Dear Billy T and Somerville/Medford News Weekly Speakup Line,

My name is Ryan Pinto and l am writing a description of the situation at 22 Sargent Ave, Somerville from my perspective. I am not a developer but a small time mom and pop landlord who has a few units. I used to live in Somerville on Marshall st right next to Sargent Ave. I also lived in Medford close by for a few years and I enjoyed my years as a youngster in the Somerville/Medford are eating in all those sub shops and diners and meeting friends in pubs and biking in town. I learnt basic house construction volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and helped restore houses during hurricane Katrina and I had a roommate who was in construction.

The first few units that I bought my roommate and I did most of the work such as flooring. drywall tape and mud, trim work and tiling. I used to like fixing up old houses, planning their work matching modern concrete with some PSI to old mortar and just poking around into how old construction was done and figuring out how to fix it. I liked the architecture of the old houses in New England which were the American Foursquare, the victorian, the english tudor, french tudor and the cape cod style and liked to read up and study how these were built.

I bought 22 Sargent ave, Somerville in Feb 2024. I increased rents to about 10% lower than fair market value. I have attached Section 8 voucher limits for these units. The only reason I increased the rents was the mortgage rate was over 7% and to break even on three units I needed about 8300/- from 3 units combined to meet the mortgage. I was willing to take a small loss on the rent if all the units did not add up to 8300. I was willing to reduce the rent but was not willing to lose about 40K year based on their old rents. I did not want to lose the property in a foreclosure. Somerville was increasing water and sewer bills at 12% year on year. Property taxes for this building climbed from about 6000/- in 2016 to 12,300 in 2026.

Over 10 years Somerville has increased property taxes for this building by about 90%. I have a young family with three kids and my youngest was 3 years at that time and losing close to 40K a year with older rents was not financially feasible to me.

Once notices to quit were sent tenants did not want increases nor did they want to quit but we were in a period of negotiation. I was not interested in going down the path of evictions and I made that clear in emails to them. Section 8 voucher comps for a 1 bed in that area of Somerville is 2500/-per unit. thought asking for 2200 and then dropping to 2000/- and locking it for a few years at 2000/- was a reasonable request. I could go down to maybe 1900/- but anything lower than that would risk foreclosure and serious financial loss.

I offered to sell the building to a non-profit of their choice at a break even or small loss and Somerville Land Trust and Somerville Community Corporation looked at purchasing it. I offered to take city funding, Section 8 voucher, I also offered cash settlements of over 5000/- as long as they signed in court. I also offered units at another property that I own in Wakefield which had better condition units close to their old rents and a cheaper mortgage. It appears they wanted the cash settlements but were not willing to sign in court. There seem to be other forces at play who wanted the publicity of this situation with activists and protesters who likely wanted the media coverage of this situation and wanted to portray me as a developer and a luxury builder which I am not. I have attached the negotiation letters. In their last letter they seem to say give in to their demands of 10K per unit as the neighbors got 15k from a developer or they would have media coverage and a long dragged out process.

I was willing to give them money but I wanted them to sign in court as there was no guarantee that after giving them money whether I would get my property back. I just wanted my property back and that is all. It is my understanding that the litigation expenses for the tenants are covered by the state through tax payer funding. So it would appear that they don’t have anything to lose financially with a long drawn out process.

Please let me know what you make of it.