Medford housing case shows need for rent control, advocates say
Amanda Welliver and her wife, Kristin, have been fighting to stay at their apartment in Medford since receiving a notice last March that they had to leave within 30 days.
The Wellivers continue to live in their apartment at 2226 Bradlee Road in Medford Square, but the married couple says their landlord, Boston-based real estate agent Savage Properties, has made the past year “very stressful” by not negotiating a “fair contract.”
On Saturday, the Wellivers took their fight outside of a Brookline gated community where Jason and Melanie Savage, co-owners of Savage Properties, reside.
Dozens of housing advocates rallied alongside the Wellivers to demand Savage negotiate a fair agreement and compensation for tenants already displaced from the Medford apartment building.
“It has been a very stressful year,” Amanda Welliver told the Herald.
The Wellivers say they are the last household remaining in the building that received a no-fault eviction notice. Seventeen other tenants-at-will left their units shortly after the letters came last March, Amanda Welliver said.
Tenants-at-will pay an agreed-upon monthly rent for an indefinite period of time, and the landlord or the tenant can decide to end tenancy by giving the other party 30-days notice, according to the state Office of the Attorney General.
Savage Properties in a statement Saturday said when it bought the apartments at 22-26 Bradlee Road in March 2021, it intended to renovate all of the building’s kitchens and bathrooms. Each tenant received notices of the intended renovations, Savage said, adding the tenants were given additional time to find new housing.
“No Bradlee Road tenant has been evicted from the property, and all but one of the tenancies has been resolved amicably,” the statement reads. “This particular tenant has already been given two years to find a new apartment.”
Amanda Welliver said the landlord is looking to jack up their rent 80 to 100% from their $1,400 monthly payments now. She said she and her wife are prepared to fight the case in an eviction trial next month.
Housing advocates say this is just one of many examples in the region that highlights the need for rent control, so no-fault evictions and “huge” rent increases can be prevented.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu last week filed a rentcontrol proposal that seeks to cap year-over-year rent increases at 6% plus consumer price index increases, to a max of 10%.
If the city passes Wu’s request, Boston would still need state approval for it to be enacted. That is the “real problem” behind municipalities attempting to reform housing, said Medford City Council Vice President Zac Bears who attended Saturday’s rally.
Bears said the real need is for state lawmakers to create an incentive that’d attract “big, rich property owners” to negotiate with tenant associations.
A proposed legislative package on Beacon Hill would give municipalities the option to adopt a policy that would tie rent increases to the inflation rate, with a maximum annual increase of 5%. Rent control has been banned in the Bay State since 1994.
“They see an apartment that maybe is a little older and needs some work, but it’s affordable, and they see it as ‘Well, we can buy it, improve it and rent it at double the rent,’” Bears said. “No one can afford double the rent.”