Cambridge Instituted Rent Control Throughout City

When Cambridge political commentator Glen S. Koocher '71 talks about rent control, he now has to use the past tense.

"Rent control was the catechism of the organized religion that is Cambridge politics," says Koocher whenever the topic comes up in discussion.

Rent control in Cambridge did not survive for its 25th anniversary. Rent control fell a year shy, disappearing from the city--and the state of Massachusetts--on January 1, 1995.

The controversial ordinance was instituted the year of Koocher's graduation, partly to check University expansion and partly in response to skyrocketing rents around the city.

City Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 blames developers and real estate agents during the 1960s for buying property, raising rents and quickly selling in a cycle of modern land speculation.

"What we had was our own version of the last American gold rush," Duehay says.

In addition, Duehay says that in the 1960s Harvard aggressively bought up property in Cambridge.

"If things were for sale, and they were close to other University activities, they were bought," says Harvard Planning and Real Estate Director Kathy A. Spiegelman.

For nearly a quarter century, rent control was the cornerstone of Cambridge politics. The issue was both the litmus test for local politicians and the battleground over which they frequently and passionately fought.

For tenants, rent control meant affordable housing and a predictable future. For landlords, rent control meant endless government oversight and meager returns on their investments.

For people entering the community, rent control meant housing was hard to find because tenants lucky enough to find a protected apartment were reluctant to part with their bounty.

Lenore M. Schloming '59 inherited a nine-unit apartment building on Inman Street from her father in 1984. When she and her family tried to move into the building in 1989, they were stymied by rent control regulations instituted to protect her tenants.

Schloming says she is amazed at how difficult it was to live in her building, and as a result of the struggle she became actively engaged in the city's rent control debate.

"[Rent control] looked like it never would end," Schloming says. "But I used to say that the Berlin Wall fell down, and the morning it happened, people didn't expect it."

Whether rent control was an iron curtain descended across Cambridge is a matter for debate, but in 1994, rent control's opponents had an insight into how to tear it down.

The three communities with rent control policies--Boston, Brookline and Cambridge--required special enabling legislation from the state government. If the landlords could get the state to ban rent control, they could circumvent the rent control-friendly city governments.

The solution for rent control opponents in the state came in the form of Question Nine. The initiative was authored by Jon R. Maddox, a Cambridge resident and member of the Cambridge-based Small Property Owners Association (SPOA).

Maddox's initiative put the fate of rent control to a statewide popular vote: a yes for Question Nine meant a vote to abolish rent control.

After Question Nine passed by a margin of less than 1 percent in November 1994, proponents of rent control cried foul.

Rent control supporters say the initiative was unfair because it took the vote out of the affected communities.

"I question whether people around the state knew what they were voting for," says JoAnne Preston, a Cambridge resident since 1966 and founder of the Agassiz Tenants Organization, a tenants-rights group.

Opponents of rent control, however, say the injustice of rent control forced them to seek relief from outside the municipal government.

Schloming, founder of SPOA, compares the referendum to the civil rights movement.

"You could say the same thing about [both rent control and] slavery or about civil rights," she says. "You had to go outside the South."

Today, the legacy of rent control and the results of its overthrow remain to be seen.

Elizabeth Koundakjian, 62, has worked at a computer company and has taught at Boston College. She is now disabled and unable to work.

When asked what effect the end of rent control has had on her life, she responds, "Do you want it in a word? Devastation."

Koundakjian has lived in Cambridge for 31 years, 27 of them at 3 Linnaean Street, her present address. She qualifies for protected status because of her low income and pays only $525 a month for her two-bedroom apartment.

When rent protection for low-income tenants expires this December 31, however, Koundakjian expects her rent to increase to at least $1,300 a month, a price she says she could never afford.

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't say, 'This is my home. Where am I going to go?'" Koundakjian says.