Gray
Lobby together against Just-Cause Eviction
Nothing is more powerful than person-to-person lobbying.
So let's go TOGETHER! TOMORROW! to Boston City Hall to lobby against Just-Cause Eviction.
A revised proposal has been submitted by tenant advocates. The battle is NOT over. We need to keep fighting.
This Tuesday (TOMORROW), March 29, at 1:00 p.m.
Skip Schloming, executive director of the Small Property Owners Association (SPOA), will meet with rental property owners at the fifth-floor hallway outside the Boston City Council receptionist area. Together we will talk
with as many Councilors or aides as we can in an hour and 15 minutes.
Boston City Hall
1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201
Directions
Skip will say a few words to the Councilor or aide to explain why we are there and what's wrong with Just-Cause Eviction. Then it will be your chance, if you wish, to express your concerns about it. You can just say you oppose it very strongly, or you can go on to express more detailed thoughts.
Feeling shy? Then just come along and show your opposition to just-cause eviction by being there.
We need owners especially who do not need to be at work at that time or can take a long lunch break.
To brush up on what's wrong with Just-Cause Eviction, read below. And see contact information further below for the Mayor and all City Councilors.
It's still rent control.
No eviction is allowed for condo conversion or major rehab, so that rent increases will be limited or stopped altogether.
In the March 14 public hearing, tenant advocates dropped the part of their proposal that required so-called "mediation" for rent increases over 5% -- our campaign against it was effective! But they are keeping the Just-Cause Eviction portion of their proposal, and they have added a new requirement: that a copy of all notices for eviction in affected housing must go the the city. They keep insisting that their proposal is not rent control.
AFFECTED HOUSING IS:
All rental housing units is affected except any rental unit where the owner of record owns four or fewer units and occupies one of those units. The units do not need to be in the same building. For example, an owner could own two condos in two different buildings and a two-family and would be exempt if he or she occupied one of those four units.
NOTICE TO CITY Whenever an owner issues an eviction notice, a notice of lease termination, or a notice that a fixed-term lease is about to end, a copy of the notice MUST be sent to the city -- or serious penalties would result. These copies would be made available to tenant advocacy groups and would allow tenant advocates to know exactly where they should target their efforts to stop rent increases. Landlord groups are not similarly treated, and any landlord or landlord group that advises a landlord to do an eviction that is illegal under the ordinance is guilty of a crime.
And those efforts will consist of making threats to a landlord that all his or her tenants will engage in a rent strike -- in which all the tenants report code violations and claim they are "withholding" their rent because of the violations -- unless the owner lowers his or her rent increase. It would be a very costly and difficult enterprise for an owner to evict all his or her tenants. Consequently, owners would decide to lower their rent increases to the level that the tenants will accept -- which may be as little as no rent increase at all.
How they achieve rent control
It's still rent control. No eviction is allowed for condo conversion, major rehab, or a major capital improvement.
Our most important testimony at the recent hearing was to point out to the Councilors that the just-cause eviction portion of their proposal is all that advocates need to achieve rent control, to keep rents low. Only eight "just" reasons for eviction are allowed in their proposal: breaking a lease provision, property damage, disturbing the peace, refusing to sign a new lease, nonpayment of rent, illegal activity, denial of access, and for an owner to move in.
But evicting for condo conversion, for major rehab, for a major capital improvement like a new roof or new furnaces, or for any significant rent increase are not among the "just causes." In fact, no amount of rent increase is allowed. The old proposal allowed 5% rent increases. The new proposal is effectively a RENT FREEZE.
Hence, all the changes an owner would make to their property to justify a significant rent increase are blocked, and owners could not realistically raise rents on old apartments. Owners could not even raise rents for inflation. That's rent control. And it's a RENT FREEZE.
What the advocates will likely argue is that they will not go after owners who are only asking for 5% rent increases or less. So instead of putting the 5% limit in their proposal, they leave it to themselves -- a private organization -- to run the just-cause eviction program for the city.
Serious consequences for your property & Boston
Properties would steadily deteriorate
Tenants prefer low rents. Improvements to someone else's property? Not at all. Rent increases would be stopped completely or effectively limited to very low rent increases on existing tenants. Only between tenancies, when old tenants voluntarily depart, can capital improvements, major rehabs, and condo conversion be done. And since owners can only rehab or condo convert unit by unit, what owner of a new condo would want to live next to tenants living at very low rents and in conflict with the landlord. Many tenants will just sit and keep their low rents and fight any new rents. Even when they want to move out, they will take in roommates (probably for a nice fee) so that their low-rent unit can be passed on to new tenancies. With such low rent increases, landlords will not do capital improvements because they could not recover their costs. Consequently, controlled housing will steadily deteriorate. This effect will be widespread, because 60 to 80% of all Boston's rental housing will be regulated by just-cause eviction. Neighborhoods will decline.
