Mayor Michelle Wu’s major priorities of rent control and BPDA reform are on track to head up to Beacon Hill after the Boston City Council passed them today.
The council approved both rent control and reform of the Boston Planning & Development Agency by 11-2 counts.
The body approved both in what’s essentially the versions submitted by Wu, so she’s expected to sign them. Once that ink’s dry, both bills then head to the state house, where they need the approval of both chambers of the Legislature and then the governor’s signature.
“This is a monumental act by the city of Boston,” Government Operations Chair Ricardo Arroyo said as he recommended passage of the rent-control bill.
These are two of Wu’s top priorities — topics she ran on in her 2021 mayoral campaign and also touted in her State of the City speech in January as she laid out her priorities for the year.
The rent-control bill would cap year-over-year rent increases at 6% plus consumer price index increases, to a max of 10%. The rule would carve out exemptions for new construction and small landlords, as well as strengthening protections against evictions.
When Wu initially proposed it, she took flak from both the left and the right. Multiple progressive city councilors criticized her proposal as too loose, but all of them ultimately voted in favor of what City Councilor Kendra Lara characterized as a compromise.
Industry groups have hammered this proposal from the other side, including launching a $400,000 campaign against it, saying it’s a failed policy that will cut down on new housing.
Wu’s called to “abolish the BPDA” for years and though the bill uses that language, her officials seem to have backed away from it. The BPDA high-ups who attended a hearing on the matter last week pitched it to the council as more of a “consolidation” — a bookkeeping maneuver that would combine the two wings of the organization under one banner while eliminating some old urban-renewal rules.
City Councilors Frank Baker and Erin Murphy were the lone votes against both matters.