Rent control in Massachusetts

Main article: Rent control in the United States

Rent control in Massachusetts refers to laws and proposals that limit increases in rents for residential housing in Massachusetts. The state adopted temporary rent controls after World War I and World War II. Beginning in 1970, Massachusetts authorized certain municipalities to adopt local rent-control programs. By 1994, rent control remained in effect in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, before voters approved a statewide ballot initiative prohibiting most local rent-control laws.

Debate over rent control has continued amid housing affordability concerns. Supporters have argued that limits on rent increases can improve housing stability and reduce displacement, while opponents have argued that such limits can discourage housing production and investment and can produce unequal benefits. Surveys of economists and empirical studies have generally found that rent controls can lower rents for incumbent tenants in the short run but reduce the quality and quantity of rental housing units and maintenance over time.

In 2025 and 2026, supporters advanced an initiative petition that would create the strictest rent control law in the country, but the courts ruled that as written it was ineligible for the ballot.

Early efforts

See also: 1918–1920 New York City rent strikes and 1920–1921 Chicago rent strikes

Boston Post, March 19, 1920

In 1920, as troops returned home from World War I amid an economic recession, Massachusetts experienced a tight rental market. The Great and General Court of Massachusetts adopted several laws to address the situation, including one limiting annual rent increases to no more than 25%. A subsequent state analysis found that some landlords circumvented the limits by evicting tenants or refusing to renew leases so they could charge higher rents to new tenants, while others simply raised rents by the full 25% allowed. The law expired three years later.

In response to housing shortages caused by the Great Depression and World War II, Congress enacted emergency price controls on consumer goods and rents in 1942. Although the federal controls lapsed in 1953, Massachusetts continued its own policy until 1955, when Governor Christian Herter vetoed an extension.

Late 20th century

Campaign for rent control

See also: Civil Rights Movement in the United States

On May 1, 1964, more than 20 families engaged in the first major rent strike of Boston's history, with the support of the Boston Congress of Racial Equality chapter. Previously tenants had met with the landlord to have him address the 150 sanitation, building and fire code violations, which he refused to fix. After the start of the strike, more rent strikes followed across the city. These strikes continued into 1969, playing a significant role in the eventual passing of rent control.

In 1969, a group of students at Harvard University, who were also members of Students for a Democratic Society, complained that courses were taught with a 'liberal-establishment' bias and demanded courses with a more 'radical' approach. In response, the university created a course that included field work gathering signatures petitioning for rent control.

Legislative adoption

On August 30, 1970, Governor Francis W. Sargent signed into law a bill that authorized rent control in municipalities with more than 50,000 residents, potentially affecting more than 40 communities. The law had an expiration date of April 1974 and then was extended to December 31, 1975, and again to March 31, 1976. After April 1, 1976, special acts were passed for the municipalities who wanted rent control, but there was no state-wide authorization.

Municipalities that opted in were required to establish and administer local rent‑control programs consistent with the statute's standards. The statute froze maximum rents at the amounts charged six months before local adoption, creating an immediate rollback for units whose rents had risen during that period.

The Act applied broadly to existing rental housing but expressly exempted transient accommodations, dwellings built or converted after January 1, 1969, units already regulated under another governmental program, owner‑occupied two‑ and three‑family houses, cooperative or educational housing, and locally defined “luxury” apartments, provided no more than twenty‑five per cent of the locality's rental stock was excluded.

Local adoption and repeals

In 1969, the Town of Brookline and the City of Boston both passed local laws instituting rent control. A special law was passed giving Boston the authority to implement its proposal in the final days of 1969. The Supreme Judicial Court struck down Brookline's law, saying it had no authority to institute rent control without permission from the state.

Lynn, Somerville, Brookline, and Cambridge adopted rent control under the state-wide law passed in 1970. Each was required by the law to establish a rent‑control board consisting of three to five members, or to appoint a single rent administrator. In 1976, hours before the statewide law expired, special laws were passed granting rent control authority to Cambridge and Somerville; Boston and Brookline had previously been granted authority earlier in the year.

The Board of Aldermen in Somerville voted, 6–4, in November 1978 to repeal its rent control law, effective March 1, 1979. There were an estimated 10,000 units under rent control at the time.

In 1974, the voters of Lynn repealed rent control. Malden voters voted against rent control in 1989. After a three-year campaign, Greenfield rejected a proposal to adopt rent control also in 1989.

Boston began decontrolling units in 1976, allowing rents to reset when new tenants moved in, and relaxing other controls. In 1976, Somerville allowed rates to rise to market levels when new tenants moved in, but rents were subject to government control after that.Brookline began decontrolling units in 1991.

Rent control boards

Local boards in communities with rent control approved or disapproved of increases in the rent to each unit under their jurisdiction. Rent control boards were de facto courts, with common-law judicial powers. They passed rulings, enforced them and judged whether or not their laws had been violated. The boards were empowered to set maximum rents, promulgate regulations, hold hearings, adjudicate petitions, and employ staff. landlords bore the burden of proof during the evidentiary hearings.

Before evicting a tenant from a rent-controlled unit, a landlord first had to secure a certificate of eviction from the board by establishing one of the statute's narrowly defined just causes:

1. non‑payment of rent;
2. the tenant's material violation of lease obligations or creation of a nuisance;
3. owner‑occupancy or occupancy by an immediate family member of the owner;
4. board‑approved plans for substantial rehabilitation or demolition; or
5. the landlord's permanent withdrawal of the dwelling from the rental market.

Hearings were recorded and extensive documentation was required. Landlords who moved out of state needed to return to Massachusetts every time they wished to raise rents or make other changes so that they could appear in person before the rent control boards.

Board decisions were subject to de novo review in the district court, and willful overcharges or unlawful evictions were punishable as criminal offenses.

Fair net operating income

Landlords could petition for rent increases only when necessary to obtain a “fair net operating income,” a benchmark that directed boards to consider six specified factors: changes in property‑tax assessments, unavoidable increases in operating costs, capital improvements, alterations in services, physical deterioration, and the cost of normal repairs. In several instances, Rent Control Boards considered losses of $8,500 in one year and $23,000 over three years to be "a fair net profit" for the landlords.

Mortgage expenses were not allowed to be considered when calculating an approved rent. Legal and management fees were also not allowed to be passed on to tenants, and neither was lost rent due to non-payment. The chairman of the Small Property Owners Association complained this was unfair given "all the recordkeeping, minutia, logs, filings and considerable headaches associated with ownership of a rent-controlled building" and that "all owners know that to go to the rent board without legal representation is to leave without your kneecaps."

Repairs and upkeep

Landlords could not increase rent without permission, even for basic repairs and upkeep, and instead had to submit detailed requests and proposals to the Rent Control Board to "prove" that the work had been done with the cheapest possible materials. landlords would have to pay for repairs or to replace broken appliances and then submit receipts to the rent control boards, who were under no obligation to approve increases to recover the costs. Tenants were able to withhold rent in response to alleged faults with their units without providing any evidence.

It could take between six months and two years of adversarial hearings before the Rent Control Board for a decision to be made. If an increase in rent was approved, it could take six weeks to six months before the increase was passed on to the tenant, and it would be temporary. Rents went back down after the cost of the capital improvements were recovered by the landlord. Tenant advocates said that granting any rent increases for repairs, even temporary ones, undermined the idea of rent control itself. Dozens of tenants "stormed a City Council meeting" in Cambridge in 1992, protesting the fact that the rent control board allowed landlords to increase rents to pay for repairs and upgrades.

When one landlord spent over $200,000 in capital improvements on his property, the Cambridge Rent Control Board refused to allow him to raise rents to cover the expenses. Not all of the repairs were required, the Board said, because new electrical and water service were not mandated by building or safety codes. The owner sued, and a Superior Court justice ruled that the Board was imposing criteria not found in the regulations; she ruled in favor of the landlord.

Because of delays in processing applications, inflation ate away at the amount landlords could ultimately collect in rent increases for capital improvements. Economist Herman B. Leonard of Harvard Business School found that landlords received between 70% and 75% of what the Rent Control Board deemed to be "fair." This, he said, was a "dramatic squeeze" on operating budgets, and led to less upkeep, lower quality, and faster deterioration of rent-controlled properties.

Vacancy decontrol

Over time, Boston and Brookline instituted systems of vacancy decontrol where rents could rise to market levels as tenants moved out, but Cambridge strengthened its program over the years. Like in similar communities across the country, complaints were heard from both landlords and tenants in all three communities, but "the discontent is nowhere near as fierce as in places where stringent rent control measures remain intact."

Rent control in Boston

Rent-controlled units in Boston

Date	Number of rent-controlled units	Notes
Early 1970s	110,000
1975	120,000
1976	122,000
1977	74,000
February 1980	8,000 buildings had rent-controlled units
January 1981	45,000 units
December 1981	35,000-40,000 units
January 1988	80,000+ units
February 1989	90,000 units
December 1990	95,000 units
June 1993	20,000 units
1994	22,000 units

1970 adoption

Mayor Kevin White signed into law a rent control ordinance in November 1969. It established a five-member rent control board that had the power to set rents in about 25% of all rental units, excluding luxury units, public housing, and buildings with three or fewer units. A special state law granting the City permission to implement the ordinance was enacted in the final days of the 1969 legislative session.

Funds to implement the law were not available until 1970. The Rent Control Board met for the first time on March 16, 1970.

The law was amended a few months later to make it more closely match the legislation enabling rent control in the rest of the Commonwealth. The law was considered weak as a tenant must first complain to the Rent Control Board before an action could be taken against a landlord. Two years later, a stronger ordinance was adopted and "White refused to grant across-the-board rent increases" in the following years.

Later amendments

On New Year's Day in 1976, White signed a new bill extending rent control for another four years. It strengthened the power of the Rent Control Board and weakened the power of the administrator. It also deregulated apartments as they became vacant.

In the mid-1980s, a new rent control and condo conversion ordinance was adopted and was set to expire on December 31, 1994. During hearings on whether or not to extend the law, it was estimated that allowing rent control to lapse would enable the city to collect an additional $14 million in tax revenue. The president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board also noted that rents had fallen, on average, $50 per month over the previous two years at a time when costs such as water bills were rising dramatically.

It was ultimately voted, 12-1, to extend rent control until December 31, 2004. The vote took place in June 1993 even though the law was not set to expire until the last day of 1994. Six of the 13 members on the council had already announced their intentions not to run for reelection in 1994, and Mayor Flynn was preparing to become ambassador to the Vatican, prompting calls of foul play from landlords.

A provision of Boston's rent control law stipulated that landlords could not increase rent without first giving the tenants the option to terminate the lease. Both the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the United States Supreme Court upheld the provision. Property taxes also had to be paid before a landlord could request an increase in rent.

By the 1990s, Boston's form of rent control had softened with almost 200 amendments over the previous 20 years. Rent increases were limited to 12%, and only in some buildings.

A new tax was instituted in 1992 on most people renting apartments in Boston to fund the Rent Control Board's operations. The Rent Control Board added a $1 a month fee that was to be collected by landlords and then submitted to the Rent Control Board. Eight months later, it was raised to $1.50.

Claimed outcomes

Lack of housing development

In response to the rent control ordinance being signed in 1969, $20 million ($177.3 million in 2026 dollars) in apartment construction was lost in the city of Boston in 1970 and 1971. Banks and insurance companies stopped lending to developers, causing deteriorating growth in the housing supply. The Greater Boston Real Estate Board said that, six months into effect, the law stifled the creation of apartments for low- and moderate-income renters, as well as families. By 1975, other developers had stopped working in the city due to rent control. Mayor Kevin White, who signed Boston's rent control ordinance into law in 1969, said in 1977 that he "put rent control on, but I also have the guts to take it off if it's killing housing, and I think that in some cases that's precisely what it was doing over a long period of time." From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s and beyond, there was little new housing built in Boston. At the same time, commercial and industrial development was "booming and jobs [were] increasing." The prospect of additional rent control, which Mayor Ray Flynn had proposed, discouraged residential construction.

