Small Property Owners Add New Voice To Debate at Weekly Council Sessions

By now, they are a familiar presence at City Council meetings, fitting in comfortably among the regular group of Cambridge activists who never skip a session.

Since September members of the Small Property Owners Association (SPOA) have attended every council meeting in an effort to insert a landlord's perspective into the generally pro-tenant debate.

During the fall, SPOA members focused their efforts on the campaign to pass Proposition 1-2-3, a ballot referendum that would have drastically overturned rent control. But in the wake of 1-2-3's defeat, the small property owners have proved to be no less vocal a presence in the meetings.

And while the placards proclaiming that "Landlords are an endangered species" had fallen by the wayside at Monday's City Council meeting, a vigorous debate on repeal of the "conflicts ordinance" passed in December by the last council proved that the small property owners are still a group to be reckoned with in the city.

When city voters elected a solid pro-rent control majority to the new council in November, liberals predicted that learning to meet the needs of small property owners would be among the top items on their agenda. SPOA supporters, however, are not optimistic.

"We're outgunned on the council, 6-3," says SPOA Co-chair John Natale. "Rent control gains will be hard to come by. But our goals are still the same."

And the council's first weeks have done little to decrease the antagonism between SPOA's 550 members and the city's more numerous rent control supporters. In an interview Monday, Natale said SPOA planned to sue the city following the repeal of the conflicts ordinance.

Pro-tenant councillors say it has been difficult to find a middle ground in the past month's debate.

"It has politicized matters in a way which is not conducive to working on their issues," says Mayor Alice K. Wolf.

Political Antagonism

Although Wolf says she remains committed to helping the small property owners resolve their problems, she insists that issues like the conflicts ordinance have created a needless political antagonism.

"That's a political stance," Wolf says. "It doesn't really deal with their problems in running rent-controlled buildings."

Meanwhile, Natale says the small property owners are in the council meetings to stay. And until the council manages to shed the political baggage of its predecessor, reaching a compromise may be difficult.

"I think that we're very sincere and that we're going to try to work with them to resolve those issues," said Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55. "People are going to have to suspend judgment until that happens."