Groups Push Bills To End Rent Control

Opponents of rent control in Cambridge told state legislators last week that rent control was preventing landlords from making a fair profit.

The rent control opponents, led by the Cambridge Property Owners and Taxpayers Association, testified in favor of two house resolutions before the state legislature's Joint Committee on Local Affairs. The first resolution would phase out rent control while the second would institute vacancy de-control, which would end rent control as tenants leave apartments.

Leaders of several city tenant organizations and five of Cambridge's nine city councilors told the committee that they favored retaining rent control. "Rent control is one of a number of strategies we have to keep Cambridge a liveable city. Without rent control, the attractiveness of Cambridge to developers would very soon leave it a city of nothing but high-rises," City Councilor Mary Ellen Preusser told the panel.

Richard Fraiman, the director of Cambridge Property Owners and Taxpayers, called the abolition of rent control "the first step in getting Cambridge's financial house in order."

Citing figures that show Cambridge landlords pay the highest percentage of rental income in taxes, Fraiman said that ending rent control would benefit "all the city's taxpayers."

Cambridge adopted rent control in 1970 to counter what councilor Alfred E. Vellucci called "skyrocketing rents." Fraiman told councilors at a special city council meeting Tuesday night that the emergency that led to adoption of rent control has ended. "If you don't hear our cry, you do so at your own peril," he told the councilors, who must seek re-election this fall.

Under Cambridge's rent control law, landlords seeking rent increases must have them approved by the city's rent control board, which usually relies on a formula based on upward adjustments of 1967 rents.

Landlords should be making at least a 10 to 12 per cent return on investments," Charles Laverty, city assessor, said last week. "Under rent control, the return has been less than six per cent, less than what you would get by putting your money in the bank," he added.

Rent control advocates say that while the city's rent control board may not be giving landlords enough return on their investment, phasing out rent control would be disastrous to the city's low and moderate income tenants.

"It's a question of whether prople can continue to survive in this city," Benjamin Ross, a representative of the Ward 3 Democratic Committee said. "If we lose rent control, thousands will be driven out of Cambridge," he predicted.

Ross and other rent control proponents are also supporting a bill, filed by councilor and state representative Saundra Graham, that would tighten up Cambridge's present rent control law by prohibiting owners from evicting tenants in order to convert their apartments into condominiums.

The bill would not do away with condo conversion completely," Graham told the committee, adding "it would simply prohibit evictions for that purpose."

Preusser said that if rent control was abolished or condominium conversion allowed to continue, landlords could price apartments and condominiums beyond the reach of young, old, fixed-income or working class tenants; thereby robbing the city of its diversity. "I suspect that in the minds of some, a fair profit margin means as much as you can get," Preusser said.

"Rent control does not benefit the poor or elderly. It's a scare tactic used by politicians to keep themselves in office," Fraiman said last week