A supporter of a potential 2026 ballot question that would implement rent control across Massachusetts holds a sign at rally at the Church on the Hill in downtown Boston on Dec. 2, 2025. Photo by Ella Adams | State House News Service
The housing crisis has festered so long in Massachusetts that it has become a curse spanning the generations.
Small towns and suburbs are getting grayer every year as the young and upwardly mobile pull up stakes and move to the Sun Belt or New Hampshire.
Companies are often reluctant to relocate here, while ever more renters are living hand to mouth amid a dire housing shortage caused by chronic underbuilding and NIMBY opposition to new development.
Now, after a quarter century of ever-higher housing costs, we’ve finally reached the breaking point here in the Bay State.
And the next year will be pivotal: It will determine whether Massachusetts adopts the most draconian rent control in the country, or musters the political will for more decisive statewide zoning reforms.
Support for Rent Control Strong
Progressive activists are pushing a ballot question that, if it passes next November, would usher in the most restrictive rent control regime in the country.
The new law, which would cap increases at 5 percent, at the most, and likely significantly lower, would put an end to whatever modest progress Massachusetts has made in boosting housing production.
And backers of the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign, which organized the rent control ballot question, have the wind at their backs.
Last week, the coalition of activist groups said they submitted 90,000 certified signatures to Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office, thousands more than needed.
Support for the ballot question tops 62 percent, according to a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll.
Industry Plans a $30M Ad Blitz
Meanwhile, real estate execs and other business leaders are teaming up to stop this bid to bring back rent control, which state voters banned in the early 1990s.
Opponents plan to raise and spend as much as $30 million on an ad blitz and other efforts to defeat the rent control proposal, Tamara Small, CEO of NAIOP Massachusetts, told me.
Rent control would kill plans to build new apartments at a time when Massachusetts faces a dire housing shortage that has made the state one of the most expensive in the country in which to rent or buy, she said.
“We are really going to be pushing out the message to voters to make sure they understand the harm this will do,” Small said. “To be blunt, this would be catastrophic.”
The proposal wouldn’t go before voters until next November – provided it survives the legal challenges that opponents have vowed – but it is already shaping up to be one of the most expensive political fights in state history.
“Thirty million dollars would definitely be one of, if not the most, expensive ballot campaigns in history,” Doug Rubin, founding partner of Northwind Strategies, told me for my newsletter, Contrarian Boston.
Passage Would Be Disaster for Mass.
The big financial commitment by opponents of the rent control ballot question reflects the high stakes involved.
The proposed rent control law would apply to every city and town, from the Berkshires to the Cape, while rent increases would be limited to 5 percent a year at most. Given the proposal pegs increases to the Consumer Price Index, in reality, it would be closer to 2.5 percent, Small said.
At a time when the state faces a housing shortage of more than 200,000 units, the new law would cripple the development of new apartment projects while making the housing crisis worse, NAIOP’s Small contends.
Sure, the law exempts new construction for 10 years. But developers say that is not enough to make it worthwhile to spend years – and millions of dollars – slogging through restrictive local permitting regulations and reviews, Small said.
And even simply proposing a rent control law can be enough to spook investors looking for new apartment buildings and developments to put their money into, she added.
Scott Van Voorhis
Act to Address Concerns – Now
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Small and her allies will be getting that message across to voters fuming over sky-high rents.
And while $30 million is certainly a lot of money, Rubin of Northwind Strategies cautioned that the money “is no guarantee of victory in the current political climate we live in” and “will provide ammunition for the other side.”
The coalition of real estate and business execs and groups opposing the rent control campaign needs “to really understand the electorate right now in order to win that fight – money alone won’t get it done,” Rubin added.
Voters will need to see more than just ads and words. They’ll need to see real action that directly addresses affordability concerns, both through dramatically ramped-up production, as well as other initiatives aimed at bringing down costs now, not five or 10 years from now.
For example, how about dusting off Josh Kraft’s plans for municipal tax breaks for landlords who agree to limit rent increases?
To do any of that, though, the state’s business and real estate leaders will need to find a way to forge a common front with sympathetic elected officials.
They should start with Gov. Maura Healey, who has championed housing production as the way to bring down costs.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
