bedroom size.

Ordering tenants to vacate a home would be rare, but not out of the question, said Barnstable Health Department Directory Thomas McKean. ''If we find people sleeping in a basement with no smoke alarm, mattresses next to the furnace without at least two (basement) exits, as we've found in the past, there could be an order to vacate,'' he said.

Town officials estimate there are between 1,500 and 4,000 rental units in Barnstable.

Health department officials will calculate the maximum number of people, bedrooms and motor vehicles allowed at a particular residence based on nitrogen-loading limitations and septic system capacity.

''It's not just about overcrowding. This is also about protecting quality of life in our neighborhoods and the quality of our ground water,'' McKean said.

So far, the health department sent out rental registration forms to area real estate agents and to landlords who have requested the application. Copies of the application can also be printed from the town's Web site.

The goal is to educate and work with landlords to comply with the ordinance before resorting to punitive measures, McKean said.

Warnings would be issued prior to any fines, he said.

The town receives three to five complaints a week from neighbors, McKean said. Inspectors will begin investigating those complaints first.

The ordinances were passed after a flurry of complaints last spring, which alleged that some rented residences were crammed with people, posed a public safety hazard and diminished the quality of life in residential neighborhoods with cars parked on beat-up lawns.

During the public hearings this summer, residents and town officials urging an occupancy crackdown offered anecdotes but no quantitative data to illustrate the extent of the problem. Many complaints pointed to the Cape's immigrant Brazilian community.

While local officials acknowledge that many complaints have been about Brazilian renters, the problem of overcrowding extends to U.S.-born citizens and college students who squeeze into rentals to minimize housing costs.

Tom Geiler, the town's director of regulatory services, said his office is sensitive to the fears of some that the ordinance would be used to target Brazilians and those struggling to afford a place to live.

Housing Assistance Corporation Executive Director Frederic Presbrey questions the necessity of the ordinances.

''People assume that rental registration is a necessary and good thing, but I don't think you can make the assumption without some kind of cost-benefit analysis,'' Presbrey said.




The one thing that is certain, Presbrey said, is that there's not enough rental housing on Cape Cod and he fears the ordinances will exacerbate the problem.

The ordinances ''are supposed to ferret out the few objectionable units in town. But we're talking about people who are hanging on by a thread. We sing the song of the need for affordable housing and then pass a pair of laws that make it more difficult for people to find rental housing.''

Sean Gonsalves can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.


(Published: September 29, 2006)