AG AGAINST RENT CONTROL BEFORE SHE WAS FOR IT
Healey backpedals after disagreeing with Wu
Gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey caused a stir Friday when she appeared to voice opposition to Mayor Michelle Wu’s efforts to implement a rent control policy in the city — and then walked back her remarks.
Attorney General Healey, a Democrat, was asked on a GBH radio program whether, if elected governor, she would sign a rentcontrol bill should it make it to her desk.
“I don’t think that’s the solution,” said Healey, who later added: “I’m a big believer in making sure that those needing rental assistance have support but I think the way you get there — the overall picture — it’s not through rent stabilization. It’s through the production of more housing.”
The question was posed after the interviewer told Healey that Boston’s mayor supports some variation of what Wu calls rent stabilization, commonly referred to as rent control.
Since rent control was outlawed in the 1990s in Massachusetts in a statewide ballot referendum, implementing some form of the effort in Boston would require state approval, which Wu has said she plans to seek next year.
Shortly after the interview aired, Healey’s campaign team began to walk back her remarks.
Campaign spokesperson Maria Hardiman told the Herald, “we’ve been clarifying what she said a little bit.” The question was about rent control, she said, “so the interpretation there was that it was about a statewide” rent control policy.
“Maura supports the right of communities to implement their own policies on rent stabilization,” Hardiman said. “She does not believe that a blanket statewide policy requiring rent control is the solution to our housing affordability crisis.”
Healey told GBH she would like to see more affordable housing across all income levels in Massachusetts, along with relaxed zoning restrictions and a focus on transit-oriented development.
When a response was requested from Wu’s camp on Healey’s rent-control comments, the mayor’s office instead directed the Herald to watch a March 10 press conference, where Wu announced the formation of a Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee.
“The mayor has assembled a Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee to study rent control models in other cities and Boston’s housing market,” said Wu press secretary Ricardo Patron. “Following their study they will make a policy recommendation.”
In March, Wu said rent control can mean many different things, from setting specific rents, to capping the amount people pay, or putting parameters around how much rent can go up.
While the mayor declined comment, Healey’s Democratic opponent for governor, state Sen. Sonia ChangDiaz, took the opportunity to share her support for rent control on her Twitter account.
“Local option rent stabilization is an important tool at our disposal here,” said Chang-Diaz. “We need to come into the 21st century and allow cities and towns this flexibility. When I’m governor, I will sign a bill to allow it.”