Ordinance Committee to Review City's Lot Size Requirements

The city council's ordinance committee will review a proposal tonight to allow owners of large homes on small lots to rent out parts of their houses.

The proposed ordinance--recommended unanimously by the city's Planning Board--would relax lot size requirements, allowing owners of single-family homes on small lots to rent out at least one "accessory apartment."

Catch-22

City statutes now require large lot sizes for each dwelling unit, thus preventing many residents of large older homes northwest of Harvard Square from renting rooms to cover increased fuel costs, Community Development Department spokesman Donald Balcom said yesterday.

"Many of these older homes were built for large families with servants and now they're occupied by small families or elderly couples," Balcom said, adding that subdivision would increase energy efficiency.

"It will also allow more efficient utilization of space" in an overcrowded city, Balcom added.

But some residents of the neighborhoods most affected--those that lie on either side of Brattle St.--are expected to complain to the council that allowing the apartment rentals would change the character of the neighborhood and perhaps lower property values.

Cambridge Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55 said he had received "quite a few phone calls" from constituents worried by the proposal, and another member of the council, who asked not to be identified, said "there is a certain fear from some that tenants will pollute certain neighborhoods."

Councilor David Sullivan said many residents may already be renting out apartments. "In some cases this may ratify the status quo," he said.

And Balcom said only two residents of the affected neighborhoods testified at the Planning Board hearing on the issue, and both favored the change.