Arson and abandoned buildings

A front-page article in the Boston Globe linked rent control to building disinvestment and abandonment in low-income neighborhoods. The report described a cycle in which landlords of rent-controlled buildings, faced with regulated rents that did not cover operating costs, deferred maintenance and stopped paying property taxes, leading to apartments becoming uninhabitable. Tenant displacement and vacancy followed, with approximately 11,000 housing units being demolished in Boston's poorer neighborhoods as landlords could not rent them and did not have the funds to bring them up to code. The amount of back taxes owed was often more than the value of the building, leading the owners to abandon them on a weekly basis.

In 1983, as many as 25,000 housing units in Boston owed back taxes, and as many as 18,000 were abandoned as of 1984. Because the city did not want to take possession of them (which would have made them the largest landlord in the city) or to become a landlord, the buildings then sat empty.

After sitting vacant for some time, they were frequently either burned to the ground or demolished. According to the Boston Globe, the city's condo conversion and rent control laws incentivized landlords and banks to employ arson to deal with problem properties.

Boarding houses

Boarding houses were financially feasible before the era of rent control. In the 1970s, there were 9,500 rooms rented in Boston; the South End alone had 923 licensed rooming houses in 1964. By the mid-1980s, there were only 241 boarding houses in the city with 3,000 rooms. By 1989, the number had dropped to fewer than 100. The loss of boarding houses was cited as a reason for the rise of homelessness in Boston.

One such boarding house in the South End rented rooms for between $7 and $25, but Boston's rent control law resulted in the building running at a loss after a few years; the owner, an elderly woman, eventually sold the building and stayed on as a tenant. In 1988, the The First Church of Christ, Scientist paid the tenants of rooming houses it owned in the Back Bay to leave so that the buildings could be used to house church employees who were moving to the area. Some tenants received more than $10,000. The Rent Control Board refused to allow them to make the change and ordered the church to continue operating them as boarding houses.

Boston Rent Control Board

When seeking an increase in rent, landlords had to prove to the Rent Control Board that the increase was justified. They had to appear at a hearing and show or other documentation to convince the board that an increase was necessary. Before rent could be increased, tenants had to be notified and properties inspected. Landlords could apply yearly for increases tied to the Consumer Price Index, up to 5%.

During the first five years of rent control, 90% of landlords who owned nine or fewer units did not receive any rent increases. At the time, 61% of the city's housing stock was made up of buildings between two and nine units. The chief justice of the Boston Housing Court, Paul G. Garrity, opined that "the small landlord needs protection. He just does not have the ability to absorb the costs."

Petitions for an increase in rent to the Boston Rent Control Board took, on average, three months. Vacancy decontrol certificates took a similar amount of time due to a backlog and a lack of personnel to process requests. While waiting for the paperwork to be processed, units could not be rented and landlords lost money.

In the early 1980s, a new law was passed allowing tenants who lived in non-rent-controlled apartments to file a grievance if their landlord increased the rent. The Board did not have the authority to mandate prior approval for increases for non-controlled units, but could require landlords to give their tenants a rent reduction.

The Boston Rent Control Board took a broad look at who was an owner of a property for the purposes of determining whether or not it fell under rent control. For example, if a parent co-signed a mortgage but did not live in the building while the child did, it was not considered to be owner-occupied and thus would fall under rent control regulations. Similarly, if a couple divorced or an inheritance led to one part-owner living in the building but another living elsewhere, the other units in the building would go from being non-rent-controlled to rent-controlled, and rents could be slashed.

In 1977, the Rent Control Administration was threatened with eviction by their landlord, the Flatley Companies, after they fell four months in arrears on their rent.

When rent control was repealed, the Boston Rent Control Board had an annual budget of $1.2 million and a staff of 30 employees.

Lobbying for across-the-board rent increases

Originally, any landlord who wanted to raise the rent on an apartment had to apply individually to the Rent Control Board. Jerome Lyle Rappaport, the president of the Rental Housing Association of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, said the procedure to seek such an increase was so cumbersome that many landlords were discouraged from doing so. Tenant groups opposed across-the-board rent increases, saying that not every landlord needed or deserved an increase.

1977

City property taxes increased 28.6% in 1977 and landlords asked for a commiserate increase in rents. Instead, the Rent Control Board voted to increase rents by an average of 11%. The rent adjustment amounted to 50% of the increase in the landlord's tax bill. Tenants over 65 years old could apply for a 50% reduction in the increase, but few did.

The 4–1 vote was unpopular with both landlords and with tenants. The Rental Housing Association testified that the decision would cost landlords $15 million that year alone. He predicted many would not be able to pay their bills and that many smaller landlords would either abandon their properties or lose them to foreclosure. A tenants association said they would discuss a citywide rent strike in protest; they wanted an increase of no more than 4-5%. The board also placed a moratorium on requests for individual rent increases from November 1976 to March 1977.

1980

In February 1980, Boston landlords asked the Rent Control Board for an across-the-board increase in rents. One landlord testified that since the last increase in 1977 his heating oil costs had gone up 207%, utilities were up 28%, insurance was up 105%, and sewer charges increased 286%. The Board denied the request, but did allow landlords to seek rent increases to account for increased heating fuel costs for the first time. The increase would only apply to 1980's costs, not to any future increases in the cost of heating oil or gas.

Tenants also would have the opportunity to challenge the increase. Tenant advocates said they were disappointed with the ruling and questioned "the policy of always passing on cost increases to the consumer." Tenant groups proposed that landlords who wanted to raise the rent should go before the Rent Control Board individually to request an increase. "I am horrified at the idea that landlords can raise rents without having to justify those rent increases," a tenant organizer said.

1983

The Rent Control Board rejected an across-the-board increase in 1983.

Eviction protections

Main article: Just cause eviction

Before a landlord could go to court to evict a tenant, they first had to go through the Rent Control Board, prolonging the process. In 1980, the Rent Control Board adopted a new regulation requiring landlords to file copies of eviction notices with the board. The courts struck it down in June 1982.

Condo conversion regulations

The adoption of rent control was a major reason there was "explosive growth" in the conversion of apartments to condominiums in the early 1970s. In 1969, the year before rent control was enacted, there were 183 condos in Boston and the surrounding areas. By 1975, there were 6,500. Landlords were unable to cover their costs, which were rising faster than the Rent Control Board was allowing them to raise rents, and so owners had an economic incentive to convert the apartments into condos and sell them off.

The Boston City Council imposed a one-year ban on evictions of tenants if their apartments were converted into condos in December 1979. For low-income elderly tenants, it was a two-year ban. In October 1984, the City Council passed a new ordinance regulating condo conversions. Low-income and handicap tenants could not be evicted from an apartment if it was converted into a condominium. Landlords had to give tenants up to ten years to move out after the conversion. The Supreme Judicial Court overturned the law, which was passed by the Boston City Council without a hearing, in July 1986.

Mayor Ray Flynn signed an ordinance in July 1987 banning evictions of any elderly, handicapped, or low- or moderate-income tenants of rent-controlled units when their apartments were converted to condos, regardless of the income of any other tenants in the unit. It also banned any lodging house unit from being converted to a condo without permission from the Rent Control Board.

Vacancy decontrol

Boston began decontrolling units on January 1, 1976, allowing rents to reset when new tenants moved in. The law had an expiration date of December 31, 1979 but was extended for three more years.

However, decontrol was not automatic. The Rent Control Board established "a comprehensive set of rules and regulations" that owners must follow in order to obtain a "certificate of vacancy." Part of the application process involved submitted signed affidavits from both the landlord and the tenant moving out.

The Rent Control Board took several months to consider and approve applications for permits. Until the landlord had the certificate, the Board considered the apartment to still be under the previous rules and rents could not be raised for the new tenants.

Confusion over the need for permits, which were mandated months after vacancy decontrol took effect, led to some tenants being charged higher rents before a certificate was obtained. In March 1977, the Rent Control Board ordered landlords to repay tenants in 183 different buildings a total of $24,130. There were 14 who were expected to be referred to the Boston Housing Court. Most of the complaints involved small landlords with three or fewer buildings.

In the 2.5 years after vacancy decontrol began, 40,000 units were removed from rent control. By the end of 1978, 35-40% of all rent-controlled apartments had been decontrolled.

1977 study

A 1977 study group appointed by Mayor While produced an 80-page report in which it was recommended that rent control be eliminated for all except low-income, elderly tenants. Any landlord who had a disproportionate share of such tenants would receive a tax rebate. It said that rent control was designed to be temporary and in response to an "emergency" shortage of housing in 1969, but was not supposed to be a long-term solution.

The Boston Globe, which had previously supported rent control, editorialized after the report was released that "after 10 years, [rent control] is not working here" and that it should be repealed. The "point has come in this city," the editorial board said, "where rent control is counterproductive and should be abandoned." Tenant groups, on the other hand, asked for tighter rent controls and for the staff members who produced the report to be fired.

Two months later, White announced that he would not seek the end of rent control but propose adjustments to address the concerns of both landlords and tenants.

Rent control in Brookline

Rent-controlled units in Brookline

Date	Number of rent-controlled units	Notes
1970	12,000
1975	11,400
1984	8,000
1988	8,000
1990	4,000-7,000
1991	7,200
1994	4,000-4,500

Initial attempt

After a vote to impose rent control in Brookline failed to pass Town Meeting in September 1968, a poll taken leading up to the following election showed that most of the new candidates were drawn to the race so they could vote to limit rents. Votes at Town Meeting failed again in late 1968 and early 1969. Kitty Dukakis was instrumental in the effort to bring rent control to Brookline.

In June 1969, a proposal was adopted to give the Rent Review and Grievance Board the power to cut rents or break rents if tenants complained. There was no appeals process. It was the first municipality in the nation, aside for New York City, to impose rent control in the post-war era.

Landlords were required to report to the Town how much they were collecting in rent, how many rooms each unit had, and how many people were living there. In June 1970, the Supreme Judicial Court struck down the law, saying the Town did not have the authority to implement rent control without a grant of authorization from the Great and General Court. In the time it had been operating, 62 landlords were ordered to slash their rents and six of them had taken the Town to court.

Adoption of rent control

On the same day the new statewide rent control act was signed into law, a home rule petition was enacted granting Brookline the power to impose rent control separately. The next day, the Brookline Selectmen called for a special town meeting to adopt a new by-law that would be even stricter than the one approved by the state.

Following four hours of debate on September 29, 1970, front of a crowd of 1,200, the Town Meeting passed, on a roll call vote of 139–93, a new rent control law. It rolled rents back to their March 1 levels. The law covered 12,000 rental units, including 2,200 in two- and three-family houses. In 1976, Town Meeting adopted a new by-law to take effect in place of the statewide law, which was set to expire in a few weeks.

By 1988, the Boston Globe reported that the rent control by-law had "been altered and patched so many times it has become incomprehensible even to those who administer it." In 1993, the law was 178 pages long.

Rent control was used to keep rents below market value. There was no means-testing and wealthy tenants lived in rent-controlled homes.

