Group Seeks Rent Changes

A group called the Cambridge Rent Control Initiative Committee is seeking the signatures of 3500 registered Cambridge voters so that it can put a number of proposed changes in the city's rent control system on the November ballot.

The group's proposal would cut the maximum rate of profit for landlords in half, invalidate previous rent increases based on old profit standard, and prohibit rent increases or evictions where code violations exist (unless caused by tenants.)

It would also require that the dates and locations of upcoming hearings and the hearing themselves be made public and that rent control, documents be made available in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek.

The group has collected only about half of the necessary signatures so far. But even if it gets the needed signatures in time, the proposal still might not reach the ballot.

Twice in the last four years, Philip M. Cronin '53, the City Solicitor, has managed to keep "Initiative" proposals--measures proposed by petition, rather than by the City government, and presented to a voting test in the general election--off the ballot by declaring the proposed measures illegal and unconstitutional, even though they had received the required number of signatures.

In 1969, he kept an initiative to establish rent controls in Cambridge off the ballot, on the grounds that Massachusetts laws contained no provisions for city rent controls. (In the following year, such a law was passed and the City Council established controls for Cambridge).

In 1967, he kept an initiative concerning the war from reaching the voters.

The group circulating this year's rent control initiative petition has filed suit to prevent city officials from taking action "that tends to delay, hinder or obstruct the appearance of the rent control initiative on the ballot." Named specifically in the suit are the four Cambridge Election Commissioners, City Manager James Corcoran and Cronin.

At a hearing last Wednesday, Middlesex Superior Court Judges Reuben L. Lurie gave the city officials a week to file their arguments against such an injunction. A trial date on the injunction request will be set when the papers are filed with Wednesday.

Not Yet Stated

No city official has yet stated that he or she would move to keep the initiative off the ballot if the 3500 signatures were obtained.

But, in its petition to the court, the initiative committee has argued that it needs an injunction to convince potential participants in its signature drive--which is now far behind schedule--that they need not fear a repeat a 1969's events. And it has obtained a couple of affidavits from community organizers saying that they are not working on the petition drive because they fear their work will be wasted again.

Cronin has advised the city in the past that only upon the recommendation of the rent control administrator can rent control ordinances be changed.

This advice was based, apparently, on the fact that while Massachusetts law provides that the rent control administrator "shall recommend" changes be feels would improve the functioning of the rent control system, no other official or group is specifically granted this authority.

By this reasoning, a rent control measure approved by the voters of Cambridge would have no weight unless the rent control administrator recommended it, also.

The initiative committee is not asking the court for a ruling on the validity of this analysis; it is asking that city officials be prevented from ruling on the constitutionality of its initiative before it comes to a vote.