Council Talks About Whether to Talk About Rent Control

The Cambridge City Council spent an hour Monday discussing why it should not follow through on a proposal, made by rent control foe Councillor William H. Walsh, that the council hold a public hearing on rent control immediately.

Councillors said that a public hearing on rent control right now--just weeks before the city council election--would not help resolve the issue. No plans for a hearing were made.

"Most of the councillors have established positions," Councillors Francis H. Duehay '55 said. "This is not the time to break down positions. If there were a time, it would not be four or five weeks before the election."

Other councillors agreed that a discussion right now would not lead to negotiation and compromise.

"I think there is a notion that if the council discuss this that somehow a consensus will occur," Councillor Edward N. Cyr said. "If anything, a hearing at this point will only serve to polarize a discussion which is already quite polarized."

Most councillors also agreed that a public hearing would be too emotional to be constructive. Both councillors Cyr and Alice K. Wolf called for "concrete proposals" and "specific programs."

Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 said that while he does not fear public discussion of the issue, he considers additional hearings unnecessary. He said he thinks the majority of Cantabrigians support rent control.

"Rent control is not a new policy in the city of Cambridge," Reeves said. "It's over 21 years old. And the people of Cambridge keep bringing back the council that supports it."

But several councillors, including Wolf and Jonathan S. Myers, said that aspects of the city's housing policy have to be reexamined. Myers and Wolf are both endorsed by the progressive Cambridge Civic Association, which supports rent control.

One of the issues which even staunch supporters of rent control in Cambridge say need to be tackled is that of "ordinance condos."

There is an ordinance which prevents owners from living in condominiums converted after August 10, 1979. However, many people are currently illegally occupying their own "ordinance condos."

These condominiums can be bought for far less money than condominiums not subject to rent control because there is a cap on the rent owners can charge their tenants.

Reeves said that people should not buy ordinance condominiums knowing that they cannot live in them. "What are we supposed to do, selectively enforce the law? Why do people buy houses knowing they can't live in them?" Reeves said.

But Wolf said that not everyone who has bought one of these condominiums fully understood the law at the time of their purchase.

"The issue is that at the time that the ordinances were changed, some people were really hurt because real estate agents and lawyers misled them," Wolf said.

A public hearing held in July by the council brought threats of violence from some rent control opponents, but it also brought some proposals for compromise.