Boston's property tax base would shrink
With all the affected properties regulated regarding their evictions and rent increases, the value of these properties will decline and the tax revenue generated by them will simultaneously decline. Property values and assessed values will go down because it will be extremely difficult to sell these properties when tenants cannot easily be removed, if at all, and owners cannot easily move into their own properties, if at all. The programs and services of the city will be hard to sustain, and some will be shut down.
Property taxes would shift to non-controlled owners
As controlled properties deteriorate and lose value, non-controlled owners will see their property taxes go up as much as these owners will tolerate, in order to help the city get its revenue.
No new housing construction
As always happens when rent control or de facto rent control is present, developers and builders of new housing would be scared off because this proposal applies to new construction as well as old. Even if new construction were exempted, developers will not build out of fear it may one day be expanded to them. All renovation of existing housing would stop. Mayor Walsh's plan to have 53,000 new apartments by 2030 is immediately dead in the water.
A major crisis in 25 years
In 25 years or so, Boston's housing will be seriously dilapidated and would reach a crisis stage. The rent increases needed for improvements to preserve the housing would far outstrip the ability of tenants to pay for them, even if this just-cause eviction program were ended.
A stagnant economy
The lack of capital improvements and the lack of new construction would shrink all the building trades -- carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and all allied trades -- and Boston's entire economy would fall into a slump, a man-made recession that would not stop. The city would not be able to grow with the nation, no modernizing apartments, no putting in energy-efficient improvements, or no keeping up with new technology.
PLEASE READ and TAKE ACTION
Do you want to live under rent control?
This is no joke. The tenant proposal is serious and is a trap,
hoping that landlords and city officials will not really believe it is rent control.
PLEASE SEND THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES. WE NEED TO CONTACT THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCILORS IN GREAT NUMBERS. That's what the advocates are getting tenants to do.
Tell the Mayor and the City Councilors that you are opposed to just-cause eviction.
Tell the Mayor and the City Councilors to vote NO on the "just-cause eviction" proposal. Tell them that rent control would hurt all of Boston very seriously. See talking points above on the economic impact on the city.
Speak your mind. Be polite, but say what you think about the proposed just-cause eviction. Use the ideas presented here, but put them in your own words. Show this newsletter to other landlords you know.
Contact information for Mayor and Boston City Councilors:
Who you should contact: The Mayor, all four AT-LARGE Councilors, and your own District Councilor.
Letters to all of them should be addressed the same:
[title] [name]
1 City Hall Square, Fifth Floor
Boston, MA 02201
Mayor
Martin Walsh
617-635-4500
martin.walsh@boston.gov
Send just one email to:
City.Council@boston.gov
This one email address goes to ALL City Councilors.
Better yet, use the individual email addresses and phone numbers below to send a personal message to each one of your Councilors.
Present Councilors
Michelle Wu
Council President, At-Large
617.635.3115
Michelle.Wu@boston.gov
All of Boston
Annissa Essaibi George
At-Large
617-635-4376
A.E.George@boston.gov
All of Boston
Michael Flaherty
At-Large
617-635-4205
Michael.Flaherty@boston.gov
All of Boston
Ayanna Pressley
At Large
617-635-4217
Ayanna.Pressley@boston.gov
All of Boston
Salvatore LaMattina
District 1
617-635-3200
Salvatore.LaMattina@boston.gov
Charlestown, North End, East Boston, Beacon Hill
Bill Linehan
District 2
617-635-3203
Bill.Linehan@boston.gov
South Boston, South End, Bay Village, Dorchester, Roxbury, Chinatown
Frank Baker
District 3
617-635-3455
Frank.Baker@boston.gov
Dorchester (waterside)
Andrea Joy Campbell
District 4
617-635-3131
Andrea.Campbell@boston.gov
Dorchester, Mattapan
Timothy McCarthy
District 5
617-635-4210
Timothy.McCarthy@boston.gov
Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale
Matt O'Malley
District 6
617-635-4220
Matthew.OMalley@boston.gov
Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, Roslindale
Tito Jackson
District 7
617-635-3510
Tito.Jackson@boston.gov
South End, Fenway, Kenmore, Roxbury, Dorchester
Josh Zakim
District 8
617-209-9316
Josh.Zakim@boston.gov
West End, Mission Hill, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Kenmore, Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Allston
Mark Ciommo
District 9
617-635-3113
Mark.Ciommo@boston.gov
Allston, Brighton
Thank you for taking the time to contact the Mayor and your City Councilors. Keep on doing it. Once is not enough. Express a new concern.
Thank you,
Skip Schloming
Executive Director
Small Property Owners Association
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