Word: rent-controlled
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Since the beginning of the year, the question of keeping rent control legislation alive in Massachusetts has been a source of fierce debate. Opponents of the legislation have said that cities and towns wanting to control rents should be allowed to do so inside their own borders, but that the state should let its current local-option rent-control enabling act expire. Supporters of the legislation have tried to lobby lawmakers into retaining the state law that spells out the terms of rent control, arguing that bringing the question down to the level of municipalities will subject it further...
...illustrates the complexity of the rent control debate, where the line between supporters and opponents is often blurred by strategic considerations. Councilor David Clem, a supporter of rent control at the state-wide level, proposed a home-rule petition for rent control in Cambridge that would replace the state-wide bill which he expected might expire. His fellow radical-liberal councilor Saundra Graham, normally a supporter of rent control, did not vote for Clem's plan. Although she repeated in vehement tones her support, in practice and in principle, for rent control, Graham departed from her position on this vote...
Since the state-wide legislation took effect five years ago, rent control has been one of the hottest issues in Cambridge. And with good reason. More than 60 per cent of households in the city come under the rent-control act. Fully a dozen tenant-and-general-interest groups claim rent control as a major, motivating issue the League of Women Voters, the Council of Elders, Citizens for Participation in Political Action, to mention a few, have all lent their support to the program--which controls some 22,000 units in Cambridge alone. Boston, which, like nearby Brookline, five years...
...legal package that the council's legislative aide delivered to Beacon Hill has most of the wrappings of earlier Massachusetts rent-control legislation, but it contains several surprises for any lawmaker who examines it carefully. Although Clem used much of the language of the state-wide law to write his bill, the home-rule version that the council finally approved contains additions and revisions that extend the state law and stiffen some of its provisions. One change the council included was a rewording of the requirements for evicting a tenant. The Cambridge plan shifts the burden of proof of malfeasance...
...York's housing has deteriorated alarmingly. More than 30,000 apartments are being abandoned each year. One major reason is the city's archaic rent-control law, which has been on the books since World War II. Because landlords in many instances cannot raise rents enough to cover costs, they simply walk away from unprofitable buildings, leaving them in the hands of the city, which can scarcely afford to rehabilitate them or even maintain them. With fuel costs high and climbing, abandonments are bound to accelerate. Real estate tax delinquencies are also ominously rising; they reached $220 million in fiscal...