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Wu says she would vote for statewide rent control through proposed ballot question
While Boston Mayor Michelle Wu would prefer a local option, she said she would not "let perfect be the enemy of the good" when discussing a blanket cap on rent hikes.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said that she would vote in favor of a proposed ballot question that would enact statewide rent control.
Wu solidified her position during an appearance on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” Tuesday. Although the mayor is a longtime supporter of policies that would cap rent increases, she expressed skepticism at the idea of a blanket statewide cap when asked about the proposed ballot question in November.
“If this is still on the ballot by this fall, I am a ‘yes’ voting for it,” Wu said on GBH.
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The ballot measure, if approved by voters, would tie annual rent hikes across the state to cost of living increases, with a hard annual cap of 5%. There would be some exceptions for owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units and newly constructed buildings during their first 10 years of existence.
Wu made support for rent control a key part of her initial mayoral campaign. She pushed a proposal in 2023 that would have set annual maximum allowable rent increases on the change in the Consumer Price Index plus 6%, or a maximum increase of 10%, whichever of the two figures was lower. The plan eventually died in the State House.
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The mayor said months ago that she wished the current ballot measure was a “pure, local option” instead of a statewide cap. Massachusetts voters abolished rent control in 1994. Wu advocated for that ban to be repealed and for individual communities to be given the power to set their own policies.
Although the ballot measure is not ideal, Wu said Tuesday that exorbitant housing costs necessitate some form of action.
“I’m not going to let perfect be the enemy of the good in this case when there is so much urgency and pressure from housing costs on our residents,” she said.
Polling consistently shows that Massachusetts residents are very concerned with rising housing costs. A Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll conducted last November found that 63% of voters favor the ballot measure.
Rent control supporters are bullish on their plans to get the question before voters and win statewide approval. They collected some 124,000 signatures from residents, surpassing a 74,574-signature threshold that was needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, they said.
“Massachusetts needs our elected officials to meet the moment and stand up for tenants who are drowning under the rising cost of housing. We appreciate Mayor Wu’s advocacy for housing policies that deliver affordability for Boston renters, and welcome her support of our ballot initiative,” Carolyn Chou, executive director of the Homes for All Massachusetts coalition, which is organizing support for the ballot measure, said in a statement.
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The ballot measure is one of 11 that received the signatures needed to advance. They were certified by Secretary of State William Galvin’s office last month and are now before the Legislature. Lawmakers will hold hearings on each measure and can decide to pass them, propose compromises, or take no action. If they do not act on a specific proposal, organizers will need to gather another 12,429 signatures to secure their measure’s place on the ballot in November.
Not everyone is on board. Gov. Maura Healey said in December that she would not vote for the proposal. She described the increasing cost of housing as a “crisis” but said that the answer is not rent control. Massachusetts needs to build more housing, Healey said, and expressed worries that rent control could slow construction.
Opponents, including many influential figures in the real estate industry, argue that rent control is a failed idea that stalls housing construction and ultimately increases costs for renters. They are planning to spend as much as $30 million on anti-rent control ads, Contrarian Boston reported in December. Opponents also filed a lawsuit last week seeking to disqualify the ballot measure, per CommonWealth Beacon.
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While the ballot measure is debated on Beacon Hill, some supporters appear to be open to the idea of compromise legislation that would enact some form of rent control without a full fight over the ballot question, the Globe recently reported.
“We also hope to work with the Legislature this year to pass a modern rent stabilization policy that protects tenants while allowing landlords to earn a reasonable profit and enabling new construction to address housing shortages. But if the legislature won’t act, we’re prepared to take this question to the people and win statewide rent control on the ballot,” Chou said.
Conor Yunits, chairman of Housing for Massachusetts, the ballot committee opposing the measure, cast doubt on the possibility of compromise legislation.
“When a ballot question is this poorly written and will do this much harm to every community in the Commonwealth, it is hard to see a path to any sort of compromise. We are focused on building a statewide coalition of community leaders, housing advocates, and citizens who understand that this rent control proposal will do lasting damage to housing in Massachusetts,” he said in a statement.
Asked about this topic on GBH, Wu said that she could potentially support legislative changes.
“There’s always a better solution that comes out of legislating and being able to pass something with nuance than the hammer of a ballot initiative. But we need to see something happen, and I hope there can be some compromise worked out because every city’s condition is actually quite different from each other,” she said. “We need to see some action so I will be voting for [the ballot measure] if it’s there.”
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