Image courtesy of State House News Service
Opponents of statewide rent control kicked off their campaign today by decrying as an attack on local control and small property owners.
“A one-size-fits-all mandate is not the solution to our housing crisis,” Revere City Councilor Marc Silvestri said at a Beacon Hill press conference sponsored by the Housing for Massachusetts coalition. “What we found is that developing is: coming up with smart development policies that help streamline processes in which to build. Just 15 years ago, Revere was full of empty parking lots.”
The Housing for Massachusetts coalition is seeking to chip into widespread support for the high-stakes November ballot question. A poll last fall showed nearly 63 percent of Massachusetts residents support the measure, which is sponsored by the Homes for All Massachusetts coalition of tenants’ rights groups and is backed by powerful labor unions.
If approved, it would cap annual rent increases at the rate of inflation, with a maximum of 5 percent. Buildings newer than 10 years would be exempt, along with owner-occupied units with four or fewer units.
Opponents have indicated their campaign will cost $30 million in an attempt to sway public opinion.
The campaign is attacking rent control as a failed strategy to bring down the spiraling cost of rental housing, by discouraging development in St. Paul, Minnesota, which enacted rent control in 2022, and other cities with recent ordinances.
Rent increases in Greater Boston have moderated following a building boom that is drawing to a close. Across the region, average monthly rents hit $2,877 last fall, according to a Colliers research report.
“We would see development slow down or stop,” said Helen Shiner, interim director of the Quincy Chamber of Commerce.
A recent survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council found that developers are cutting back expansion plans in jurisdictions with rent control.
The survey found that 35 percent of respondents cut back investment or development in rent-controlled markets, up from 26 percent in 2022.
Borrowing rhetoric from opponents of state mandates such as the MBTA Communities act, the coalition denounced the rent control proposal as a “one-size-fits-all mandate” that ignores varying housing markets across the state.
Rent control was abolished in 1994 in a statewide ballot question led by Denise Jillson, currently the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. At today’s press conference, Jillson said the rent control era in Cambridge was characterized by landlords favoring higher-income tenants with better credit ratings at the expense of minority and low-income residents.
Property owners are unlikely to invest in maintenance after having shouldered increases in insurance and energy costs, said Amir Shahsavari, president of the Small Property Owners Association.
“We are housing providers who are in it because we take great reward in providing people with maintained places to live,” Shahsavari said. “If we exit the space, either a large corporate entity will come in… and that human element is more likely to fade away, because when the renter needs somebody at 2 a.m., they’re going to get an AI-generated robot talking to them.”