Claimed outcomes

Tax burden shifted to homeowners

The Town's rent control policy caused the shift of the tax burden from rent-controlled apartments to homeowners. In January 1985, after property assessments on homeowners rose as much as 78% from the previous valuation three years prior, 100 taxpayers crowded into a Selectmen's meeting to complain.{

The Boston Globe, in a front-page story, used Governor Michael Dukakis as an example. During the first 18 years of rent control, the value of his house rose 1,468%. Rent control supporters admitted at the time that, because rental properties were assessed on how much income they produced while family homes were assessed on their market value, that real estate taxes on homeowners increased and served as a subsidy for renters who were often wealthy.

The town's rent control policy fueled hostility and antagonism in the community. In the 1989 town elections, candidates' lawn signs were torn down, set afire, and otherwise vandalized. The divisions over rent control destroyed friendships, pit neighbor against neighbor, and was said to lead to the most divisive period of Brookline's history in memory.

Rent control units had wealthy tenants

Passions ran high, including arson and property destruction, in Brookline when it was learned homeowners's taxes would more than double while the "well-to-do" were living in rent-controlled apartments. The Brookline Tenants Union opposed means-testing for rent-controlled units. Wealthy tenants living in rent-controlled apartments was a major issue in the 1990 town election. "When units become vacant, they don't go to the poor, they go to the lucky," according to a Brookline selectman.

Brookline Rent Control Board

In December 1984, the Selectmen rejected a white candidate for the Rent Control Board and told the director to find a minority candidate instead. Infighting on the 7-member board had become so bad in 1993 that a selectman called on the entire board to step down. The board had three public interest representatives, two landlord representatives, and two tenant representatives.

Landlords collected a $14 a month tax from tenants that they then submitted to the Town to fund the Rent Control Board. In 1993, Joel Berkovitz succeeded Yvette Begue as director the Rent Control Board; he earned a salary of $51,704.

When rent control was repealed, the Brookline Rent Control Board had an annual budget of $351,000 and a staff of nine full-time and one part-time employees.

1987 reevaluation

In 1987, properties were reassessed and valuations on non-rent-controlled properties increased by more than 100%. The Town's chief assessor said it would mean "dramatically higher taxes for owners of these properties."

Some homeowners, who paid more than 80% of the taxes in Brookline, saw their tax bills triple while owners of rent-controlled apartments received refunds. Buildings with rent-controlled apartments were assessed, and thus taxed, at lower rates than other propoerties. This jump in taxes, and the realization that this was the price of subsiding rent control "changed the political context of the town. Before then, the impact of the cost of social programs was not directly apparent to residential homeowners."

It was estimated in 1987 that, by 1993, the town would face a budget deficit of $13 million. Two years later, in 1989, Brookline homeowners paid the highest taxes in Massachusetts.

Political organizations

Several homeowners began meeting and organizing after the 1987 reevaluation in an effort to gain political power to change the laws which played a major role in the 1990 election.

By 1992, there were at least four homeowner groups, two tenant groups, three taxpayer groups, 22 neighborhood associations, and a variety of splinter groups and alliances. These included:

• Association of One-, Two-, and Three-Family Homeowners
• Brookline Civic Association, which opposed rent control
• Brookline Homeowners Association
• Brookline Neighborhood Coalition
• Brookline PAX, a pro-rent control group that originated as an anti-Vietnam War organization
• Brookline Taxpayers Association
• Brookline Tenants Union, a pro-rent control group had between 350 and 400 members who paid $15 in annual dues
• Committee Against Unfair Taxation
• Condominium Association of Brookline
• Independent Town Meeting Members of Precinct 9 (ITMMOP9)

Condo law

After rent control was implemented in Brookline, many landlord began converting their apartments into condos. Landlords said that condos were "a way out of the rent control housing business". In addition they said it was a way for them to "recoup some of their losses."

From 1970 to 1976, 550 were converted and, from January 1977 to June 1978, another 550 were converted. By 1978, 10% of apartments in the town had been converted.

As a result, that year Brookline adopted a by-law declaring that an apartment could not be converted into a condominium without the consent of the Rent Control Board. Per the terms of the 1978 by-law, when a condo was being sold, the seller could not request an eviction permit from the rent control board; only the buyer of the property could request one. Once the permit was in hand, only then could the buyer go to court to seek an actual eviction. After that, tenants had to be given a minimum of six months notice, with an additional six months granted in hardship cases. This often held up the closing of property sales.

The following year, Brookline became the first community in the country to ban evictions related to condo conversions. It passed at the May 1979 Town Meeting after similar proposals had failed at two previous town meetings The ban was known as the Businger Ban after John Businger, the chief sponsor. If a tenant lived in a condo before it was converted, he could not be evicted.

Under Brookline's rent control law, condo owners were not allowed to live in their properties if they had previously been rentals and were subject to fines of $1,000 a day of they did, even if the apartment was vacant. By 1986, it could take up to six months for the board to issue a permit for condo owners to remove a unit from rent control so they could live in it themselves.

In 1988, Town Meeting granted amnesty to the estimated 400 to 900 owners who were illegally living in their own condos. At the same meeting, Town Meeting banned the conversion of any rent-controlled units to condominiums. Two years later, in 1990, the Rent Control Board sent thousands of letters to owner-occupants of condos that demanded they either pay a $120 rent control registration fee or prove their unit was not subject to rent control.

The Boston Globe described the condominium-permit systems in Brookline and Cambridge as a "confusing maze of regulations," with overlapping exemptions, changing timetables, and lawsuits. Officials in Brookline and Cambridge called the rules simple in theory, but also acknowledged that the process had become difficult to explain.

For example, the rules governing evicting tenants and allowing tenants could buy their units changed repeatedly. At first, owners could sell only to tenants who had occupied a unit for at least one year; later, that rule was abolished, and by 1988 only certain tenants who had lived in their units before September 1, 1985, could buy them under specific conditions.

Rent increases

The Rent Control Board took more than three months in 1975 to hear petitions for rent increases because they conducted an audit "as exhaustive as the Internal Revenue Service's" on landlords records to determine what they believed a justifiable rent increase would be; by 1988, it took a year before a hearing was held. The Brookline Tenants Union opposed all across-the-board rent increases, saying that instead each individual landlord should have to come in and petition the board for an increase.

Landlords, citing operating costs that rose 24.5% in 1979, asked for a rent increase of 14.7% in 1980. Tenants argued that rents should not be raised at all. The president of the Brookline Property Owners Association accused the Rent Control Board of historically ignoring the impact of inflation when determining rent increases and cited the portion of the rent control law which allowed landlords "a fair net operating income."

The Rent Control Board approved an increase of between 4.4% and 10.1%. This included a 3.6% increase previously granted.

From 1972 to 1988, the cost of living rose 187%; the Rent Control Board approved increases in rents of 69%. In more than three years leading up to the 1988 town elections, the Rent Control Board had raised rents by 2.77%. Inflation between 1985 and 1988 was 9.67%.

The Rent Control Board allowed a landlord to raise rents in order to pay off a $100,000 improvement to his property in 1993. A tenant called it "embezzlement" and said "I feel like I am being stolen from." Part of the money would come from a loan that was forgivable after 10 years if he rented to low- and moderate income tenants. The tenants sued to block the rent increase.

Hancock Village

In 1985, Edward E. Zucker purchased Hancock Village, which straddled the Brookline-Boston line."The work I had to do was the result of neglect from 20 years of rent control, where the owner before me had no incentive to do the work," Zucker said. "As a responsible owner I can't close my eyes to things around the place that need to be upgraded." By 1991, he had invested $25 million into the complex to remove asbestos and lead paint, install a new electrical system, roof and window replacements, and make other improvements. When the Rent Control Board approved rent increases to pay for all of the improvements, a group of tenants took Zucker and the Rent Control Board to court to try and overrule the rent increases, some of which doubled over a two-year period. The Board's decision was overturned by the courts but was appealed by the owner of Hancock Village. The judge ruled that the rent increase was not reasonable because the owner did not seek out two independent bids for all improvements, which the Rent Control Board required. Zucker and the Rent Control Board argued that it was not necessary, because he began making the improvements before that requirement took effect.

Secession movement

In 1987, a group of South Brookline residents petitioned to have Precinct 15 removed from Brookline and annexed to Newton. "The homeowner, the major source of property tax revenue is functionally disenfranchised in Brookline; politics is completely dominated by the tenants and the rent control interest," one organizer said of the reason they wanted to move.

Notable Brookline cases

1979 Oil Crisis

During the 1979 oil crisis, landlords asked for an across-the-board increase of 5.3% to account for rising fuel costs so they could afford to provide heat to tenants. The Rent Control Board proposed a 2.5% increase. This upset both landlords and tenants. One landlord restified that "it's absolutely impossible for an owner of a rent-controlled property to even break even in Brookline." The president of the Brookline Tenants Union called a 2.5% increase "unconscionable."

1983 rent increase

From its institution in 1971, the Brookline Rent Control Board only considered changes in maintenance costs and overall operating expenses when considering how much rents could be increased. In September 1984, the board changed the policy, saying they did not believe it was fair to landlords.

At that meeting, Brookline landlords asked the Rent Control Board for a rent increase of more than 30%, while tenants countered with a proposal to raise rents 2.4%. The Rent Control Board then voted for a 16.3% increase, with some members saying they were trying to make up the difference for lost increases in the past under the policy they considered to be unfair. Tenants sued in Suffolk Superior Court to stop the increase.

Tenants also submitted an article to the January 1985 Town Meeting to rescind the 16.3% increase and establish changes to maintenance costs and operating expenses as the only justification for an increase in rent. A selectman opposed the change, saying it did not take into account increases in property taxes and that rent-controlled property would "live in a world free of inflation." The measure passed after a two-hour debate, 132–76, while the court case was still pending. In May 1985, Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti overturned the vote, saying the enabling legislation granting Brookline the power to institute rent control gave the Rent Control Board, not Town Meeting, the authority to decide what methods they would use.

Days later, at the annual town election, an incumbent selectman was defeated and two new rent control supporters were elected to the board, giving them a 3-2 pro-tenant majority. The election, which saw a record turnout, largely revolved around the issue which had been the major policy issue in the town for many years.

Bradford Terrace

To encourage capital improvements on rent-controlled buildings, the Rent Control Board devised a short-form petition for landlords to request a rent increase without having to divulge their operating costs. The long-form petition asked for more information so that the Rent Control Board could decide what they thought a "fair" net operating income was for the landlord to earn. When the Rent Control Board approved a rent increase based on a tax increase for a building on Bradford Terrace using a short-form petition, the tenants sued to stop the increase. The tenants wanted the landlord to open up his books for their inspection so they could determine if they thought a rent increase was justified. The judge ruled in their favor.

The chairman of the Rent Control Board said allowing the ruling to stand would be "a nightmare" as tenants would ask for cases to be reopened. This, he said, would be an expensive burden on the Rent Control Board. The Rent Control Board was funded through tenant fees and the chairman said he did not think taxpayers would want to spend an additional $400,000 on the Rent Control Board when it could go to schools or other municipal services.

Phase out of rent control

In 1990, two rent control opponents beat three rent control supporters for seats on the Board of Selectmen, switching the balance of power from 3–2 in favor of rent control to 4-1 opposed.The two winning candidates were backed by homeowners and other groups calling for changes to the rent control law. One of the winners said that "this has been coming for at least two or three years. This election was the exclamation point on a very, very different Brookline." Homeowners were frustrated by large increases in their property taxes.

In Town Meeting, the election brought a majority of homeowners to the legislative body for the first time in many years. Three years prior, homeowners only made up 20% of town meeting members. They were backed by the Coalition Against Unfair Taxation and other groups. The Brookline Tenant Union lost seats. The Coalition campaigned on the fact that private homes accounted for 40% of all property in town but paid 86% of the tax revenue. They also complained that there were high-income earners living in rent-controlled apartments.

