Council Split Over Housing Plan

A plan that includes a study of the feasibility of a tax on upper-income tenants of rent-controlled apartments met with criticism from some city councillors at a council meeting Monday night.

The City Council ultimately referred the plan--presented by Councillor Timothy J. Toomey Jr.--to two subcommittees for review.

Toomey presented the plan as a formula for "economic justice in Cambridge housing." But Councillor Edward N. Cyr, Housing and Community Development Committee chair, called it "a cheap publicity gimmick from someone who informed TV cameras before he informed his councilmates."

Toomey said the proposal would work to correct abuse by upper-income tenants and deterioration of housing units--two of rent control's biggest flaws. He said he constructed the plan to "preserve rent control and strengthen rent control."

The proposal includes a provision to combine money from the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund with gains from the new upper-income excise tax to offer incentives for landlords to upgrade their housing units.

But Councillor Jonathan S. Myers said that although he considered Toomey's proposal "a constructive one" and agreed that "somehow these pieces have to come together in a cohesive way," he did not think that every part of the plan was feasible.

Myers questioned the feasibility of implementing Toomey's plan to tax tenants earning more than 250 percent of the poverty-level income. In an interview yesterday, he said that the city had little information about how many such residents live in rent-controlled housing, which comprises about 60 percent of the city's rental housing units.

"We're going to ask for affidavits from all of the tenants in the city? That's a serious question," Myers said. He also observed that "the money isn't really there" in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to finance the upgrades and de-leading which Toomey also proposed.

Myers likewise questioned the legality of using the fund, established for grants to non-profit developers of low-income housing, for those purposes.

Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves '72, chair of the council's Rent Control Committee, said his committee will release next month a comprehensive report addressing the issues Toomey raised. He said Toomey's proposal had shown "no substantial background research."

Cyr questioned the exclusion of the issue of homelessness from Toomey's plan. "If homelessness is missing, what else is missing?" he said.

But city councillors were not unanimous in criticizing Toomey's proposal. "We all agree that the system is broken and desperately needs to be fixed," Councillor William H. Walsh said. "Anyone's approach is worth debating, considering, trying to understand."