Boston hearing explores extending and expanding tenant protections for condo conversions

On Sept. 23, 2025, the Boston City Council Committee on Government Operations held a virtual hearing on Docket 07666, an ordinance to renew and expand the city’s condominium-conversion protections and related enforcement processes. The hearing, held by Zoom and streamed on boston.gov, brought city housing officials, tenant advocates and councilors together to discuss applying the ordinance to smaller buildings and improving early detection of conversions.

The proposal would extend the existing ordinance that otherwise expires this December and, under the city’s reading of the Affordable Homes Act, expand coverage to buildings with two or more units while keeping an exemption for owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four units. Karina Oliver Milchman, director of policy development and research in the Mayor’s Office of Housing, said expanding coverage to two- and three-family buildings would be the single most impactful change: "If we were to expand coverage from four-unit buildings to two-unit buildings in 2024 ... almost a 100% of tenants who are displaced due to conversion would be protected by the ordinance," she said, citing the administration’s analysis.

Why it matters: the existing local ordinance — adopted in 1999 and amended in 2021 — currently applies only to residential properties of four or more units (built before 1983, per state law) and includes tenant protections such as advance notice, lease-extension rights, relocation assistance and a right of first refusal. Under the proposed renewal and expansion, more tenants in neighborhoods such as…