At the October Town Meeting, following a five-hour debate on Article One, also known as the Ames-Merrill housing compromise, a new by-law was adopted by a 133–97 vote. Under the by-law, rent control was to be phased out for all tenants in two- and three-family buildings except for elderly, disabled, or poor tenants. In buildings with three to ten units, units would be removed from rent controls when tenants vacated the apartments.

Owners of those larger buildings, however, would have to either contribute to a town housing fund or set aside 20% of their units for low-income tenants. If they did not, their units would not be removed from rent control. Tenants who were in a "set-aside" apartment could stay for life with below market rents set by the Rent Control Board, no matter how much their income grew in the future.

In response to the vote, the Brookline Tenants Union began circulating a petition calling for a referendum to repeal the new by-law. They did not submit the signatures and there was no referendum.

Tenant activists then claimed that landlords were embarking on renovation projects in rent-controlled apartments after vacancy decontrol was enacted. This, they said, caused rents to go up, forcing out needy tenants and leaving behind only "financially secure tenants, whose presence in rent-control units had much to do with turning public opinion against rent control."

By January 1993, 1,200 apartments were decontrolled and thousands of other units that would have fallen under rent control if their owners moved out received decontrol certificates.

1991 election

Rent control was called "the issue that Refuses to Go Away" in the 1991 election as it dominated all other concerns that year. It was called a litmus test for candidates and polarizing. Tenant activists backed a tenant who ran for selectman and a slate of candidates for town meeting in order to repeal the phase out of rent control adopted the year before.The four major homeowners groups in town supported two candidates for the Board of Selectmen who were opposed to rent control; a fourth candidate called himself "independent" on the issue.

The anti-rent control selectmen candidates won. The campaigns were described as cutthroat, divisive, and bitter with the opposing camps using "communists" and "monied" as epitaphs for their opponents. One candidate for town meeting called it "class warfare."

Increased tax revenue

As rents rose, buildings would become more valuable and thus the amount they could be taxed would rise. It was estimated that the new by-law would add $550 million to the Town's tax base. This would add about $5 million in revenue to the Town, which would cut the average homeowner's tax bill by 5% or allow for additional services while spreading out the burden over additional taxpayers.

In 1992 alone, it was expected Brookline would take in an additional $800,000 in property tax revenue. The following year, an additional $48 million was added to the tax base. This came at a time of softening real estate marketing, helping to avoid cutting services or raising taxes.

Other

The Brookline Tenant Union opposed a proposal before the Rent Control Board that would require tenants to provide their landlords with a copy of the key to the property they owned.

When voters across the Commonwealth were debating a repeal of rent control, the Selectmen voted in favor of home rule petition that would allow them to keep rent control even if it was banned everywhere else.

Rent control in Cambridge

The Cambridge Peace & Freedom Party (Cambridge MDS) tabling circa 1968/1969 as part of their broader effort to get 3,400 signatures to put rent control on the ballot.

Rent-controlled units in Cambridge

Date	Number of rent-controlled units	Notes
1970	20,000
1975	22,000
1979	23,000
1983	20,000
1985	18,000+
1986	17,000
1987	17,116
1989	12,500
1990	16,182
1991	17,000
1992	17,000
1994	14,415 apartments & 1,963 condos

Adoption, repeal, and reenactment

In the late 1960s, rent control was debated in Cambridge. In 1968, the Cambridge Housing Convention was formed to start lobbying for affordable housing . Concurrently, the Peace and Freedom Party launched a campaign to place a rent control referendum on the local ballot. They had canvassed door to door to reach the 3,400 signature threshold required to force it on the ballot, and in turn got 9,000 signatures, passing them to the government in July, 1969.

The referendum campaign concluded on September 11, 1969, after the election commission refused to place the measure on the ballot, ruling that state law did not allow municipalities to adopt rent control without approval from the state. The decision sparked a protest at the commission's Green Street headquarters, resulting in 11 arrests for trespassing and 31 arrests for disturbing the peace.

Despite the setback, the initiative gained legislative traction the following year. Exactly two weeks after Governor Francis Sargent signed into law a local option bill allowing cities and towns to adopt rent control, the city council then adopted a rent control ordinance by a 7–2 vote on September 17, 1970. Rents were rolled back to March 1970 levels and could only be raised with the approval of a locally appointed administrator.

The policy faced an immediate challenge on December 29, 1971, when a lame-duck city council voted to repeal rent control during a special meeting, amidst tenant protests at the Rindge Auditorium. This repeal was short-lived; on January 10, 1972, the newly inaugurated city council reinstated rent control by a 5–4 vote during its first meeting, establishing the framework for the system that ruled the city for the next several decades. The continuity of this system was secured on March 31, 1976, when the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a Cambridge petition to extend rent control just hours before the state enabling law was set to expire.

Claimed outcomes

Lack of apartments

In 1986, Cambridge had an official apartment vacancy rate of 3.3%, but officials believed the actual rate was much lower. The lack of available housing caused people to offer cash rewards for leads that led to finding a rent-controlled apartment. Posters covered bulletin boards and telephone poles across the city. One woman offered a reward of $650 for help in finding a rent-controlled apartment under $500 because she did not want to pay the $800 market rate rent.

By 1990, there was a vacancy rate of 6.13%, more than double the rate in 1960, while the average number of tenants per apartment fell from 2.71 persons to 1.95.

Rent Control's effect on rent

Comparison of rents

Date	Rent-controlled rents	Market rents	Notes
1985	$275	$357-$440
1987	$383	$622
1989	More than 1,000 apartments were under $200.	A single room with no kitchen or bathroom rented for $433.
1990		67% more than rent-controlled units
1994	Average was $283.	Average was $891.

The housing market was in a pronounced slump in 1992, which caused market rate rents to fall. Rents peaked in 1987 and fell as much as 33% five years later. Because landlords were allowed to temporarily increase rents to pay for repairs through controlled rents, but there was no guarantee on a return for landlords with market rate units, there were cases where tenants in rent-controlled units were paying more in rent than those in market rate units. However, most rent-controlled units were still rented out well below what market rate units fetched.

Tenants in rent-controlled apartments paid, on average, $386 a month, or 53% of the rents tenants in non-rent-controlled apartments did in 1992. The following year, rents in Cambridge were more than 20% below the median rents in neighboring communities and rent-controlled units were let out at lower rates than 80% of the adjacent area market. Rents in neighboring Somerville were double rents in Cambridge for comparable units, and large rent-controlled units paid half the rent of smaller, non-rent-controlled units with similar amenities and locations.

Despite this, the city was still officially in a "housing emergency" that allowed for the continuation of rent control. Persons per unit was also the lowest among surrounding communities, suggesting that most units were not being occupied by families.

Tax burden shift and wealth redistribution

Cambridge buildings that were under rent control paid 1/3 of the taxes that non-rent-controlled buildings did. In one case, a rent-controlled building that was twice the size of a non-rent-controlled building across the street paid less than 1/7 the taxes.

In 1985, it was estimated that homeowners paid an additional $5 million to $10 million a year to subsidize the rents of those in rent-controlled apartments through higher taxes. In 1990, the cost to Cambridge was $12 million, with the average non-rent-controlled landlord paying an additional $600 in taxes to subsidize rent-controlled units. That year, Cambridge residents paid the 12th highest taxes out of 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

From 1970 to 1978, taxes rose 71%. In 1990, taxes on some homeowners doubled. One owner, who lived in his building, had expenses that were five times the amount of rent he was able to collect.

When rent control was instituted in 1970, buildings with four or more units paid 50% of all of the property tax revenue in Cambridge. By 1993, this was reduced to less than 10%.

Rent-controlled units not means tested

Cambridge's rent control system was not means-tested, allowing tenants to occupy rent-controlled apartments regardless of their income. William H. Walsh, a Cambridge city councilor who earned more than $100,000 in 1986 while living in a nine-room, rent-controlled apartment, said it was a “myth” that rent-controlled apartments were reserved for low- and moderate-income tenants. He said that neither he nor the other residents of his building fit that description.

A study conducted by the city's Community Development Department found that half of tenants in rent-controlled apartments spent 20% or less of their income on rent, compared with the standard affordability threshold of 30%. Approximately 1,500 of the 12,000 rent-controlled households had incomes exceeding 150% of the median income.

A 1992 study by "a widely respected nonpartisan housing analyst" found that half of all tenants in rent-controlled apartments were young professionals. When students were excluded, this number jumped to 64%. Harvard University alone had 1,700 educationally associated units under rent control for graduate students and university officials. A 1984 MIT study found students and young professionals accounted for more than half of rent-controlled apartments. Mayor Ken Reeves was used as a prime example of "a permanent class of young professionals... who found cheap apartments in their youth and now refuse to budge." During the statewide repeal campaign in 1993, Michael Turk, the president of the Cambridge Tenants Union and the best known tenant activist in Cambridge, was living in the same rent-controlled apartment he occupied as a graduate student 20 years prior.

Rent controlled apartments had a disproportionate number of people in their prime earning years living in them. The median household income in rent-controlled apartments was more than double the income of tenants in low-income subsidized housing. The rent to income ratio of rent-controlled tenants was much lower than it was for tenants of public housing units. A member of the Cambridge Tenants Union conceded that "I've seen that trend over time."

A 1987 study found that 70% of tenants in rent-controlled apartments earned below median-income. In this study, however, students were considered as low-income and many high-income tenants were reluctant to admit their true salaries to telephone pollsters.

Proposals to limit rent-controlled apartments according to tenants’ needs were rejected. In 1987, Walsh said that “the elderly, families, and minorities are getting little or no benefit from rent control.” His proposal to amend the law to target benefits for poor tenants, people with disabilities, and elderly tenants was opposed by the Cambridge Tenants Union. Another proposal in 1991 to tax tenants in rent-controlled apartments if their incomes exceeded 150% of the federal median income was killed before it reached the city council floor. Instead, tenant activists called for the creation of a city-funded "Housing Access Office" to help those who were not well-connected find rent-controlled apartments.

Reeves, who made $43,400 as a part-time city councilor, plus income from his full-time job as an attorney, also opposed means testing for rent-controlled apartments. In 1990, WCVB broadcast a three-part series showing “judges, television executives, lawyers, and others” living in rent-controlled apartments at below-market rents. Reeves, who had been interviewed for the series, called it a "hatchet job." The City Council subsequently rejected a motion to institute means testing and instead adopted a resolution criticizing WCVB for broadcasting the series.

In 1970, the Cambridge Housing Authority had 1,700 families on its waiting list for low-income housing. This grew to 3,500 families in January 1991; by the end of that year, the list had grown to 5,200.

Cambridge Rent Control Board

The Cambridge Rent Control Board was composed of two landlords, two tenants who were usually recommended by the Tenants Union, and a chairman. They were appointed by the city manager.

Between 1986 and 1990, the Rent Control Board pressed criminal charges against six landlords. The rents the Rent Control Board allowed private landlords to collect was half the rents tenants of government-subsidized housing developments paid.

Rents were based on 1967 levels. By 1990, 42% of rent-controlled apartments had never received an adjustment to cover increased operating expenses. That year, 9.9% of landlords did not receive a general rent adjustment because they did not file the required paperwork with the Board. In fiscal year 1990, there were 1,238 cases brought before the Board. Of those, 33 were tenant complaints.

When rent control was repealed in 1994, the Cambridge Rent Control Board had an annual budget of $1.3 million, 25 full-time and 8 part-time employees.

