Cronin Effects Rent Roll-Back Lower Rents Begin Next Week

Philip M. Cronin '53, Interim Rent Control Administrator, announced today that Cambridge rents will be rolled back to their March levels as of December 1, in accordance with the new rent control law.

Cronin also announced the creation of a board of hearing examiners made up mostly of Harvard Law students who will begin to conduct rent adjustment hearings for the 1500 adjustment requests that have already been submitted to Cronin.

Under this new order Cambridge will become the first city in the state to put rent control into effect. Although rent control was passed by the city council this September, Cronin delayed immediate enforcement of the roll-back provision by issuing a temporary order adjusting rents to their current levels.

Hopefully this new order will provide some rent relief to Cambridge citizens who have fought to institute rent control here for the past two years.

A member of the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee said when he heard of the order, "This is good news for us. Although city hall has now in theory recognized tenant demands for a roll-back, only large scale tenant pressure is going to make the law really work."

First Board in U.S.

The new board of hearing examiners will be the first such board in the United States to be comprised of law students. Cronin said that he has already appointed twenty Harvard Law students to the board and that he expects to appoint at least ten more to deal with the backlog of adjustment hearings.

Cronin also spelled out procedure for rent adjustment under the new law. If a landlord files a petition for a rent adjustment or certificate of eviction, the tenants will have to be notified. On the other hand landlords must be notified of any tenant petitions for rent adjustments.

Hearing examiners are directed to conduct hearings in as close conformity as possible with court procedure and attempt to give impartial judgements for each hearing. None of the law students appointed will be either tenants or property owners in Cambridge.