Two orders introduced at the June 22 City Council meeting are aimed at the same problem from opposite ends: older residents who own their homes and cannot afford the taxes, and older residents who rent and are being pushed out.
Neither has produced a change yet. Both deserve more attention than they got.
Wiping out property tax for income-eligible seniors
Councillor Recupero brought a Home Rule Petition, filed as order 26O1, that would exempt income-eligible senior owner-occupied homes in Chelsea from property taxes.
Not reduce. Exempt.
It came out of the Sub-Committee on Aging and Independence, Veterans Affairs and Community Advancement, which met on June 16.
A Home Rule Petition is not a local decision. Chelsea cannot simply vote itself a new tax exemption; the request goes to the state Legislature, which must pass it as a special act. That is the same route the city’s charter changes have to travel. It is slow, and plenty of petitions die on Beacon Hill without a vote.
The case for it is straightforward and familiar to anyone with a parent or grandparent in a house they bought decades ago. Property values in Chelsea have risen. Fixed incomes have not. People who bought when Chelsea was cheap are being taxed on what Chelsea has become.
The case against is equally straightforward, and the city just spent a year making it. Chelsea’s budget is under real strain. The schools cut about 50 positions this year. Every dollar exempted from the tax base is a dollar the city does not have, and the burden shifts to everyone still paying.
Those are both true. That is what makes it a genuine argument rather than an easy one.
A displacement plan for elderly and disabled residents
The second order, 26O2, came from Councillors K. Garcia and T. Garcia. It directs the City Manager to develop and bring back to the Council a comprehensive Anti-Displacement Protection Plan for elderly residents and residents living with disabilities.
The order names who has to be at the table: the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Chelsea Housing Authority, Inspectional Services, the Commission on Disabilities, the Council on Aging, and community stakeholders.
That list is the tell. Displacement is not one department’s problem, which is usually why nothing happens about it.
An order directing a study is the weakest instrument a council has. It produces a document. Whether it produces a policy depends entirely on whether anyone keeps asking about it after the meeting ends.
And a third, on conditions at 14 Bloomingdale Street
Councillor T. Garcia separately moved, in order 26O3, for a meeting of the Sub-Committee on Conference with the City Manager, Inspectional Services, the Fire Department, the Police Department and the Chelsea Housing Authority to discuss conditions, safety concerns, maintenance, ongoing improvements and future plans at 14 Bloomingdale Street.
The order itself does not describe the conditions. It does not have to. When a councillor asks for the fire department, the police department, inspectional services and the housing authority in the same room about a single address, residents there already know why.
What to watch
All three of these are early-stage. The tax exemption needs the Legislature. The displacement plan needs the manager to write it and the council to insist on it. The Bloomingdale Street meeting needs to actually be held.
The agendas and minutes are public, posted at chelseama.gov under City Council. If you live in one of these buildings, or you are the person in your family who handles the tax bill, these are the items to follow.