A street in East Boston. The neighborhood has become a focal point for concerns about displacement caused by rising rents as working-class tenants compete with downtown office workers for the few units available.

The first salvos in the battle over rent control rang out across Boston last week. 

The Greater Boston Real Estate Board announced Tuesday that it has launched a $400,000 campaign to target city voters with digital ads and print mailers attacking Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to bring the controversial practice back to the city. 

The next day, top Wu administration officials pushed back against GBREB’s critiques during the City Council’s first committee hearing on the plan. 

The measure, which must first clear the council and then pass Beacon Hill as a home rule petition, would prevent landlords from raising rents more than 6 percent per year, with an additional allowance for increases based on the area consumer price index, for an overall cap of 10 percent per year in rent increases. Buildings would be exempt for the first 15 years after their doors open, as would office-to-residential conversions. Owner-occupied buildings with six units or fewer would be permanently exempt. The proposal also contains “just cause” eviction protections, intended to prevent landlords from circumventing the rent increase cap using the eviction process. 

Wu has argued that the measure will function as “guardrails” for the rental market, preventing “destabilizing” increases that cause renters to move.  

“We have an urgent housing crisis that is forcing families out of Boston and uprooting children from their schools,” Wu said in a statement her office issued following the launch of GBREB’s ad campaign. “We fully stand behind this proposal and will fight against special interests benefiting from a broken status quo.” 

$400K Appeal to Voters 

A version of the GBREB fliers being mailed to city voters shared with Banker & Tradesman focuses on three main messages. It claimed rent control “fails to reduce housing costs,” “reduces housing quality” and “limits the number of apartments available to rent.” 

It also repeats concerns that any rent control measure would cause investors to reduce the pace at which housing is built in Boston, at a time when many, including Wu herself, argue that the city desperately needs more housing units. 

“We need to take drastic action to house people in this state and rent control isn’t going to help,” GBREB CEO Greg Vasil said in an interview Tuesday. 

The flyer contains a QR code that directs recipients to a website for more information on GBREB’s opposition to the mayor’s proposal. The group’s ad campaign also includes targeted digital ads. 

“We’ve been told by a lot of our members that they’re not going to put capital at risk in the city of Boston,” Vasil said in the interview. 

A real estate industry panel Vasil headed echoed the notion when it addressed Wednesday’s Boston City Council hearing. 

“Two-thirds of housing providers have reduced or expected to reduce investment plans due to the introduction of rent control policies” in Santa Barbara, California, Portland, Oregon and St. Paul, Minnesota, among other areas, said Leah Cuffy, director of advocacy research at the National Apartment Association, citing a survey the NAA had conducted last year. 

Admin Challenges GBREB

But during that same hearing, city Chief of Housing Sheila Dillon told councilors that she doesn’t share those views. 

“Anyone who suggest this would halt development is being misleading,” she said. “This prevents mistreatment in the real estate market. It would stop rent gouging and evictions if a tenant has done nothing wrong.” 

Dillon said the 6 percent-plus-inflation limit was chosen as it was “slightly above” the average increase the city observed in recent years. Its main effect, she said, would be to reduce large increases in rent often levied when an existing building is sold, and curb opportunistic landlords “acting outside the market.” 

The proposal also gives landlords the ability to appeal to the city for a higher increase in order to pay for serious capital improvement projects that couldn’t be paid for within the allowed cap. And any attempt by a future mayor or city council to lower the 6 percent annual cap would have to be passed by both city councilors and state legislators through a new home rule petition process, said Tim Davis, deputy director of policy development and research in the city’s Office of Housing.  

In total, around 55 percent of the city’s apartments would be covered by Wu’s proposal, Davis said. 

Progressives Seek Tighter Limits 

But it wasn’t just the Wu administration and industry groups firing rhetorical broadsides last week. During Wednesday’s hearing, progressive councilors pushed the administration to tighten what they characterized as ineffective or overly generous concessions to developers. 

“We are not giving [landlords] a limit, we are giving people an allowance,” Jamaica Plain Councilor Kendra Lara said, and pushed for the cap to be lowered closer to 2 percent plus inflation in exchange for her support for the remainder of the measure. “People are going to do what they can to make as much profit as possible.” 

A 6 percent-plus-inflation cap, she said, would not have protected working-class East Boston renters getting priced out of the neighborhood by an ongoing wave of demand from downtown office workers. 

The 15-year exemption, which is between twice and three times the typical period over which many multifamily investors hold a property, also came in for critiques, with some councilors pushing for the figure to be reduced to 10 years or eliminated entirely. 

Dillon said the administration had tried to craft a plan that won’t reduce housing production, a concern most councilors at the hearing said they shared. 

“The market is important here,” Dillon said. “What’s going to make the difference [in moderating rents] is if we build enough housing so that we have a decent vacancy rate, that there’s enough competition in the market…. We need to give tenants some choice.” 

State House’s Power a Concern 

Beacon Hill’s power to ignore any home rule petition hung over Wednesday’s hearing – another fracture that could splinter support for or opposition to the mayor’s plan. 

“I would like to see if we have an idea of what the State House would accept and kind of work backwards…instead of sending a proposal that would die up there,” Council President Ed Flynn said. 

James Sanna

“We need to be unapologetic about what this moment looks like and not what we believe the State House will approve,” at-large Councilor Julia Mejia said. 

But it likewise appears clear that city councilors feel an urgent need to act on the issue following big increases in rent citywide over the last two years. A 2021 poll by MassINC Polling Group, sponsored by WBUR, the Dorchester Reporter and The Boston Foundation found that 59 percent of city voters strongly supported rent control, while another 17 percent somewhat supported the idea. 

“I’m glad you are here as opponents to this,” Hyde Park City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo told GBREB’s Vasil. But “it’s an untenable position you have. It’s seeing a rising tide and saying, ‘We can’t do anything in the face of that because it might impact the people who are profiting from this situation quite well.’”