The Rent Control Board heard roughly 1,200 cases initiated by landlords in 1993, up from 800 in 1992. That year, they took about two months to issue a ruling on average, with rent adjustment cases taking 85 days and evictions taking 33 days. In 1983, it took 75 days to process an eviction case and 195 days, or 6.5 months, to process a rent adjustment. Cases sometimes took two years.

After a rent increase request took 13 months to process, one landlord stopped requesting them, even though she continued to spend money to make improvements to the property. Both tenants and landlords agreed that the process took too long, required too much paperwork, and contributed to an adversarial relationship.

Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee

The Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee (CTOC), which described itself as radical and anticapitalist, was founded in 1970.

In 1975, the Rent Control Board approved an increase in rents to bring the landlord's expense ratio up to 1967 levels. The CTOC then sued the Board, saying it was unfair that there were two landlords on the board since they stood to benefit financially from any rent increases approved. The CTOC also organized a rent strike in which over 700 tenants would refuse to pay the increase approved by the Board to account for inflation. "I can't accept that landlords' point of view that we as tenants have to carry the whole thing," one striking tenant said.

Notable tenants

Some of Cambridge's 'most visible public citizens' lived in rent-controlled apartments. They included

• Ruth Abrams, a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, lived in a rent-controlled apartment on Memorial Drive overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline. She paid $624 a month for the apartment, which included heat and hot water.

• Howie Carr, journalist at the Boston Herald, WRKO, and Boston Magazine. Carr, who criticized Senator Wetmore for living in a rent-controlled apartment "in the post 02138 ZIP code," also had a rent-controlled apartment next to Harvard's Sackler Museum.

• Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, rented a house with a large front porch, four bedrooms, five fireplaces, a parlor, a living room, and maid's quarters on a quiet side street near Harvard Square. Terry Morriss, the executive director of the Rent Control Board, said royalty living in a rent-controlled house proved the system was working. "Rent control is not income-based," he said.

• David O. Ives, president and chairman of the board of WBGH, paid $631 a month for a rent-controlled house on Mt. Auburn Street.

• Kenneth Reeves, the mayor of Cambridge at the time rent control was repealed in Massachusetts, was living in the same rent-controlled apartment he lived in as a Harvard Law School student in 1973. His rent was $425 a month.

• Robert D. Wetmore, a state senator from Barre in western Worcester County, stayed in a rent-controlled apartment when the legislature was in session. Because it was rent-controlled, he could not be evicted so that someone who wanted the apartment full time could have it.

Other Rent Control Board decisions

A survey conducted by the Rent Control Board in the late 1970s showed that a 14% increase in rents should be given; the Board voted for a 6% increase.

The Rent Control Board set the rent for June Sekera's condo at $190 a month; Sekera's mortgage and condo fee were $1,250 a month. John F. Natale said he was "imprisoned in 3 1/2 rooms with his wife and two kids" because, if he moved out, the apartment would be subject to rent control. He would not be able to afford to pay market rate rents elsewhere while collecting below-market rents on his controlled apartment, he said.

707 program changes

A state law change in 1992 changed a housing subsidy program known as Section 707. As a result, the rents landlords received were slashed from market levels to rent-controlled levels, affecting the owners of 350 apartments around Cambridge. Under the old system, tenants paid 30% of their income in rent and the state paid for the rest.

Under the new program, tenants received a voucher worth a lump sum amount, and the tenant was responsible for anything above that amount. Apartments with Section 707 vouchers also came under rent control under the new system, while previously they did not. "If the units go back under rent control," one landlord said, "I know we'll lose the building because there's no way we can pay the mortgage and maintain it."

Condo conversions

Adoption of conversion restrictions

The number of conversions of apartments into condominiums grew dramatically in the 1970s.

Because the conversions represented a loss of units from the rental housing stock, the City Council adopted a law in August 1979 making it illegal to convert the units without the consent of the Rent Control Board. The measure passed by a 5–3 vote. The city solicitor had advised the council not to adopt the law, saying that the state had not granted the City Council the authority to regulate condominium conversions. Roughly 10% of rent-controlled units were converted before the law took effect.

Occupancy and enforcement

If the Rent Control Board granted a conversion permit and the owner wanted to sell the unit, the owner then had to bring the tenant before the board in a separate proceeding to obtain an eviction permit. If the board granted the eviction permit, the owner then had to obtain a court order authorizing the eviction. No hearing could be held before the sale, meaning that prospective buyers could not know whether the board would allow them to occupy the unit, even if they intended to use it as their home.

If a home was not covered under rent control, the seller needed to obtain a certificate from the Rent Control Board before they could sell it to someone who wished to live in it themselves. One Boston Globe reporter who was selling his home said the requirement "created nightmares for many homeowners like me." He produced a "fastidiously researched application" that was "a half-inch thick and included documents dating back 14 years."

A tenant living in a rent-controlled unit could legally purchase and occupy it, provided that the tenant had occupied the unit before August 10, 1979. A tenant who moved in after that date could purchase the unit but would have to move out and rent it to someone else. These rules could produce mixed buildings in which some units remained subject to rent control while others did not.

Owners were also prohibited from making repairs or renovations that required tenants to vacate their apartments, even temporarily, without the Rent Control Board's permission. David Wylie, the city councilor who drafted the ordinance, said it was "intended to be tightly drawn to make it difficult for owners to get board permission." As of October 1980, fewer than 15 permits had been granted. According to Peter Stanton, executive director of the Cambridge Rent Control Board, "the great majority" of permit applications were rejected. Because only "a handful" of applications were approved, the restrictions amounted to "a freeze" on condominium conversions.

Violations were punishable by fines of $500 per day, one year in jail, or both. In 1991, Cambridge had 7,000 condominiums, approximately 2,000 of which were subject to rent control. Of those, 800 had never sought a rent adjustment, leading the Rent Control Board to believe that the units were being illegally occupied by their owners. The city investigated 85 owners by 1993, with hearings held in six cases "for the crime of living in their own units." They did research at the Registry of Deeds, talked to mail carriers, and checked the return address of letters sent to the rent control board.

Owner-occupants feared being prosecuted

Owners feared being discovered, as happened to one woman after her neighbor, an activist with the Cambridge Tenants Union, filed a complaint with the Rent Control Board. The activist also named as defendants in the case the real estate professionals who helped her buy the unit. The son of the woman illegally living in the condo she owned gave up going to college so his mother could pay her legal bills. The owner was facing nearly $1,000,000 in fines and developed anorexia and depression. The owner did not register to vote or take part in the census to hide from the government.

A Chinese woman who was so terrified of being arrested for living in the condo she owned moved out of it, became homeless, and rented it out. The rent she collected did not cover her mortgage expenses. A young single man bought a condo and lived in it, but later married and had children. The children shared a bedroom while he and his wife slept in the living room. He could not sell it because the mortgage was $1,100 a month, but the Rent Control Board set rents at $400. "When one of us wants to go to bed at night," he said, "the other one has to read in the bathroom."

An attorney representing a condominium owner who violated the law by moving into a unit she owned said, "There is something fundamentally wrong with telling people they cannot live in their own property." Others established "elaborate trusts or other schemes to hide true ownership." In one case, the estate of a deceased dog was made the owner of a condominium to allow the deceased dog's human owner to live there.

Because it was illegal to purchase and occupy a condominium without a "removal permit," several condominium owners protested at City Council meetings while wearing bags over their heads to conceal their identities and prevent their arrest. Some owners testified at the Statehouse on bills that would impact rent control wearing disguises. "I'm on the run," said one owner who was wearing a fake beard and sunglasses, and who gave a fake name to lawmakers.

Legal challenges

Local landlords challenged the ordinance three months after its adoption, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld its validity on March 12, 1981. The City Council further tightened the regulations on June 22, 1981, by adopting an amendment that prohibited landlords from selling rent-controlled units to real-estate investors.

In a 1992 lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of the rent control law, one of the plaintiffs was listed simply as Jane Doe. She was worried that if her true identity was revealed, the city would evict her from her home.

Sellers found their units difficult to sell because purchasers could not occupy them. On average, a condominium subject to rent control sold for 35% less than one that was not.

Community Development Department

The City of Cambridge's Community Development Department ran a program where it bought derelict, financially unstable rental buildings and renovated them using a mixture of city and state funds. Tenants then bought their units and the City ran the building as a limited equity co-op. Private owners of rent-controlled buildings were not allowed to convert their apartments into condos and sell them to their tenants but, once the City took over these buildings, tenants were then allowed to purchase them.

According to the chairman of the Small Property Owners Association, a representative of the department told the organization that the reason the buildings were run down was that rent control made it financially unfeasible for their previous owners to maintain them. John Natale, the SPOA chairman, said it was "the ultimate insult" that the city created a set of regulations that made managing a rental property financially untenable and then "solved our problem" by taking the buildings over using tax dollars.

Rent surcharges

The Cambridge City Council appropriated $297,000 to the Rent Control Board in 1982, but authorized them to spend up to $610,000. The Rent Control Board then added a 1% surcharge to rents in the city to bring in more money to hire additional staff. In the spring of 1991, an additional tax was added to the rents of rent-controlled apartments to raise funds for the repairs of substandard units. Tenant activists opposed the surcharge, saying it was "absolutely unfair to [impose a surcharge] on tenants alone for anything." landlords also opposed it as they would be responsible for collecting it from tenants and paying it to the city, but it was unclear what would happen if a tenant refused to pay.

Under the law, which was passed by an 8–1 vote, landlords could take a loan from the fund to make repairs to deteriorating rent-controlled properties. They could not, however, pass the full cost of the repairs on to the tenants. It was repealed that summer after pressure from tenant groups caused city councilors to withdraw their support.

City-wide hearing

By 1993, the rent control debate was old, well worn, and as divisive as ever in Cambridge. When a mediator was suggested to help both sides find common ground and eliminate the perpetual battle, tenant advocates opposed the suggestion and called it "just another form of attack" upon rent control. They said there were no major problems with the rent control system as it currently existed and thus no need to bring in a mediator. They also said they did not think the Small Property Owners Association was interested in improving the rent control system.

They also rejected the offer made by recently retired Quincy District Court Judge Albert Kramer who volunteered to serve as mediator. Tenants activists rejected the offer made by this nationally recognized arbiter because it was made through the office of Councilor William Walsh, a rent control opponent. The city council rejected a proposal to hire a mediator, 5-4, on May 3, 1993. The city council also rejected his offer.

While the city council debated the idea, Cambridge Clergy for Affordable Housing began hosting their own sessions with tenants, landlords, and mediators in small groups. Tenant activists called the clergy group biased towards the landlords since, historically, the churches "contended that the city's poorsest and neediest residents are persistently left out when it comes to building affordable housing and leasing rent-controlled apartments."

Instead, it was decided to hold a city-wide hearing on rent control, but even just putting together an agenda, a date, or even an agreement on who should help with the planning proved to be controversial. At the hearing, SPOA proposed deregulating about 2/3 of the units currently under rent control while dedicating the remaining third to low income, elderly, or handicapped tenants. They idea, they said, was to set aside one unit for a tenant that needed it for every two that were taken off the rent control roles.

The Cambridge Tenants Union proposed that the city create a revolving loan fund to help landlords make repairs to their properties when income from rent was not sufficient. They also proposed a "no frills" renovation standard so that only essential repairs, and not upgrades, would be made to units.

When Walsh called for a second hearing in the fall, but was denied, he used procedural maneauvers to put all of the Council's work on hold. He said after the second meeting that he would continue to do so until landlords were granted relief from rent control.

