The campaign behind the proposal to implement statewide rent control said Tuesday that conversations with real estate industry representatives have been fruitful and may lead to a compromise that would avoid voters deciding the issue on November’s ballot.
“We’re having productive conversations with real estate leaders and are hopeful that we’ll reach agreement on a legislative compromise that can avert the need for the ballot question,” said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for pro-rent control Keep Massachusetts Home.
Keep Massachusetts Home is behind the ballot question that would cap year-over-year residential rent increases at the same rate as the increase in the Consumer Price Index or 5%, whichever is lower. Exemptions would be in place for new construction, owner-occupied units and more. Proponents say the reform is crucial to keep residents housed and from fleeing for less expensive states.
Opponents of the ballot question, including Gov. Maura Healey, say it would hamper housing production and argue that just having a rent control question advancing to November’s ballot has had a chilling effect on housing production in Massachusetts.
Healey said in March that she got calls from six developers who had lost investment funds when the question was cleared to move ahead. That same month, the Federal Reserve said one of its New England sources attributed a pull-back in multifamily housing investment to the rent control ballot initiative.
A framework of an agreement dated May 28, obtained by the News Service, describes a proposal to allow cities and towns to individually decide whether to opt into a rent control policy that would cap annual increases at the lower of either 10% or the increase in CPI plus 5%. It would include many of the same exemptions as the ballot question, but would also allow property owners to reset rents to market rate upon vacancy and would open the door to rent control boards.
“We were formally contacted by the Yes campaign on Sunday with language that differs from the proposed ballot question. In good faith we will review their proposal,” said Conor Yunits, spokesman for Housing for Massachusetts, the ballot committee opposing the initiative. “Our campaign is focused on policies that protect property owners, renters, housing production, and community budgets.”
When the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions recommended last month that the Legislature take no action on the ballot proposal, lawmakers on the panel pointed out that the statewide proposal was “distinct from the most recent authorized rent regulation in Massachusetts from 1970 that allowed communities with over 50,000 residents to control rent increases.” The 10 committee members voted unanimously to not get involved with the ballot question by the deadline for the Legislature to single-handedly remove a question from consideration.
“Members of this Committee acknowledge that there is a housing crisis across the Commonwealth that will likely take many different public- and private-sector solutions to fully address. While there are members of the Committee who agree with the concept of rent stabilization, given the complexities of the housing market and the issues raised by the expert, proponents, and opponents of this Petition as written, a majority of the Committee recommends that the General Court take no action,” the group wrote in its report.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano has warned against the statewide rent control proposal, saying in February that he does not think the proposal on track for November’s ballot “is going to improve the ability for housing investors to get into the marketplace.”
“I think the barriers are very high, the amount of money that it’s going to cost, it’s almost going to keep people from even entering into it,” he said.
A relatively small number of cities and towns have repeatedly sent local option rent control proposals to the Legislature for years but those proposals have never received state clearance.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents to a recent poll said they would definitely or probably vote to approve a ballot question imposing statewide rent control. The Polity Research Consulting poll of 608 registered voters was conducted between April 29 and May 7 for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.
Colin Young is the deputy editor for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach him at colin.young@statehousenews.com.
