Massachusetts Lawmakers May Bring Back Rent Control

BOSTON — Massachusetts may soon have rent control laws for the first time since 1994, when votes narrowly supported a landlord-backed ballot measure banning the practice.

The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing endorsed two bills that would give local governments the ability to cap annual rent increases:

• A bill filed by Cambridge Democrat Rep. David Rogers would let cities and towns put limits on how much landlords can increase rents each year for tenants who make 80 percent or less of the area’s median income.
• A bill co-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Mike Connolly of Cambridge and Nika Elugardo of Boston would use rent control as one of several options towns and cities can use as tenant-protection policies.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who has said rent control is “exactly the wrong direction we should go” to solve the state’s housing crisis, opposes the bills. Baker has instead proposed lower voting thresholds for local zoning changes to increase new housing construction.

If passed into law, towns would hold local votes on whether to opt to implement rent control. State lawmakers have yet to decide whether those votes would be conducted by the local governing body or by a community-wide referendum.

Massachusetts outlawed rent control in 1994 in a statewide referendum, which passed with 51 percent of voters in favor f ending the practice. At the time, the practice was not widespread in Massachusetts with Boston, Brookline and Camrbidge the only Massachusetts municipalities with rent control laws.

PATCH, PEABOBY