Proposed statewide repeal

During the debate on the statewide prohibition of rent control, city councilor Katherine Triantafillou, a rent control supporter, offered a resolution on post-election options. She said that said there were "between 2,000 and 3,000 low-income families" out of the roughly 14,000 families in rent-controlled apartments who would lost rent control protections if the ballot question passed.

The annual budget for the Rent Control Board was $1.4 million in 1994 and the city lost $12 million in lost property taxes due to depressed property values. The city could have given each of the low-income tenants in rent controlled apartments $300 a month for a total cost of $7.2 million, or less than half of what rent control cost.

The Rent Control Board also began adjusting their procedures in response to the proposed repeal, speeding up the amount of time it took to consider rent adjustments and more aggressive case management. He Terrence Morris, the executive director, denied that the changes were designed to pacify voters on the eve of the election but admitted the possibility of repeal was the catalyst for them.

Other

When rent control was first enacted it quickly became a central issue in every election that followed. It was described as "the Nation's most Draconian version of rent control."

The city purposely did not inspect some run down apartments because they did not meet safety codes. The owners could not afford to fix them and, if the city made a finding that it was uninhabitable, the tenants would be displaced.

According to the executive editor of Banker and Tradesman, "because of the Cambridge rent control law, [selling a home] will be more complicated, time-consuming, and probably more expensive than if you pursued the same strategy in almost any other community in the state."

In July 1991, the Small Property Owners Association staged a sit-in protest in the Cambridge City Hall, calling for an end to rent control and for Mayor Alice Wolf to declare a "property rights day."

Impact of the repeal

Researchers have described the repeal of rent control in Cambridge as a natural experiment that significantly affected property values, residential investment, and neighborhood development throughout the city. Close to 40% of all Cambridge properties were under rent control when it was repealed.

Housing development

Residential investment rose sharply following decontrol. Annual permitted residential investment more than doubled relative to the years immediately preceding the repeal, reflecting substantial increases in renovations, building upgrades, and new construction.

Within four years of repealing the law, Cambridge, where "the city's form of rent control was unusually strict," saw new housing and construction increase substantially, and the tax revenue from construction permits tripled.

Tenants

After the repeal, the Massachusetts General Court passed a law protecting low-income tenants in rent control apartments from being evicted. Only 9.4% of tenants in rent-controlled apartments in Cambridge applied for and received protection for up to two years.

One review states that one possible explanation for the low number is the combination of a strict income limit with inaction by tenants whose rents did not immediately rise in the aftermath of repeal. However, "the dramatically low percentage of formerly controlled units whose tenants established protected status gives credence to the assertion of opponents of rent control that it had become an entitlement program for middle- and upper-income tenants."

After the repeal, median rents rose 40 percent in Cambridge for tenants who stayed in formerly controlled units or moved to other never-controlled units. Additionally, "exit rates from formerly controlled units spiked... and given the substantial accompanying increases in rents, it is likely that the new cohorts of renters were significantly more affluent than the tenants they replaced."

Property values

Property values in Cambridge increased by about $7.8 billion in the decade following the repeal. Roughly a quarter of this increase, approximately $2 billion ($3 billion in 2024 dollars), was attributable to the repeal of rent control.

The majority of the increase in housing values attributable to decontrol came from spillover effects on neighboring properties rather than direct gains to formerly controlled units. Never-controlled properties captured more than half of the total capitalized gains associated with the repeal, and properties in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of rent-controlled housing experienced particularly large gains.

Rent control in Lynn

In 1970, after the state law was passed, Lynn's city council adopted rent control. In 1974, the voters of that city repealed it. In 1976, a question was placed on the ballot in Lynn to determine if voters wanted to re-institute rent control.

During that time, many landlords, who were "squeezed by rent control and bad economic times, resorted to arson." According to Fire Chief Curtis T. Numberg, Lynn "had major problems. We burned down a good portion of the city."

Argued effects

Effects on housing stocks

Deteriorating buildings

The difficulty of recovering costs due to rent control discouraged the development of new buildings, and basic upkeep of existing buildings went undone. Many tenants with the lowest rents lived in buildings with "leaky roofs, falling gutters, makeshift and unsanitary bathrooms and no central heating."

The chairman of the Small Property Owners Association said that "it's basic economics" that "buildings that are cash-starved will gradually deteriorate" as landlords can't afford to replace heating or electrical systems or roofs and windows when they reach the end of their natural lives. Banks were hesitant to lend to owners of buildings that were rent-controlled, making it even more difficult for owners to make repairs. The value of the properties was also diminished, lowering the borrowing power of owners of rent-controlled buildings.

The City of Cambridge, recognizing that banks would not loan to owners of rent-controlled buildings, interceded with local banks to set up a loan fund at 11.5% interest. The chairman of the Small Properties Owners Association opined that the need for a special fund was confirmation from the City that "our rents are too low to give us any cash reserve to handle" repairs and renovations to their properties.

Urban blight

See also: § Abandoned buildings

When properties that were under rent control fell into disrepair, they negatively impacted the property values of the buildings around them.

In a 1975 study of the effects of rent control in Massachusetts, George Sternlieb, the founder of the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research, said that the loss of rental income would lead to a loss of "much of [the state's] housing investment." This was especially true communities like Boston and Cambridge, who had older housing stock and which would become a "wasted asset." In 1988, the City of Cambridge estimated that it would cost between $40,000 and $60,000 to renovate most rent-controlled apartments.

The Boston Rent Control Board slashed rents on one owner's properties by 2/3rds, bringing the total income on 8 units to $1,281. The property fell into disrepair with $150,000 worth of repairs needed. The bank that held the mortgage note tried to auction it off, but there were no bidders. Another building in the Bay Bay had a mortgage of $250,000 but, when the bank which foreclosed upon it asked for $205,000, they could not sell it.

In 1985, Boston mayor Ray Flynn ordered a survey of all boarded-up buildings in Boston. By the time rent control ended in Boston, there were more than 10,000 vacant units in that city.

Decrease in rental units

By 1975, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board said the industry was "extremely sick" and blamed the problem on real estate taxes and rent control. The next year, they reported that rent control, condominium conversion laws, and other factors "virtually stopped construction in some markets."

Only two buildings of apartments had been built in the city of Boston with conventional financing in 1974. The income buildings could produce under rent control, the Board said, was not enough to cover its expenses. Only five of 31 Boston-area banks surveyed that year said they would finance the construction of new apartments if they would be subject to rent control.

By 1977, developers had stopped asking banks for loans and the only apartments being built were financed with federal- or state-insured mortgages, rent subsidies, or "tandem mortgages" where federal-oriented financial agencies bought mortgages. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company reported that they were financing apartments in other parts of the country but, with rent control and taxes in Massachusetts, it did not make "economical sense to build conventionally."

Prior to rent control, financing the construction of apartments made up 67% of John Hancock's portfolio but, by 1976, it dropped to 7.3% Instead, they turned to office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, and industrial properties "where rents are automatically escalated to keep up with operating costs."

At a meeting of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers in 1978, the speaker on conventional financing of multi-family residential homes said "there is none. Our firm has not provided one unit of financing in the past two years and has not been asked to." Developers said the fear that rents might be controlled in the future, even if they were exempt at the time, prevented them from building apartments.

During the 1980s, the number of available rental units shrank. In 1980, there were roughly 150,000 privately owned rental units in Boston but, by 1987, that number dropped to 122,350. In Cambridge, construction of new housing "was nonexistent" during the rent control era.

Condominium conversions

In the 1970s, conversions of apartments to condominiums began to take off. During the first 7 years of rent control, 5,000 rent-controlled apartments were converted in Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. According to the Boston Globe, it was "because sizable profits can be made and because rent control... inhibits rental income and can give landlords other headaches as well."

The Rental Housing Association of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board said in 1975 that condos "are such a logical outgrowth of rent control and runaway inflation that they must be reckoned with." By 1983, the four communities that had rent control were those that saw the highest number of rental units converted into condominiums.

To prevent further conversions, those communities began requiring permission from the local rent control board to remove the unit from the rental housing market. The Boston Globe described the condominium-permit systems in Brookline and Cambridge as a "confusing maze of regulations," with overlapping exemptions, changing timetables, and lawsuits. Officials in Brookline and Cambridge called the rules simple in theory, but also acknowledged that the process had become difficult to explain.

Supporters said the permit systems preserved rental housing by preventing apartments from being converted one by one into owner-occupied condominiums. Opponents argued that the restrictions made it harder for moderate-income buyers to purchase converted apartments and limited owners' ability to sell their property. By 1988, few apartment buildings in communities with rent control were being converted to condominiums, which supporters described as evidence that the regulations were working.

Financial

According to Commonwealth Magazine, the history of rent control in Massachusetts and around the nation "paints a consistent picture of market distortions and unintended, often inequitable, consequences." Robert Kuttner, the liberal columnist, said that rent control "creates a two-tier housing market where a controlled building contains outlandish bargains while an uncontrolled building across the street commands astronomical 'market' rents."

Through rent control, those who owned their own homes subsidized the rents of those who occupied rent-controlled apartments in the form of higher taxes.

Disparity between rents and operating costs

During the first three years of rent control, 1970 to 1973, the rents in rent-controlled apartments rose 6.7%. The cost to maintain and operate apartments during that period was more than double that. In 1973, fewer than 12% of tenants in rent-controlled apartments saw their rent go up. Costs for landlords rose 8% that year.

From 1970 to 1978, costs to maintain rental properties rose 84.5%; the Rent Control Board in Boston raised rents 67.5%. According to the Boston Globe, a disproportionate share of the costs of rent control is borne by the landlord. No other business is regulated in the same often arbitrary way."

The Boston Gas Company was owed more than $500,000 in unpaid bills by 137 housing developments in 1975 and told the Department of Public Utilities of their intention to turn off the heat and hot water on more than 13,000 units and 38,000 mostly low-income tenants. They developments, which were constructed in the 1960s, were "drastically behind in mortgage payments, paying utility bills and taking care of needed maintenance."

Property managed testified that the amount of income coming in was insufficient to meet their costs and, because of rent control, they were unable to raise the rents. Many properties were in default, and some had already been foreclosed upon. One of the developers wanted to give up the properties and had asked HUD to take over the buildings, but the federal agency refused.

HUD programs

When rent control was first instituted in Massachusetts, federally subsidized housing developments were placed under the purview of local rent control boards. In 1975, H.R. Crawford of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued new regulations exempting them from rent control, saying that the government needed to protect its $1 billion investment in housing stock.

Properties that were insured under a 1983 HUD program were able, in some circumstances, to bypass local rent control boards. By having HUD insure the properties, lenders loaned money to property developers at lower rates, leading to lower rents.

However, if a landlord could not make the payments because the rents allowed by rent control boards was too low, then HUD would make partial payments to the lenders to keep the properties from defaulting and going into foreclosure. HUD could preempt local rent control boards and allow for higher rents in order to protect taxpayers from having to pay on defaulted loans.

Foreclosure

Housing projects under rent control were unable to make their mortgage payments, putting them in danger of foreclosure. In Boston alone, there were 13,787 units that were protected by HUD's mortgage protection program. By 1975, more than half of them reverted to the government by 1977 because the owners defaulted and the banks collected their mortgage insurance.

According to Crawford, "local rent control is a significant factor in causing owners of Federal Housing Administration projects, especially subsidized projects, to default on their mortgage payments."

One owner with a HUD-backed mortgage was Boston Celtics player Satch Sanders. He bought a dilapidated building in Dorchester with rats and leaks "for the social thing," believing that Black residents should do more to help their own community. He eventually obtained 82 units throughout Dorchester and Roxbury but, "from a business standpoint, it was a disaster."

