Media

Rent con­trol not the fix for hous­ing crisis

Recently, a dozen may­ors across the com­mon­wealth pub­licly took a stance against a pro­posed bal­lot ques­tion that, if enacted, would impose a one-size-fits-all rent con­trol man­date across each of the 351 cit­ies and towns in Mas­sachu­setts.

I agree that hous­ing costs are an urgent issue that need to be addressed through col­lab­or­a­tion between the pub­lic and private sec­tors. It’s not lost on me that rents are too high. I wanted to expand fur­ther upon why this statewide man­date would be bad for Worcester.

The rent con­trol policy seek­ing to appear on the bal­lot in 2026 is the most restrict­ive statewide policy in the coun­try. It is a top-down man­date that would apply the same policy to 351 unique cit­ies and towns across Mas­sachu­setts, each with their own indi­vidual needs. And it would be cata­strophic to local muni­cipal budgets.

Apply­ing the same rules across the state takes away local con­trol and will have dis­astrous con­sequences. While Worcester is the second-largest city in New Eng­land, we have dis­tinct demo­graph­ics from Boston, as well as our neigh­bors in Grafton and Shrews­bury, to name some.

We’re all in agree­ment that Mas­sachu­setts, includ­ing Worcester, is facing a hous­ing crisis. That’s why the city laid out its own hous­ing pro­duc­tion plan for 2026 to 2030, identi­fy­ing the need for nearly 12,000 new rental units and 850 new owner-occu­pied units through 2034.

With the cur­rent pace of con­struc­tion, Worcester’s res­id­en­tial mar­ket is expec­ted to main­tain a sub-5% vacancy rate, which pro­motes com­pet­i­tion for hous­ing and ongo­ing rent growth. We found that there aren’t enough mar­ket-rate homes avail­able, nor are there enough homes for extremely low-income house­holds. These issues with sup­ply have exacer­bated our hous­ing costs, along­side rising fixed costs includ­ing util­it­ies and insur­ance.

Rent con­trol has been shown to dis­in­centiv­ize invest­ment and new con­struc­tion starts des­per­ately needed to address our hous­ing crisis. St. Paul, Min­nesota, saw a 79% decrease in new apart­ment con­struc­tion per­mits after adopt­ing rent con­trol in 2022. Mont­gomery County, Mary­land, saw new mul­ti­fam­ily per­mits decrease from 2,093 to only 54 between 2024 and 2025 after adopt­ing rent con­trol.

Here in Mas­sachu­setts, under the 1970 rent con­trol meas­ure in Cam­bridge, Mas­sachu­setts, con­struc­tion

Rent con­trol has been shown to dis­in­centiv­ize invest­ment and new con­struc­tion starts des­per­ately needed to address our hous­ing crisis. St. Paul, Min­nesota, saw a 79% decrease in new apart­ment con­struc­tion per­mits after adopt­ing rent con­trol in 2022. Mont­gomery County, Mary­land, saw new mul­ti­fam­ily per­mits decrease from 2,093 to only 54 between 2024 and 2025 after adopt­ing rent con­trol.

was nonex­ist­ent. Upon its repeal in 1994, improve­ments and new con­struc­tion increased 20%.

Research has shown that the best way to address hous­ing costs is through the cre­ation of new homes. In New Rochelle, New York, hous­ing costs have gone down – from 2020 to 2023 median rent declined by 2%. This decline coin­cided with the con­struc­tion of 4,500 new units com­pleted over the past dec­ade.

In a state filled with aging infra­struc­ture, Gate­way Cit­ies in par­tic­u­lar face chal­lenges with aging hous­ing stock that requires updates to be com­pli­ant with cur­rent build­ing code. Approx­im­ately 59% of Worcester’s hous­ing stock is over 50 years old, with less than 8% built in the last 20 years. We need to incentiv­ize invest­ment in our exist­ing homes to mod­ern­ize them while sup­port­ing new con­struc­tion to sup­port our grow­ing res­id­ent base and to sta­bil­ize rents.

Cap­ping rental rate increases at the levels pro­posed would sig­ni­fic­antly devalue these prop­er­ties and limit our pro­gress sub­stan­tially. By 2036, Worcester would lose 18.53% of the city’s prop­erty value, which would require a 22.74% res­id­en­tial tax rate increase to com­pensate for the erosion of the tax base. This would be dis­astrous for our city’s budget.

It would have con­sequen­tial long-term impacts on the state. While it’s being billed as tem­por­ary relief, this would be a per­man­ent meas­ure with real, last­ing, unin­ten­ded con­sequences for Mas­sachu­setts. I sup­port bring­ing costs down for Worcester’s res­id­ents who are strug­gling, but this bal­lot ques­tion is not the answer.