Rent control is a ‘terrible idea,' Greater Boston Chamber boss says of latest Beacon Hill push
That was the message Sunday from Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO James B. Rooney, who called the resurgence of rent control on Beacon Hill this summer a 'terrible idea.'
'I mean, owners don't invest in the properties. The non-rent control prices go up. People stay in those units − they don't turn over. They just get occupied, and people stay," Rooney said during a Sunday sitdown on WCVB-TV's 'On the Record' program.
'If you read the data, the history of ... rent control is just so bad,' he said.
Rooney's televised comments came days after housing advocates rolled out a plan to get a rent stabilization ballot question onto the November 2026 ballot.
Language they planned to file with state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell's Office would cap annual rent hikes statewide to the cost-of-living increase measured by the Consumer Price Index, with a maximum cap of 5%.
'Right now, there's no limit to how much rent can increase every year, so corporate real estate investors are increasingly buying up homes in our communities, hiking rents astronomically, and evicting anyone who can't afford to pay,' Denise Matthews-Turner, the executive director of City Life/Vida Urbana, one of the groups organizing the effort, said last week. 'Rent stabilization is the missing solution to our state's housing crisis.'
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median gross rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts was $1,882 in 2023, up from $1,727 the year before and $1,381 in 2018.
Speaking to WCVB-TV on Sunday, Rooney acknowledged the depth and breadth of the state's housing crisis, pointing to his own group's polling data showing that around a quarter of the state's young professionals planned to leave within five years because of housing costs.
But, he added, rent stabilization isn't the answer.
'You know, when I think of housing and housing policy, I'm reminded of that [Winston] Churchill quote, and I'll paraphrase it, that 'Americans always get it right after they've tried everything else,'' he said.
'You know, we're doing a lot of things that have a history of failing. We're doing things like rent control, which started in the '40s, and bad things happen,' he continued.
Echoing the complaints of developers and landlords who have railed against a recently imposed ban on so-called 'broker fees,' which drive up the cost of renting an apartment, Rooney said the best way to tackle the housing crisis is to make it easier to build more housing.
'We're trying everything when we should just try to incentivize the free market to build more housing,' he said.
Rent control was banned in Massachusetts in 1994 by a ballot question. Renters, advocates and legislators have repeatedly tried to reinstate it without success.
A previous effort to get rent stabilization on the 2024 ballot was abandoned after its proponents failed to get enough signatures to qualify.
State Sen. Pat Jehlen, D-2nd Middlesex, Rep. Sam Montaño, D-15th Suffolk, and Rep. David Rogers, D-24th Middlesex, filed bills this session that would give cities and towns the option to implement rent stabilization locally, capping annual increases. Unlike the proposed ballot question, the bills would not institute rent control statewide.
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