Council Spars Over Proposal to Issue Early Report on Property Owners

Supporters and opponents of Cambridge's rent control system on the City Council clashed last night in a war of words over a order proposed by Councillor William H. Walsh which would have forced the city to keep the state posted on its efforts to placate city landlords.

The council voted down the measure six to three, dashing the hopes of small property owners looking for early state intervention to solve a number of severe problems facing owners of rent-controlled apartments.

Under the terms of a state rent control law passed last spring, the council's committee on rent control is required to issue a response to the concerns of small property owners by July 1. Walsh's order called for the committee to make such a reponse immediately.

Rent control supporters on the council last night blasted the proposal, saying the committee's work was not complete and accusing Walsh of catering to a powerful anti-rent control lobby.

Councillors also argued that calling for the state to monitor the city would impinge on the council's powers.

"I believe that the current council will do the best job possible at looking at the problems of rent control," said Vice-Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72, chair of the rent control subcommittee. "It is not the majority of the poeple in this city who have problems with rent control."

"The agenda is not to subvert rent control but to make it better in this its 20th year," Reeves said. "It is important for people in Cambridge to know the system is being attacked by a small group of people."

Walsh countered that the city council was stifling the opinions of small property owners and not allowing all sides of the issues to be heard.

"It's like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness," Walsh said.

In other business, the council passed an order submitted by Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 calling for a hearing to discuss the annual payments made by Harvard and MIT to the city as compesation for their tax-exempt properties.

"We are concerned with the acquisitions that Harvard has made in the last year or so and the long range impact of the loss of tax rolls," said Duehay.

Duehay pointed to Harvard's acquisition of the Quality Motor Inn on Mass Ave., which has been earmarked for Law School housing, as a property that could be removed from the tax rolls. Duehay said that he wants compensation for any such properties to be worked into the current in-lieu-of-tax agreement.

In the past, Harvard community relations officials have said the University will compensate the city for properties that come off the tax rolls.

Harvard currently pays the city $969,170 annually as compensation for its tax-exempt affilated housing complexes such as Peabody terrace. While the contract governing the in lieu of tax contribution expired on December 31, 1988, Harvard has continued its payments for the last two fiscal years as if the old agreement were still in effect.

The city and the University have been negotiating the new agreement for the last two years, with Cambridge officials repeatedly insisting that they are near completion of a new deal.

"It is something very important," City Assessor Sally Powers said in an interview yesterday. "We are looking at it very carefully."