Developers Destroy Somerville Ward 4 Residents’ homes, ISD sitting on their hands

To the Editor,

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

I say this without exaggeration: My home was seriously damaged by the developers at 400-406 Mystic Avenue, and I am not alone. We were forced out of our homes along with 2 other families, and other properties surrounding the construction site are also severely damaged. And Somerville Inspectional services won’t do a thing to protect us.

I live in a typical 3 unit Somerville home. The house, like most in Somerville, is 100 years old, and the properties are very close to each other. In the lot next to mine, a big developer came in looking to build a big multi-unit apartment complex that would have commercial space at the bottom. We were initially excited about the project, as we welcomed development in our area (Winter Hill) and we had seen the drawings online from meetings and the building looked like it was going to be great.

When they started building the foundation however, our house, and houses around the property were subject to insane vibrations, that were on the level of an earthquake. I was scared to be in the house during construction, but I figured the developers knew what they were doing. That was until myself and the other unit owners noticed that our foundation walls were now bowing and cracked, our basement floor was cracked and bulging a foot off of its normal ground, and there was cracking all up the walls of both common areas and in our individual units.

We started the process of asking ISD to investigate (they told us someone came out but we later found out no one actually did, they told us they wouldn’t do anything unless we had a structural engineer’s stamped report). Independently we had an engineer come look at the damage and we were told that our foundation was on the verge of imminent collapse. My husband and I, along with the second floor owners (who were 9 months pregnant) and the first floor residents (who have two newborn twins), were forced to leave our home in fear of it collapsing and us being hurt. We sent the report to the ISD as this is what they asked for in order to revoke the construction permit and they told us they wouldn’t pull the permit unless we could show that the developers caused the damage. We showed them pictures of the before situation we had from early 2017 of a basement that did not have the damage we were currently seeing, and our reports from mid 2015 when we purchased the unit that said our foundation was in good shape; this was not good enough to show cause according to ISD. So the impetus was on us, citizens of Somerville who pay taxes and own modest units, to pay for more engineers to come out and prove cause, instead of on the developers building a multi-million dollar building to show they did not cause the damage. We had another structural engineer come out to determine that the damage was in fact caused by the developer, sent in that signed PE report, and ISD still won’t pull the construction permit because they received a letter from the developers’ engineer (the engineer did not put the PE stamp on the letter, and the engineer never visited our house and saw the damage).

Luckily, we have the funds to have a lawyer pursue this matter, but we are not sure that our neighbors, who also have damage do. I think we need to get visibility on this issue, as it affects many Somerville families and is a clear case of the ISD not protecting the citizens, and instead caring for the interests of large developers. I invite you to come to my house to see the damage, speak to the neighbors surrounding this property about their damage, and read all reports that we have gathered to shed light on this so maybe this doesn’t happen to anyone else. The Boston metropolitan area is a developing one, and we can’t have developers ruining people’s homes and putting their lives at risk.

— Lynn Sargent
Somerville