On January 14, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Housing held a hearing on H. 3924, a bill that would enable municipalities to implement rent control and other restrictions on property owners. On behalf of NAA’s affiliate, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board (GBREB), Kathleen Franco, CEO of Trinity Management; Jeff Turk of the law firm Turk & Quijano; and Greg Vasil, CEO of GBREB, testified during the hearing, which lasted more than seven hours. In its comments to the committee, GBREB argued that producing enough new apartments to meet demand requires new development approaches, more incentives and fewer restrictions. GBREB urged lawmakers to consider alternative approaches, such as providing direct rental assistance to low-income residents and streamlining, incentivizing and reducing barriers to development.
NAA joined GBREB to oppose any forms of rent control and urged the committee to issue an adverse report on H. 3924. In our written testimony, NAA outlined the myriad ways rent control will decrease the quality and quantity of housing, increase overall rents and fail to address the underlying causes of housing affordability challenges for low-income renters. NAA’s testimony can be found here.