Developers are abusing the ability to create “backyard cottages” in Somerville, which could result in crammed-in but expensive condos that are unaffordable to the renters getting evicted for construction, residents said Thursday at a joint meeting of the Planning Board and City Council Land Use Committee. Four amendments to the city’s zoning laws were proposed to fix that.
The hearing was for a presentation of proposed changes to officials without them deliberating or voting, and the Planning Board expects to pick up the issue in May, chair Amelia Aboff said. A public comment period ends May 15.
The language for four amendments came from 24-year Somerville alderman Bill White, an attorney aligned with Denise Provost – also a former member of that board as well as a former state representative – and, on one amendment, by retiring state senator Pat Jehlen. All say they have backed the creation of more housing stock in Somerville for the sake of enhancing affordability, and all say that the current zoning goes against that principle.
White said he is also representing Provost in Land Court as she sues over a development near her Somerville home. “I am just so upset about what’s going on,” White said.
Not everyone was opposed to the current law. Among the several supporters was resident Aaron Weber, who said the goals of housing creation were “working as intended” and didn’t need to be changed. Julian Bradley Lewis, a principal at the real estate investment firm Eaglebrook Capital, urged the rejection of the proposed amendments being considered. “The results won’t be more affordable housing, it’ll be less housing overall,” Lewis said.
Officials were primed for the Thursday hearing, which has been before the committee this year to hear how the city’s zoning interacts with a new state law that encourages housing. It creates a kind of loophole for developers, allowing the creation of densely packed backyard triple-deckers because three-story construction – with potential for a basement – is allowed even in the most restrictive neighborhood zoning.
“The state law, to speak frankly, has just created these incredibly dumb conflicts that no one supports,” councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said at a March 23 council meeting. Small, densely packed triple-deckers were “just not the outcome that was intended. It’s quite frustrating, to be honest, and I think we’re going to have to spend some time working it out.”
Neighbor to construction
From her home, Provost looks out onto a development at 17 Hudson St. that saw a lot split to allow four units but described as “accessory cottages.” Though these accessory dwelling units are typically as big as one and a half stories and used to keep an older family member close (they are sometimes called “granny flats”), or for an office or children’s playhouse, on Hudson Street they are three-bedroom houses with two and a half baths, Provost said, and with basements will have four inhabited floors. “They look like triple-deckers on steroids,” Provost said March 4 to the Zoning Board of Appeals. “They don’t have front-yard setbacks. They’re 3 feet from abutters. It defies the look of the city.”
“Promotion of this tear-down culture harms middle-income people trying to buy homes, and tenants displaced when homes are demolished,” Provost said in a later email.
The board agreed there were questions of whether zoning had been “overcorrected” to encourage housing, but the Hudson Street development comported with allowed zoning and must be approved. “It is black and white that all the dimensions comply,” a board member said.
On Thursday, though, White returned to Provost’s theme of how the zoning would affect Somerville, which is looking not just for more housing, but for more affordable housing – and not to gentrify existing residents out of their homes. “Replacing rentals with upper-end condos? Think of the effect on class,” White said. “You’re going to see our demographics change, worse and worse.”
The four amendments
White’s four amendments would start with better aligning “backyard cottages” with the state’s 2024 affordability law, limiting the size to no more than 900 square feet in size. The state policy behind this law is to promote ways to provide less expensive homes, but Somerville’s practice of permitting the house-sized accessory dwelling units defeats the purpose, according to an email explaining the work.
The second amendment would make it clear that backyard cottages are “genuinely accessory” – subordinate to and in the same ownership as the principal building on the lot – but Somerville practice allows these accessory units to be sold off separately, according to the email. (Provost, on Thursday, told the officials that by comparison, if she puts a belt on her outfit, that’s an accessory; “If I put on another suit over it, that’s a whole other thing.”)
The third amendment deletes language that lets Zoning Board of Appeals staff decide privately whether to allow lots to be split. It’s now considered “a minor plan change” that can be done privately, which Provost said is wrong.
The fourth amendment requires that developers provide one or more affordable units whenever a residential lot is split into two or more smaller lots. If the total number of units built adds up to five or more units, 20 percent of those units must be affordable.
“This is a tremendous problem,” White told the Planning Board and committee members, referring to current practices.
This post was updated April 17, 2026, to correct that Pat Jehlen is a retiring state senator and to better define Bill White’s role and relationship in the real estate issues.
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