Tenants, Owners Blast Rent Control Reforms

When dozens of property owners marched in front of City Hall Monday night carrying signs which read "Fairness Now" and "Rent Control: Taxation Without Representation," no one at the council meeting inside was surprised.

Picketing at City Hall before council meetings has become a common sight this month, with owners and tenants showing up in full force to protest the package of rent control reform proposals that the council is in the process of considering.

The meetings themselves have played to packed houses for the past four sessions, with speeches and arguments from citizens and councillors lasting past midnight.

Now the council has passed all but two of the 16 orders in the package. But although tenants and owners usually find themselves on opposite sides of anything to do with rent control, both groups are pessimistic about the changes--if any--the reforms will bring to the system.

"Basically, there's been relatively little content in the orders," says Michael H. Turk, chair of the Cambridge Tenants' Union (CTU). "It isn't that there aren't some positive elements, but those need a lot of work."

Small Property Owners Association(SPOA) Co-Chair Denise A. Jillson calls the reform package "much to-do about nothing."

"Frankly, many of [the orders] are not workable, and certainly none of them will benefit us," Jillson says. "It's an election year, and [the councillors] want to look good."

The council's subcommittee on rent control unveiled the 16 proposals at the beginning of last month as part of its 320-page final report, the result of more than nine months of meetings and hearings. The package was designed to remedy the maladies which currently plague Cambridge's 20-year-old rent control system.

At the council's April 10 meeting--the first time the city's governing body heard public testimony about the reform package--Kenneth E. Reeves '72, the chair of the council's rent control subcommittee, called the proposals a "fair and firm" attempt "to focus on rent control as part of a much broader housing policy for the city of Cambridge."

Most of the citizens who have packed the sullivan Chambers for council meetings this month, however, haven't seen it that way.

By far the most controversial order of the batch is the proposal paying the way for a so-called "tenant tax," which the council passed 8 to 1 last week after hours of impassioned discussion.

The order authorizes city officials to begin work on an administrative plan to raise money for an Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, which would finance the upkeep of rent-controlled housing. The plan would require eligible tenants to contribute between 2 and 5 percent of their incomes to the fund. Low-income tenants, the disabled and the elderly would be able to apply for exemptions from the surcharge.

According to Turk, the main problem with the tenant surcharge is that it will be a move in the direction of government subsidies for owners. Currently, owners of rent-controlled properties charge rent based on upkeep costs.

The affordable housing surcharge will only harm tenants, Turk says. He adds, it is the only significant order in the package. "What major piece of action there is, namely the tenant tax, is negative," he says.

In addition to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund proposal, the council has now agreed to the following measures:

* To encourage negotiations between landlords and tenants regarding capital improvements to properties which would result in increased rent.

* To develop a mediation process that would allow owners and tenants to settle disputes without going before the Rent Control Board.

* To create an access office to publicize listings of vacant rent-controlled properties.

* To institutionalize the post of compliance officer within the Rent Control Board to ensure that owners and tenants comply with rent control regulations.

* The begin an outreach program to increase public understanding of the rent control system.

*To establish a loan program with a base sum of $1,000,000 to rend money to small landowners for structural improvements to their rent-controlled properties.

* To convene a consortium of reading city bankers to discuss lending practices which would favor small property tenants and owners.

* To eliminate the exemption that allows rent-controlled University-affiliated housing to convert from rent control after a vacancy.

* To institute a rent cup that would limit increases to 50 percent in a tow-year period.

* To express support for two bills currently under consideration by the state legislature which would allow the state to issue bonds for construction of new affordable housing.

* To undertake an inventory of the city's rent-controlled housing units in order to determine occupancy and physical condition.

* To develop an umbrella Housing Department to ensure consistency of inspections and services.

* To place priority on the resolution of issues affecting the owners of small, owner-occupied buildings.

But to the disappointment of members of the tenants union, the council tabled an order which would have stabilized the among and timing of "general adjustment" rent increases.

According to Turk, that order would have made the reform package at least somewhat positive. But owners stridently opposed the proposal and the council eventually tabled the plan for future consideration.

And even beyond the conflict over individual reforms to rent control lies a huge gulf in opinion about the system itself.

Owners have long opposed rent control, arguing that the city's program benefits many tenants at the great expense of approximately 500 owners.

Opponents also say that the city's stock of rent-controlled housing is fated to deteriorate physically over time, since owners charging low rents are often unable to fund upgrades. And owners contend that even when they do find funds for structural improvements, the city does not allow them to raise rents enough for them to recoup their losses.

According to Jillson, SPOA is in the process of orchestrating a legal challenge to rent control. She says that the group has raised $20,000 towards the $100,000 it has determined necessary for litigation, and plans to file with the courts later this year.

Jillson denies that threatening to sue is only a scare tactic meant to sway council votes. "When you are denied continually, you figure you have nothing to lose, so you'll be as outrageous as possible," she says.

Cambridge's lower-income tenants, on the other hand, support the system--and for the first time last election voted a pro-rent control majority into the council. Over the past month, many have testified to the council that without the low rents guaranteed by the rent control system, they would be homeless