My name is Heleni Thayre....

I am suing the Town of Brookline because I believe that under the current law, every homeowner in this town has the right to rent for however long (or short) they wish..... and we will lose that right if we don't defend it.

On May 10, 2019, I received a Notice of Violation from the Town of Brookline, that ordered me to stop renting a bedroom in my apartment for fewer than 30 days. I complied with this order because I was threatened with extremely heavy fines. I was forced to cancel over a month of bookings on AirBnB. I appealed this Violation at the local Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) on December 19, 2019. Unfortunately I did not succeed.  

My lawsuit is based on this simple fact: Use 51 in the town zoning ordinance permits the renting of up to two rooms in a person’s home to as many as two lodgers. There is no mention of any time restriction in this provision. However, the Brookline Building Commissioner, Dan Bennet, interprets the word “lodger” in Use 51 to mean “lodger for thirty days or more.” However, the ordinance defines “lodger” simply to mean: “a person who rents space for living or sleeping purposes without separate cooking facilities and who is not within the second degree of kinship to the lessor.”

As one can see from the plain language above, nothing whatsoever in the ordinance prohibits the renting of rooms based on a time restriction. However, the ZBA decided to uphold the Commissioner's interpretation of Use 51. I believe this is wrong, and INCORRECT.  And that is why I filed this lawsuit.