Basement rental in Providence R.I

[Richard Moreno]

Hello BP,

I have a 3 family in Eastside Providence RI., and I am really thinking about finishing the basement. This is one of the reasons I bought this property, the basement is huge and it already has plumbing that the previous owner put in. I can easily have a 2 bedroom apartment down there, and being close to Brown University I can get at least $1100 for rent. I wanted to see if any Rhode island members have had experience with the city? Other than framing it up and finishing it, the only difficult part would be the egresses for the bedroom windows, not sure if their big enough.

Currently I have 2 units rented at market rent which is about $1450, but I have my daughter living in one unit with family discount, only $500, so that being said I'm  not cash flowing much!  So that extra rental unit would make such a difference.

Thank You ! 

[Anthony Thompson]

@Richard Moreno it's very unlikely to be successful. You should check, but chances are excellent that your current 3-family is itself grandfathered in compared to its lot size (legal non-conforming), so I think any proposed addition of a new unit might be automatically denied on that basis alone.

Another significant issue is that you would have to bring the rest of the building up to fire code for a 4 family which is more involved/expensive than a 3 family (e.g., has to have a panel). This could cost thousands (e.g., 10K or 15K) depending on the current fire coding situation.

The city might have other requirements that the rest of the building be 100% up to code before approving it which could add more cost/risk/complexity.

Generally the city is really against basement apartments. They don't want to be the ones who signed off on someone living in the basement, if someone ends up getting hurt or dying down there. And they are well aware of the number of illegal basement apartments from owners who do it just to bring in more rental income, so it's one of their big pet peeves.

I know someone who bought a 2 family which had a finished basement that had a little kitchenette (small counter and sink) in the basement, and they went to get a permit for adding a new electrical panel and while the city inspector was there he told them they'd have to unfinish the basement because the previous owner had done the work without permits and there was evidence of an illegal unit.

I'd never say never but first I would recommend checking your lot size against the minimum needed for 4 units. Chances are you won't meet it and can stop there. But if you go in person to check this, for fun you could ask them, "Hey I was thinking about adding a basement apartment, is that hard to do in Providence?" :)