His utility bills were higher than the rents he brought in and, by the time the Rent Control Board approved one increase, he was in need of another. The bank foreclosed on him and HUD took over ownership.

Redistribution of state aid and tax burden

Because rent-controlled apartments fell into disrepair, and because properties that generate less income are less valuable, they were assessed lower. The total tax assessment in communities with rent control declined.

When a unit in Boston's Back Bay was converted from a rent-controlled apartment to a condo, its tax assessment nearly tripled. In Brookline, when a rent-controlled apartment was converted, tax revenue increased 28%.

For every dollar in rent that tenants saved, municipalities lost 30 cents in tax revenue. If a rent-controlled apartment was rented for $25 a month less than the market rate, the city lost $90 a year in revenue. Homeowners, in the form of higher property taxes, also subsidized the rents of those in rent-controlled apartments, according to economists.

Difficulty selling rent-controlled homes

In 1976, during an upturn for the real estate market generally, rent-controlled properties suffered. They were, according to one real estate professional, "proving to be highly difficult to sell at a reasonable figure because of a limitation on their income."

Societal

Lack of means-testing

There was no requirement that rent-controlled apartments be rented to low-income tenants; at least 20 percent of all rent-controlled apartments housed the rich. The vast majority housed middle- and high-income earners, with the majority going to people with professional, technical, and managerial jobs. Many tenants were wealthier than their landlords.

A study by Rolf Goetze titled "Rent Control: Affordable Housing for the Privileged, Not The Poor" found in August 1994 that the median income per tenant in a rent-controlled apartment was $1,060 more than it was in a market rate apartment. Tenant advocacy organizations opposed means-testing.

According to MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the reason that rent-controlled apartments tend to go to the rich is that they already have well-paying jobs. It is the poor who move from place to place in search of better opportunities, which means they lose out on the benefits of a rent-controlled apartment. "It really was a bad idea, and it continues to be a bad idea," Gruber said. "It's against basic economics."

Racial disparities

The scarcity of housing reportedly hit families, and Black families especially, the hardest.

Potential delaying of energy-saving upgrades

A study in the International Journal of Housing Policy found that rent control can make it harder to reduce carbon emissions from buildings as many energy-saving upgrades, such as better insulation, new windows, or more efficient heating systems, pose a significant upfront expense. Landlords are usually responsible for paying for these improvements, but tenants often receive much of the benefit through lower energy bills. When rent control limits a landlord's ability to raise rents and recover the cost of these upgrades, landlords may be less willing to invest in them. As a result, older buildings may use more energy and produce more greenhouse gas emissions.

Statewide repeal

Rent control was repealed in 1994 via ballot initiative with an effective date of January 1, 1995. Massachusetts became the 27th state to ban rent control.

Only Cambridge, Brookline, and Boston maintained active rent control systems, each under separate enabling acts, while Amherst had a rent review system, and Lowell, Waltham, and Somerville had enabling legislation authorizing rent control but no program in effect. Only Cambridge had a full system in place even though "by virtually all commonly accepted measures... [Cambridge had] the very opposite of a housing emergency" at the time.

After rent control was repealed, average rents rose 21 percent across all units in municipalities that had a rent control program before repeal.

Small Property Owners Association

The repeal effort was led by small Cambridge landlords who felt they were being unfairly treated by the local rent control board. In this way, they used a state ballot question to achieve a primarily local policy change and end what "had long been an ugly, simmering local dispute."

The Small Property Owners Association had its start when David P. Sullivan purchased a six-unit building from his father; all units were rent-controlled. The rent control law allowed landlords to recover possession of a rent-controlled unit if they wanted it for themselves or a family member, and Sullivan wanted to rent it to his daughter, who was getting married. The Rent Control Board denied his petition, however, and it took two years and "substantial concessions" to the tenant in order to get them to leave. The episode aggrieved Sullivan and his family, who believed the Rent Control Board was acting outside the law and was hostile to landlords, and so he helped to found the Small Property Owners Association (SPOA).

Likewise, Denise Jillson purchased a four-family home with her husband. She wanted to use the same provision of the law that allowed owners to occupy their own properties, but was subject to a long delay by the Rent Control Board. While Jillson and her family were living with other relatives, the tenant in the unit she wished to inhabit was subletting rooms in the apartment. This led to Jillson becoming a co-chair of the SPOA and the leader of the statewide ballot campaign.

The other co-chair of the SPOA was Salim Kabawat. By 1993 the organization had more than 1,400 members, many of whom were elderly and immigrants. The SPOA frequently fielded phone calls from distraught property owners who were upset with the way their tenants or the Rent Control Board was treating them.

Legislative and legal attempts

After the 1991 Cambridge city council elections, the SPOA, seeing a pro-rent control majority for the next two years who were not open to compromise, launched a fundraising campaign to challenge rent control in the courts. Their case focused on five points:

• It had been over 20 years since a housing emergency was declared, and the emergency was now over.
• Rent control failed to provide housing to the poor and the elderly, which was its stated purpose.
• landlords were not receiving a fair net operating income.
• The prohibition of condo conversions was illegal.
• Rent control constituted a taking of private property without just compensation.

After losing the case and their appeal, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case, partly on a technicality. The SPOA, which had nearly 1,000 members by this point, launched another lawsuit in 1992. A Superior Court judge threw out 13 of the 16 claims in March 1993. The judge said many of the issues raised in their lawsuit would be better address in the Statehouse or in City Hall.

With the help of Rep. Philip Travis, the SPOA filed four pieces of legislation in 1993 that would erode rent control in Cambridge. The first would exempt any building with six units or fewer from rent control, the second changed the way rent-controlled properties were assessed, the third would allow rent-controlled units to remain vacant for more than four months, and the last would require the any community that wanted to retain rent control to re-certify that a housing emergency still existed 20+ years after it was used to justify the establishment of rent control.

Legal background

Jon R. Maddox, a Cambridge lawyer, became involved with the Small Property Owners Association in 1993 after learning that his condominium was subject to Cambridge's restrictions on owner occupancy of certain condominium-converted units. Maddox was in danger of being prosecuted for living in a condominium he owned.

The legal basis for the 1994 initiative petition rested on the argument that rent control was a matter of state policy rather than a purely local issue. Maddox's initial draft would have prohibited rent control outright, but the Attorney General's office raised concerns that it might be excluded from the initiative process because its practical operation would be limited to particular municipalities.

Maddox revised the petition to authorize all Massachusetts cities and towns to adopt a limited form of rent control, which effectively abolished it, while prohibiting any other form of rent control. Under the proposal, a community could adopt rent control but would have to pay landlords, who would have to opt in to the program, for lost rent. Tenant activists said the voluntary section, which would apply to every community in the Commonwealth, was a "sham." No municipality would adopt it, they said. The Attorney General's office concluded that the revised petition was not restricted to particular localities because it gave every municipality some legal authority it did not previously have.

Cambridge tenants formed the Campaign for Affordable Housing and Tenant Protection to oppose the effort. The Campaign argued that because rent control was primarily a local issue, and that the elected city council in Cambridge supported rent control, that it was "antidemocratic" to try and adopt a state law banning it; it was a special state law that granted Cambridge the authority to institute rent control.

Signatures gathered

The SPOA filed the initial paperwork to bring the question to the ballot in August 1993. The petition was certified on September 1, 1993; proponents then had to gather more than 70,000 signatures by November 17, 1993. The City of Cambridge challenged the certification, but the Supreme Judicial Court upheld it.

Within three weeks of certification, the newly-formed Massachusetts Homeowners Coalition had an office set up with furniture, telephones, computers, and a fax machine. They also had volunteers staffing it from 9 am to 9 pm, seven days a week.

There were volunteers from across the state who participated in the campaign. The effort was supported by The Massachusetts Association of Realators and the Massachusetts Rental Housing Association. No more than 25% of signatures could come from a single county, so organizers felt lucky that the three communities with rent control were in three different counties.

Court challenges

After the first round of signatures was filed, the Secretary of the Commonwealth determined that the petition had 69,926 allowable signatures, 360 fewer than the 70,286 required to advance the initiative. Jillson and the other original petition signers challenged the determination in Massachusetts Superior Court, arguing that enough signatures had been wrongly rejected to overcome the shortfall. Rent control supporters from Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline intervened in the case in opposition to the petition proponents. The proponents reviewed uncertified signatures and compared them with voter-registration lists, telephone books, and city directories.

During the litigation, both sides also challenged signatures that had been certified or rejected by local officials. In one episode, opponents challenged several Quincy signatures as forgeries and had them disqualified. A tenant activist asked the Attorney General to seek a criminal investigation, but received no response.

The petition proponents then submitted an affidavit from a handwriting expert stating that they were forged by one of the people opposing the petition in court. On April 22, 1994, after weeks of testimony, Judge Martha B. Sosman ruled that the petition proponents had established enough additional signatures to exceed the requirement by 34 signatures.

Separately, the City of Cambridge spent $110,000 an outside law firm to try and kill the measure. They argued that rent control was a home rule matter and not an appropriate subject for a public referendum. Tenant activists were excited the city filed the lawsuit, but the Massachusetts Homeowners Association called it a waste of taxpayer dollars.

In July, a unanimous Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that "although it may appear to be a purely local issue, it is not," and thus the question could appear on the ballot. Justice Ruth Abrams, who long occupied a rent-controlled apartment, recused herself from the case.

Both sides had lawsuits against the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Messaging

During the fall campaign, the Massachusetts Homeowners Coalition framed Question 9 primarily as a fairness issue rather than only as a defense of property rights. Campaign consultant Dennis Dyer argued that the personal resentment felt by landlords affected by rent control would not necessarily persuade voters who had not shared those experiences.

Polling conducted for the campaign found that women were more likely than men to support rent control, and so the campaign emphasized fairness and assistance to small-landlords rather than relying only on arguments about property rights or economics. The campaign's central message described rent control as a well-intentioned but failed policy that benefited some affluent tenants while burdening smaller landlords.

Campaign literature used several small-landlords to put a "face and heart" on the campaign. The campaign's principal handout featured Barbara Pilgrim, Val Jean Cox, Vinny Bologna, and Helen and Peter Petrillo, whose stories were presented as examples of small landlords burdened by Cambridge's rent control system:

• Pilgrim was an older Black woman supporting herself and her disabled husband while being unable to collect rents that covered her mortgage and other costs. The campaign also said that one of Pilgrim's tenants could afford to spend winters in Florida and summers on Cape Cod.

• Cox, also a Black woman, lost her rent-control exemption for her owner-occupied three-family house after temporarily moving out to care for her seriously ill mother.

• Bologna was unable to live with his family in a house he had renovated and, instead, the rent control board ordered him to rent out the house while he lived with his family in a one-bedroom apartment.

• The Petrillos lost an owner-occupancy exemption for a three-family house after allowing their daughter and her family to move in following a fire at the daughter's home.

The same material was included, with additional detail on rent control's effects, in press kits sent to newspaper editorial boards around the state. Only two newspapers in the state, The Boston Globe and The Patriot Ledger, opposed the ballot measure. More libertarian messaging, including calls to get government out of people's homes, was used mainly in bumper stickers and yard signs. Some campaign participants wanted more direct attacks on prominent rent-controlled tenants, but Jillson and others worked to keep the campaign focused on Dyer's broader fairness strategy.

Campaign

By mid-October, the campaign was a sleepy one with little excitement or news coverage. When rent-control supporters held a press conference that had been planned for weeks, not a single reporter attended. Even at a meeting of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, few people seemed to know what Question 9 was. Others were confused that a No vote meant keeping rent control, and a Yes vote meant to abolish it.

