Boston Mayor Michelle Wu this week despatched to the Metropolis Council a rent-control measure that may cap lease will increase in Boston at between 6% and 10% relying on the speed of inflation.
Wu’s formal proposal, despatched to the council in what is thought in Boston as a “home-rule petition,” requires setting the annual allowable lease enhance at both 10% or on the Shopper Value Index for the Boston metro plus 6%, whichever is decrease.
In a lower-inflation 12 months the place the area’s CPI elevated solely 2%, Wu’s measure would cap lease will increase at 8%. But when the inflation price is what it’s approaching now—6%–rents couldn’t develop greater than a complete of 10% below the proposal.
In a letter to the Metropolis Council, Wu mentioned that marketed rents throughout Boston jumped by 14% in 2022, with some neighborhoods within the metropolis seeing lease hikes exceeding 20%.
“This residence rule petition will allow the town of Boston to implement lease stabilization to higher defend households from displacement brought on by exorbitant will increase in lease,” Wu mentioned, within the letter.
“The measure would place wanted limits on fast lease will increase to current tenancies and guarantee extra stability for Boston residents by offering a stage of certainty concerning how a lot their lease may enhance every year. Tenants in Boston are sometimes sufferer to steep lease will increase, making it unimaginable for them to remain of their properties,” the mayor mentioned.
Wu’s lease stabilization measure provides a number of exemptions to the proposed cap in lease will increase. No restrict would apply when a brand new tenant strikes in and the owner units the preliminary rental price; the cap will solely kick in for subsequent will increase.
Any property with six or fewer items—certainly one of which is the constructing proprietor’s main residents—wouldn’t be topic to lease management. Wu’s proposal additionally exempts the latest housing development: items gained’t face a cap on lease will increase if their everlasting occupancy certificates are lower than 15 years outdated and so they have been constructed from the bottom up, added to an current constructing or transformed from one other use to residential.
Items the place tenants pay a set share of their earnings to lease, together with public housing and people supported by vouchers, additionally can be exempt from the lease management.
Additionally exempted from the lease caps are inns and motels, housing in non secular services, prolonged care, residential care and nonprofit hospitals, school and college dormitories, and dwellings the place tenants share rest room or kitchen lodging with the proprietor.
Earlier than Boston can enact Wu’s lease cap, state lawmakers might want to raise the lease management preemption regulation in Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey has mentioned lifting the state preemption on lease controls is certainly one of her prime priorities.
