Boston Mayor Michelle Wu slammed her opponent Josh Kraft’s vision for limiting rent increases as “fake rent control” in an interview with GBH News Wednesday.
A few hours before Wu made her regular appearance on GBH’s Boston Public Radio, Kraft rolled out his Housing Access and Affordability Plan as his campaign’s first major policy announcement. In it, Kraft described an opt-in rent control program he said wouldn’t require approval by the state Legislature, which failed to act on a rent-control plan backed by Wu and the Boston City Council in 2023.
In Kraft’s voluntary framework, the city would invite landlords to cap their rents at the rate of inflation plus 5 percent for a decade, with rent increases limited to no more than 10 percent per year. In return, participating landlords would receive a 20 percent rebate on real-estate taxes funded in part by new housing production. Only renters earning less than 200 percent of Area Media Income would be allowed to participate.
“This is very misleading for Boston residents,” Wu said of Kraft’s proposal.
“Rent control means a certain government involvement to ensure that there are protections in place that apply across the board,” Wu continued. “And in fact what our administration had proposed and passed through the city council and [what] was stuck at the State House … would ensure that the worst actors, the predatory increases of more than 10% a year in rents, that those landlords and property owners who were pushing people out with 30%, 40%, 100% rent increases, that there would be guardrails to protect against that.”
The city’s 2023 proposal, in which Wu attempted to deliver on a central campaign promise, would have limited annual rent increases on a majority of city rental properties to either 10 percent or the rate of inflation plus 6 percent, whichever was lower.
“This is not a solution to the problem we are trying to solve,” Wu added, saying the city’s most avaricious landlords would still pursue draconian rent hikes if Kraft’s plan became reality.
Wu also objected to Kraft’s proposals to reduce the number of onsite affordable units required in new developments from 20 percent to 13 percent and to let more Bostonians qualify for income-restricted properties.
“Both parts are … the exact opposite of what community members need,” Wu said. “You can’t make Boston more affordable by reducing affordability requirements. So I’ve heard with alarm from some … housing activists who’ve already reached out this morning, saying we need to ensure that Boston continues to grow as a city for everyone.
”This would take us backwards.”
Kraft’s plan also includes a promise to jumpstart the production of 26,000 housing units that have already been permitted. It says those developments would provide up to $125 million in new tax revenue annually, but aren’t being built because they are, in Kraft’s words, “not financially viable under the Wu Administration’s mandates.”
In her BPR appearance, Wu said Kraft misunderstands the delay in production of the units in question, which she linked to rising mortgage rates.
“The assertion that lowering these requirements would unlock the 26,000 units is a … total misunderstanding of the reality of the city’s work,” Wu said. “In fact, those 26,000 units were permitted under the old rules. So going back to the old rules wouldn’t change anything in this case.”
Wu then implied, without mentioning Kraft’s name, that he has been “recruited by the real estate and wealthy development community to come in and try to undo some of the requirements that … ensur[e] we will be building what Bostonians need, and not just luxury housing.”
In a statement, Kraft spokesperson Eileen O’Connor called that allegation “laughable,” and added: “Josh’s opt-in rent control plan would provide real relief to renters, unlike Mayor Wu’s failed plan that has helped no one.
”This is a weak attempt to change the conversation from Mayor Wu’s failing record that has Boston at the bottom in new housing production among similar sized cities,“ O’Connor added.