Supporters of the ballot question raised $444,213 and opponents raised $62,105 by the first reporting period. This relatively small amount of money made it difficult to campaign, though supporters of Question 9 expected radio ads to being airing shortly. Proponents spent $88,000 on consultants and $3,500 on a focus group.

Many observers saw the repeal effort as difficult because it was often not just the poor and the elderly who benefited from rent control, but middle class and even wealthy renters. Proponents of the repeal argued that it kept rents artificially low, made it hard to lease a property, and made it difficult to make repairs and improvements to the property. Opponents argued that it kept prices from rising too quickly in a tight market.

Election results

Election results

Jurisdiction	Yes	No
Statewide	1,034,594	980,723
Boston	56,539	64,663
Brookline	9,184	11,677
Cambridge	13,262	18,556

At the November 8, 1994, state election, voters approved Question 9, abolishing rent control. The measure received 1,034,594 votes in favor and 980,723 votes against, or about 51 percent to 49 percent. Officials in Boston and Brookline blamed Cambridge for failing to modify its extreme version of rent control and upsetting voters enough to ban it statewide. Cambridge City Councilor Sheila Russell, who supported rent control, agreed. "If we had only listened to [the small landlords] and helped them out in the last five years, they would never have gone to this extreme," she said.

Although the initiative passed statewide, it lost in Cambridge, where voters rejected it by 58 percent to 42 percent. It also lost in Boston, another municipality with rent control, but carried enough votes elsewhere in the state to prevail. The measure won in six eastern Massachusetts counties, including Middlesex County, where Cambridge is located.

Attempts at Home-rule petitions

Within days of the election, Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge officials all worked to overturn the election and keep rent control in their communities. On the Thursday following the vote, the Boston City Council approved a home rule petition asking to reinstate rent control. Brookline's Town Meeting also voted for a home rule petition to keep rent control two weeks later, and the Cambridge City Council sent a home rule petition to Beacon Hill the week after that.

As he had promised to do, Governor William Weld, who lived in Cambridge and voted in favor of the repeal, vetoed the Cambridge bills after both the House and the Senate approved it in lame duck sessions. The Senate rejected the Brookline bill after the House approved it, and the two chambers approved different versions of the Boston bill, forcing a conference committee.

Rent control supporters made an unsuccessful attempt to place a new measure on the 1996 state ballot. In August 1995, the Attorney General certified a proposed initiative titled the "Community Empowerment Act", which would have authorized municipalities to impose rent control among other local powers. Supporters of Question 9 challenged the certification, arguing that the Massachusetts Constitution barred initiative petitions that were substantially the same as a measure submitted to voters in either of the two preceding biennial state elections. The challenge became moot when supporters of the Community Empowerment Act did not submit any signatures to the Secretary of the Commonwealth by the filing deadline.

Extension for some tenants

After the repeal, the Massachusetts General Court passed a law protecting low-income tenants in rent control apartments from being evicted for up to two years; full-time students were not eligible. The bill was passed with less than two minutes left before the end of the legislative year on January 3, 1994.

21st century

Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates of new housing production anywhere in the country. In the years between 2012 and 2024, the rise in the median gross rent in Massachusetts rose nearly 30% faster than the median household income did across the Commonwealth. In response, some have called for a return to rent control as a way to prevent tenants from being evicted and neighborhoods from becoming gentrified.

At the same time, the costs landlords have to maintain their properties grew even faster. In 2023 alone, property insurance rose 26%. The Brookings Institution wrote that "while rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood."

Legislative efforts

State representative Mike Connolly has proposed bills to restore rent control in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for years without success. In a 2020 effort, Connolly proposed a rent control measure as an amendment to an economic development bill in the House; it failed 22–136. During the 2019–2020 Massachusetts legislature, state representative Dave Rogers presented a bill to enable municipalities to enact rent control. The bill received a favorable report from the committee on Housing and was referred to committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling, but no further action was taken during the legislative session.

Rogers, along with state representative Sam Montaño, presented a similar bill during the 2023–2024 Massachusetts legislature. The committee on Housing authorized a study order on the bill. The bill was reintroduced during the 2025–2026 Massachusetts legislature. State senator Patricia D. Jehlen presented related bills during the 2021–2022, 2023–2024, and 2025–2026 legislative sessions.

Mayor Michelle Wu proposed re-instituting rent control in Boston via a home rule petition in 2023. Her proposal was criticized by both the real estate community, which opposes any form of rent control, and rent control advocates for not going far enough. The Boston Real Estate Board launched a campaign to oppose Wu's measure, saying it will discourage housing production in a city and a region that already has an acute shortage, will make maintaining properties more difficult, and will hurt tax revenues. The measure did not pass.

2023 ballot measure

In 2023, Connolly organized a last-minute-effort to restore rent control via ballot initiative at the 2024 Massachusetts election. He suspended the campaign several months later when he only received 10,000 of the 75,000 signatures needed to put it on the ballot.

2026 ballot measure

Main article: 2026 Massachusetts ballot measures

See also: 2026 Massachusetts elections

A ballot proposal to re-institute rent control was proposed for the 2026 Massachusetts ballot. In November 2025, supporters claimed they collected enough signatures to move it forward in the process. If adopted, it would have become the strictest rent control law in the country. Unlike the previous version of rent control, in which individual cities and towns could choose whether or not they wanted to have rent control, this measure would cap rent increases at the rate of inflation, or 5% a year, whichever is lower, across the entire Commonwealth. The real estate industry pledged to spend $30 million against the measure. The coalition Keep Massachusetts Home, formed in support of the measure, reported $57,000 raised in 2025 year-end campaign finance reports.

On June 23, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court disallowed the question from appearing on the ballot. The Court said the exemption in the proposed law for religious institutions violated the Massachusetts Constitution because, "to enforce the proposed law, the exemption would require the government to determine if a facility is ‘operated solely for... religious... purposes,’ and then make an enforcement decision based on the facility's religious purpose (or lack thereof)." Supporters called the ruling a "massive disappointment" and said "the issue raised by the court is easily fixable and doesn't effect the substance of our proposal." They pledged to bring it back at a future election.

Market reactions

After the ballot question was certified, Governor Maura Healey announced that funding had been pulled for multiple housing projects representing thousands of new units, with funding flowing instead to projects in other states without rent control. In March 2026, National Real Estate Advisors, who had previously invested billions of dollars in Massachusetts over the prior 20 years, announced that they would stop investing in Massachusetts because of the prospect of rent control returning. The proposed ballot measure would exempt new construction for 10 years; developers of multifamily housing base their projects on timelines of between 20 and 40 years.

Other developers have announced they will stop building in Massachusetts if the measure were to pass.

According to Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, "the prospect of rent control has effectively suspended investor appetite for new investments in Massachusetts." The company's CEO, Jay Doherty, said that investors, which include pension funds, endowments, and bundles of private investors, "will not even look at [a CC&F] project" because the returns would be too low with rent control. "Rent control is just another piece of iron rebar on the camel's back," according to Doherty.

Economic projections

A report from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University found that adoption of the law would trigger a "fiscal tsunami" by wiping out $300 billion from home and property values. This, in turn, would cause a "cascade of effects" by reducing how much municipalities were able to take in property taxes, leading to cuts to services in urban areas and rural areas alike. Because the value of apartments would decrease, and because landlords would have less money to invest in them, buildings would begin to deteriorate. This would reduce the value of the homes around it, and decrease the tax base as a result.

According to Worcester mayor Joseph Petty, removing this much of the tax base would be "catastrophic to local municipal budgets." The mayor predicts that Worcester would lose 18.53% of the city's property value by 2036 if the measure passed. This would require the residential tax rate to increase by 22.74%.

"Rent control would devalue properties with crushing effects on our budgets that support teachers and education, police, fire, and public safety, and infrastructure maintenance and improvement in our cities and towns," according to Methuen Mayor D.J. Beauregard.

A study by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation found that homeowners would see a 6% increase in the tax rate as more value was placed on owner-occupied properties and values fell on rental units. In Boston, tax rates on the average home would rise by $1,117, in Lowell by $570, and in Amherst by $889. Paul Craney, the executive director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, calls the proposal "a tax increase on homeowners."

Wealthy renters would benefit more from rent control than poorer renters would in pure dollar amount terms because the base rent is already higher. The economic benefit of rent control would flow from landlords to those who are already renting apartments, and not to those most in need.

Public opinion

A poll conducted by Suffolk University in November 2025 found 62.6% of all respondents supported capping rent increases, with 30.6% opposed. A poll in February 2026 found 56% in favor.

Politicians

Boston mayor Michelle Wu considered the measure imperfect, but planned to vote for it, citing the need to make housing more affordable. Other officials in Cambridge and Somerville have also voiced support for the initiative. The Homes for All coalition was formed to support the measure.

Governor Maura Healey opposed the ballot measure, saying that if “you look at the studies, you effectively halt production” with rent control. Others who supported rent control in general opposed this particular measure, saying that "as proposed, this ballot question is a terrible idea." A group of 12 mayors, including those from some of the Commonwealth's densest cities and those with the highest population of renters, opposed the measure. They cited its likely effect of slowing down housing production, the negative impacts it would have on municipal budgets, and how it would ultimately hurt, not help, the effort to bring down housing prices. The cons, they say, outweighed the pros, making it counterproductive. Worcester mayor Joseph Petty opposed the measure, saying it would have "disastrous consequences."

Business groups

The non-partisan, business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation declared that passage would result in "worsening the housing shortage in Massachusetts and degrading the existing housing stock. Rent control should not be adopted because it will exacerbate housing shortages, drive up housing costs, and increase property taxes for homeowners."

The Worcester Chamber of Commerce opposed the measure question because of "the significant harm it [would] inflict on the housing development pipeline across Worcester and Central Massachusetts." In February 2026, a campaign opposing the ballot measure, Housing for Massachusetts, was launched. The chairman of Housing for Massachusetts called the ballot question "the nation's most extreme rent control proposal."

Proposed compromise

On June 3, rent control advocates claimed they had reached a compromise with opponents to drop the ballot measure push and implement a less strict version through the state legislature. The proposed compromise had some similarities to Boston mayor Michelle Wu's previous rent control proposal. The compromise would have allowed individual municipalities to opt in to rent control, rather than enforcing it statewide, as the ballot measure would.

While some groups which had opposed the measure agreed to the compromise, Housing for Massachusetts, the committee formed to oppose the ballot measure, denied that any deal had been reached. Some rent control advocates also opposed the compromise, saying it was not strict enough and that they were not consulted before a compromise was proposed.

The proposed compromise was endorsed by Michelle Wu. Governor Maura Healey stated that she supported a compromise, but she did not endorse the specific proposal put forth by organizers.

Mobile homes

Peabody adopted the first rent control law for mobile homes in 1977. Several other towns did the same in the 1970s and 1980s. This includes Middleborough, which adopted rent control for trailer parks in the late 1980s.

A special state law passed in 2013 gives the West Stockbridge Board of Selectmen, acting as the Rent Control Board, the power to regulate rents at trailer parks.

References

Works cited

• Bloom, Robert M. (1 January 1974). "Chapter 19: Rent Control". Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law. 1974 (1). Retrieved 28 June 2026.

• Moncreiff, Robert P. (23 September 1996). "The Repeal of Rent Control in Cambridge". New England Journal of Public Policy. 12 (1).
• Vrabel, Jim (2014). A people's history of the new Boston. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-62534-076-4.