LENORE SCHLOMING
Proposal is ‘gibberish’

More than two months after Boston city leaders rejected a rent stabilization plan, a Cambridge tenant group is pitching a rent control proposal of its own.

The Committee for Cambridge Rent Control wants to roll back rents and limit future rent increases at apartments throughout the city. The group, which discussed its rent control plan recently at a forum that drew about 60 people, is collecting signatures for a local rent control ballot initiative and will appeal to the City Council for support.

“It’s a really fair proposal,” said Ellen Shachter, an attorney with Cambridge/Somerville Legal Services who spoke at the forum.

The proposal comes as rents have escalated beyond the reach of many Cambridge tenants, according to the group. Market-rate rents for one-bedroom apartments shot up 51 percent during the last five years, from $913 in 1996 to $1,450 in 2001, while rents for two-bedroom units jumped 56 percent from $1,163 to $1,900 during the same period, according to a fact sheet prepared by the tenant group. The data is based on a telephone survey of local real estate agents that a city department conducted in August 2001.

But groups like the Massachusetts Rental Housing Association and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board maintain that apartment vacancies are up and property owners are reducing rents and providing other incentives to maintain and attract new tenants.

Under the proposal, all rental units would be subject to rent control except owner-occupied dwellings with less than four units, publicly owned or managed properties and rental units built after February 1999. Temporary exemptions of no longer than two years would be provided to landlords of buildings with six units or less who are able to demonstrate “extreme difficulties” if the units were rent-controlled. Exemptions also would be provided to owners who accept low- and moderate-income local residents, chosen from a city list that residents could be placed on by voluntarily submitting income information.

If approved, the law would set legal rent maximums at fair rents – ensuring the owner of a “fair net operating income.” The base rents would be rent levels charged no later than February 1999, when the city of Cambridge formally declared a housing emergency, and the base rent levels would be increased or adjusted by a petition from the owners to account for capital improvements or increases in taxes and operating expenses. A rent-controlled unit would remain under control when tenants move out.

“The time is ripe for a campaign we know we can win,” said Bill Cavellini, a tenant activist who belongs to a Cambridge group called the Eviction Free Zone. The group, which organizes tenants and tries to protect them from eviction and rent increases, has been calling for rent control for several years. The EFZ formed the Committee for Cambridge Rent Control, which has been meeting since September to craft a new rent control ordinance. The proposed ordinance is similar to one that emerged in 1999.

‘Eviction Protection’

Cavellini said if the City Council approves and submits a home rule petition to the state to institute rent control, it would still require the Legislature’s approval. The state Legislature could “easily ignore” the City Council’s vote, said Cavellini. That’s why the activists want to place it on the November ballot.

“They [lawmakers] can’t easily ignore a people’s movement,” he said.

But while some are optimistic that the rent control plan will be approved, one landlord group vows to fight any effort to bring back rent restrictions.

“It’s worse than the old rent control,” said Lenore Schloming, president of the Small Property Owners Association. “It’s almost like they’re trying to go back in the past.”

Under the old rent control system in Cambridge, there was an automatic general adjustment in rent for inflation, explained Schloming. Under the new proposal, landlords would have to apply to a special city board for rent increases, she said.

Rent control was outlawed in 1994 by a statewide ballot initiative. While voters statewide rejected rent control, residents in the communities where it was still in effect – Cambridge, Brookline and Boston – voted heavily in favor.

Last year, SPOA and real estate leaders organized members and sent out mailings in opposition to the rent stabilization plan proposed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Tenant Coalition. Boston’s rent plan, which was rejected by the City Council last November, would have capped rent increases at 10 percent a year for most residents and allowed tenants to protest rent hikes to a special board.

At the recent forum in Cambridge, some tenant activists called the Boston plan a “weak” proposal that was destined to fail. Yet Schloming insists that Cambridge residents and officials won’t easily support this rent control proposal either.

Schloming said the make-up of the city’s residents has changed considerably – and the new residents aren’t going to put up with rent control and the plunging property values and tax burden shifts that would probably result. She contends that the city stands to lose a lot of money from diminished tax revenue if property owners who can’t maximize their rents are filing for tax abatements because home values plummet.

“I think there’s much less of an appetite for [rent control] than there was before,” said Schloming, who called the proposal vague and “gibberish.”

Under the proposal, the law would be administered by a five-member board of tenants, homeowners and landlords appointed by the city manager. Tenants would have to pay a yearly surcharge established by City Council to pay for the costs of administering the law. Low- and moderate-income tenants could be exempted from the surcharge if they voluntarily submit an income statement. Also, the proposal features a “right of first refusal” clause that would give tenants the right to buy the building they live in first if it is put up for sale.

The proposal law also calls for “eviction protection,” saying that tenants “could be evicted only for a just cause, such as nonpayment of rent or disruptive criminal activity.”

“The notion that someone can’t be evicted unless there is ‘just cause’ interferes with one’s private property rights that are safeguarded by our laws,” said JoAn Geissler, who is president of the Massachusetts Rental Housing Association. “There are many reasons for evicting a tenant. The current laws are restrictive and cumbersome, and give much protection to tenants. This proposal makes it impossible to remove someone who is problematic.”