Prescott St. Tenants Victorious In Fight Against Rent Increase

Tenants of a University-owned building on Prescott St. last night successfully contested a rent increase sought by Harvard Real Estate (HRE) before the Cambridge Rent Control Board, by convincing the board that the increase would be compensation for improvements that duplicated work done two years before.

The decision marked the first instance of the rent board denying a capital improvement increase to HRE since the founding of the Harvard Tenants' Union one-and-a-half years ago, said Michael H. Turk, a Prescott St. resident and chief organizer.

The rent board voted unanimously to rescind a previous rent increase approved for exterior masonry work done in 1977 and to allow HRE to charge tenants at 22-24 Prescott St. only for subsequent repairs done in 1979 in the same areas.

The ruling will allow HRE a net rent increase of only $1 per month in the building's 41 units.

Calling the decision "only a partial victory," Turk said last night that the rent board's focus in the case was too narrow.

The board did not allow the tenants to argue that no increase was in order because both jobs represented deferred maintainance rather than improvements, Turk added.

"The ruling is a recognition of the fact that if work was not done in a workmanlike fashion, the tenants will not have to pay for it," Turk said.

The tenants argued that the short span of time between the two projects indicated that the first job was only repair, not full scale improvement.

In reaching a ruling, the rent board closely followed Examiner Robert A. Levite's recommendation to replace the existing increase with a new amount. Board member Alfred Cohn said last night that historically the five- member body "has taken out the capital improvement from previous years and supplanted it with a capital improvement recently done."

A major factor in the ruling was HRE's inability to document the extent of the 1977 work Daniel Polvere, an HRE attorney, told board members that "neither the rent board, nor Harvard, nor Honneman [the company that managed the building for the University in 1977] can find the details."

But Polvere added that HRE "would concede that the work [in 1979] largely duplicated the work in 1977, at least in area."

The University's argument, he stated, was based on Levite's finding that "the nature of the brick itself is most responsible for the deterioration."

Polvere said denying one of the increases contradicted the rent board's policy of encouraging capital improvement. "To say a capital improvement failed through no fault of anyone and it be disallowed will discourage capital improvement."

He also denied the tenants claims that only the 1979 job would be considered an improvement by citing testimony that the work done in 1979 was not possible is 1977.

"It's like a case where someone with an illness or disease is operated on and it doesn't work," he explained. "A few years later, because of improved practices and technological improvements, the person gets another operation and it works."

The rent board's ruling, however, affirmed Levite's finding that "the work performed in 1977 was routine maintenance."

After the decision, Polvere described the case as "factually difficult," adding that the lack of accurate records from Humeman hindered the University's presentation.

Turk said the favorable decision for the tenants might convince residents in other HRE buildings to challenge the University "Too often tenants feel that the rent control board only rubber stamps these increases," he said, "It's important to know you can fight it and win.