EASTHAMPTON — The Easthampton Rent Study Committee is seeking community feedback to help them create a home rule petition for local rent stabilization.
The committee, which has been working on a first draft of a policy proposal that places protections around rent stabilization, recently released a survey to obtain that feedback. The committee is made up of city councilors, renters, landlords and developers across the community.
At Large City Councilor Kiam Jamrog-McQuaid, who serves as chair, told Reminder Publishing the committee’s work began last fall after the city passed a resolution to support a state bill lifting preemption on local option rent stabilization. The committee was then formed and tasked with creating a rent stabilization policy that would then go in front of the state as a home rule petition. The process follows the footsteps of other Massachusetts communities like Somerville and Boston.
A home rule petition is a formal request from a city or town to the state legislature that asks for special permission to pass a law in that specific community. If the City Council approves a home rule petition, it would then move as a bill to the state legislature for the next session. If passed by the state legislature, the city can then form an ordinance tied to the petition.
“We set up a plan to do our research and sort of become local experts in rent stabilization policy. We looked at case studies in a ton of different communities around the country,” said Jamrog-McQuaid. “We’ve really been pulling together a lot of information and a lot of case studies on this policy. The way that the Rent Study Committee was actually set up was to have it be tenants and landlords and developers, sort of all bringing that perspective to the table when we’re talking about this because we really want to make sure that all of those voices are brought in.”
He added they have received great input from both tenants and landlords about the subject. They’ve also connected with other municipal leaders around the state to learn more about this process.
The survey is designed to gather feedback from the public, especially those who haven’t attended the committee’s meetings. This feedback will continue to guide the committee’s work in designing a policy.
“The ultimate goal of the policy is to set some commonsense guardrails around how much rent can be increased at one time to protect people from displacement,” he said. “It’s not a rent freeze, but it’s a how can we understand that providing good housing in a community is important, and because we use a market to give people that housing, we need to make sure that market is healthy so we can’t completely destroy any incentive for people to rent out property. But we’re also talking about a resource that is a human right. People need a roof over their head; shelter is important, and people being able to stay in their community is also very important and has broader impacts on the community.”
Jamrog-McQuaid said that the effort is about recognizing that balance and realizing that guardrails are needed to protect tenants from rent increases. He added that the trajectory of unchecked increases leads to the deterioration and displacement of people that make up critical pillars of the community.
“I think it’s that important balance of how are we protecting from displacement while also allowing a fair return on property ownership,” he added. “Any policy that we would put in place would have to have provisions for what’s called fair return, which is considered like, yes, there is a rational basis for putting in these protections as I’ve listed these things before. In law, that’s government interest in welfare, in public health, protection of public safety, all those things are tied up in this as a potential reasoning behind it, but you have to make sure that in doing that, you’re not overstepping what the government can do, which is saying you can’t make money on your business.”
The committee is currently discussing specific provisions for increases based on property tax spikes or large-scale capital improvements. Specifically, the idea there is landlords could still distribute a portion of their expenses to renters to ensure they still make a reasonable return on their investment. He added that these costs can be shared in a fair way to prevent price gouging, unrestrained profit and rent seeking beyond what is sustainable for a community.
“We see this in other areas of business too. We regulate public utilities in a way that we protect people from getting their heat shut off in the middle of winter because we understand as a society that there needs to be guardrails around providing that service. That service is a need and a necessity, and that if you’re going to be doing business as someone to provide that necessity, there are those risks and responsibilities that come along with it, and that responsibility is to do your due diligence and what you can to keep people housed, and that’s not what’s happening now,” Jamrog-McQuaid added.
The survey will be open until Aug. 14, and a final draft will be sent to the City Council by September. From there, through debate and a public hearing, the council would consider the home-rule petition and make the final decision on whether to send it to the legislature.
Jamrog-McQuaid said that these are the initial steps in what will be an uphill battle, but ultimately, he added that it is a worthwhile push to put pressure on the statehouse to act on this statewide issue.
“If we get the ability to do it locally, I’m really optimistic that the work and the coalition that we’re putting together through the Rent Study Committee, the tenants union, the landlords and developers we’ve talked to through this process to continue building something that would really work for Easthampton,” Jamrog-McQuaid said. “I think it’s important to clarify that the survey is not an effort to sort of gauge the public opinion about whether or not we should do rent control. I think the actual whether or not we should pass this to the state legislature is going to be a question for City Council, but we as the Rent Study Committee were tasked with is creating this draft policy to present to council, so we’re just trying to collect input on what that looks like.”
The survey is available at https://forms.gle/2NaMCVNMEKaop7Dx9, or on the city website.
