Can a desire to preserve neighborhood character slow efforts to make housing available and affordable in Medford?

More than two and a half years have passed since Riyaz Shaikh purchased a home on Cotting Street. But he’s nowhere close to living in it.

Since buying the home in April 2016, Shaikh has spent approximately $20,000 on fees for a lawyer, surveyors and architects. The lawyer helped him make the case for tearing down and rebuilding the 19th-century home at three Zoning Board of Appeals meetings, and then three Historical Commission meetings, spread over the course of one and half years.

A Lowell resident, Shaikh bought the house in Medford to be able to commute more easily to Boston Children’s Hospital, where his son is receiving treatment for cancer. Shaikh’s hope was to build a bigger, two-family home on the lot that could accommodate him and his wife, their two children, and his parents, as well as one additional dwelling unit.

“I was planning to rent out one unit, so I’d have some income that would help me for my mortgage,” Shaikh said.

Contractors had advised him that refurbishing the home, which dates to 1875-1889, would necessitate tearing down “almost 95 percent of the house,” according to Shaikh. This is why he decided to start from scratch. The Building Department warned him that he would need approval from the Zoning Board to build fresh, as the proposal lacked sufficient parking spaces, sufficient lot area and other zoning requirements.

After attending his first ZBA meeting in April 2017, Shaikh was asked to come back two more times, once in September 2017 and again in January 2018. Finally, he received a letter of approval from the Zoning Board on Feb. 28, 2018.

But when he went to apply for a building permit, the Building Department informed him that he would need approval from the Historical Commission, a body he hadn’t even heard of at that point.

“In the approval form, it clearly says it’s approved for demolition. [That] should override any other commission,” Shaikh said. “Or they should have some kind of process, in the ZBA, if it’s an old house. They should just advise me to go to the Historical Commission.”

After attending two Historical Commission meetings, Shaikh received that board’s blessing to demolish the property on Aug. 20, 2018.

But by that point, National Grid’s ongoing lockout of unionized workers and the Medford City Council’s subsequent moratorium on gas work in Medford made it impossible for Shaikh to continue working on his home. As of Nov. 26, Shaikh remains unable to demolish the home, as doing so would require gas work that is now illegal statewide due to a moratorium on non-emergency gas work that the governor issued in October.

“The house is empty, nobody is living there, and I’ve been paying mortgage for the last 30 months,” an exasperated Shaikh told the Transcript.

Current zoning hinders progress, some say

Medford has made efforts in recent years to increase its housing stock to address the housing shortage affecting the Boston area. At an Oct. 2 press conference attended by 15 mayors in the region, Mayor Stephanie M. Burke touted a series of large-scale developments coming to the city, including a proposal from Malden-based firm Combined Properties to build 544 new residential units on Mystic Avenue.

New developments such as that one must go before relevant local boards, often the Zoning Board and the Community Development Board. But in some cases, the process for approval can be as complicated for individuals like Shaikh – who might not have the funds and resources to make a strong case for their housing proposal – as it is for a developer proposing a large-scale apartment complex.

Kelly Catallo, realtor at Cosmopolitan Real Estate, believes that reforming the city’s zoning laws to allow for a variety of housing types – not just single-family homes – could simplify the process for residents looking to add a unit or two to their home.

“It is a long process to get through the Board of Appeals,” Catallo said. “You have to hire a lawyer, an engineer, and then you have to submit it to planning."

"If your zoning code fit your demographic and fit the way that people live in your town," Catallo continued, "you wouldn’t have all these people having to go to the Board of Appeals, because they would be allowed it by right.”

Zoning, according to Catallo, should welcome those looking to add a unit to their home, which she said can help the city address housing demand without relying on “quick fixes” such as brand-new multi-family apartment complexes.

“If you’ve got a 10-room home on 5,000 square feet and that can be divided into two units, you just made housing more affordable in the City of Medford,” the Medford resident said.

Two-family homes are not the only in-demand dwelling units that are not allowed by right in most zoning districts in the city. Medford also does not allow accessory-dwelling units (ADUs), apartments located in single-family, owner-occupied homes that are distinct from two-family homes based on their appearance.

According to a recent study by the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance and the Pioneer Institute, ADUs are an important tool for addressing the regional housing shortage. Andre Leroux, the executive director of the Smart Growth Alliance, explained that ADUs can help residents afford to stay in their community.

Not only do they provide an alternative housing option for older people looking to downsize and younger people unable to afford a home of their own, but they also give residents an opportunity to make extra income, Leroux said. They also make it easier for multi-generational families like Shaikh's to live together.

“Property taxes are going up because property values are going up, so if you are a lower- to moderate-income homeowner, you may need some extra rental income that an accessory apartment could provide in order to meet those costs,” Leroux said.

That’s exactly why Shaikh decided to go for a new two-family instead of a one-family home: to make extra money so that he could afford to live in Medford.

“If I [had] built a new one, single-family, then I couldn’t afford it,” he said.

Clearer process needed

Reflecting on Shaikh’s situation, Chuck Veneziano, a Medford surveyor who represented Shaikh, believes that Medford’s process for making changes to a home could be simplified. Veneziano questioned why the Historical Commission had not been involved before Shaikh earned approval from the Zoning Board.

“I just want to understand the process,” Veneziano said. “I think you need to clarify what should go before Historical Commission, what shouldn’t.”

As stated on the Historical Commission’s website, anyone looking to demolish a building that is more than 75 years old or on the national or state Register of Historic Places must get the commission's approval. The Building Department typically informs applicants if this applies to them and their proposal, but in Shaikh’s case, that didn’t happen until after he had received approval from the Zoning Board.

“Then they get the building permit from the Building Department, and all of a sudden, the Historical Commission comes in," Veneziano said.

The Historical Commission is tasked with determining whether eligible buildings are historically significant, and if so, the board can vote to delay the demolition of the property by 18 months. Doug Carr, secretary to the commission, stressed that the commission follows state statutes when making its decisions and only issues demolition delays on about 25 percent of all properties it reviews.

“It’s meant to be a pause in the process,” Carr said. “We’re not anti-development. I’m an architect; I design new buildings for a living. I’m not someone who thinks every building that’s old should be preserved.”

Dee Morris, a Medford historian, said that historic preservation serves as a reminder to residents that they’re “not the first one here" and preserves the unique character of Medford's neighborhoods. However, she does not believe that preserving neighborhoods should come at the expense of people being able to live here.

“I think we need to work more closely with developers, get more cooperation and try to preserve personality,” Morris said. “I think the city needs to have guidelines, and take serious looks at different neighborhoods.”

Morris criticized the regulatory process in the city that sometimes paints families like Shaikh’s who are “trying to live” in the same stroke as an absentee landlord looking to make more money by tearing down a building and adding more units.

“I think our process is very flawed. The steps are not clear,” Morris said. “I think we really need to sort that out.”