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Faced with a looming summer recess deadline, the House on Monday carved off 60 of the nearly 500 proposed amendments to its economic development legislation.
Among those rejected amendments were three that dealt with a local option to impose real estate transfer fees, tenant protections including rent control and lowering the threshold to approve affordable housing inclusionary zoning from two-thirds to a simple majority.
The economic development bill is largely concerned with helping the state recover from its COVID-19 shutdown but it also includes a change long sought by Gov. Charlie Baker to reduce the threshold for local boards to approve housing projects from two-thirds to a simple majority. It was attached to the jobs bill when he refiled it at the end of June. It was removed from the bill by a House committee on July 15 but a version of the bill with the proposal still attached was reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee late last week.
While it rejected more high-profile amendments on progressive priorities, the House did pass a separate amendment that included language giving an apartment building’s tenants – or their designee – the right of first refusal if their landlord decides to sell. Landlord groups have opposed the idea as it would throw up an obstacle for smaller landlords looking to pass control of buildings on to their heirs. Housing advocates say right of first refusal is important in stabilizing working-class neighborhoods and slowing down gentrification, which they fear Baker’s legislation could increase. Under the amendment, individual towns and cities would have to adopt a right-of-first-refusal ordinance for it to apply in their communities.
Material from the State House News Service was included in this report.
Updated 12:20 p.m., July 28, 2020: This story was updated to add information about a tenants’ right of first refusal proposal included in the bill.
