‘I’m going to do everything in my power.’ Healey says she supports a compromise on rent control ballot measure

Politics admin June 15, 2026 0 Comments

‘I’m going to do everything in my power.’ Healey says she supports a compromise on rent control ballot measure

Governor Maura Healey over the weekend said she would support a legislative compromise on rent control in order to avoid a brutal ballot fight this fall.

Healey’s comments, made at a forum hosted by the Service Employees International Union, came a few weeks after a group of tenant advocates and high-powered real estate developers floated a plan that would allow cities and towns to enact rent capsif they so choose, circumventing a tight statewide cap that’s headed for a vote this November.

“In terms of stabilization, there’s a discussion now about that ballot question. I support a compromise to bring in rent stabilization and get that question off the ballot,” Healey said, according to a recording of her remarks obtained by the Globe and confirmed by a spokesperson for her reelection campaign.

While Healey stopped short of endorsing the specific plan that tenant advocates and developers floated, her support for a compromise could provide significant momentum to the effort to reach a legislative deal before the July 1 deadline for advocates to submit the last round of signatures to move the ballot question forward.

If the proposal were to pass the Legislature by the end of this month, the advocates behind the ballot initiative — which would enact one of the strictest rent control policies in the country in Massachusetts — have agreed to drop the question.

Healey has taken a cautious approach to rent control in the past. While she said in 2023 that cities and towns should have the right to decide for themselves whether or not to pass rent cap policies, without needing approval from the Legislature, she said last year that she would oppose the ballot question heading for voters in November over concerns that it would “effectively halt [housing] production.”

In a statement Monday, she reiterated that opposition to the ballot measure, while signaling support for a more modest middle ground.

“Governor Healey knows that rents are too high and believes we need to do everything we can to lower them — which means we need to build more homes,” the Healey campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “She is concerned that the ballot question, as it currently stands, would slow down housing construction, which will raise costs for everyone. She encourages the proponents and opponents to reach a compromise and would be happy to review what they propose.”

The compromise deal supported by tenant advocates and the group of developers — WinnCompanies chief executive Gilbert Winn, HYM managing partner Tom O’Brien, Lupoli Companies chief executive Sal Lupoli, and Dave Madan, who leads The Builder Coalition — would create a “local option” for rent control, giving towns the option to enact their own rent caps by majority vote. It would permit annual rent increases of 5 percent plus inflation, up to 10 percent. A plan floated by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in 2023 followed the same parameters — proposing allowable rent increases of the CPI plus 6 percent, with a cap of 10 percent — but it died in the Legislature.

That is far more modest than the ballot measure, which would take effect statewide and limit rent increases to the Consumer Price Index or 5 percent, whichever is lower. If the ballot measure had been in place over the last two decades, it would have set an average cap of 2.6 percent each year. The policy would be one of the strictest rent control programs in the United States if passed.

Some real estate groups fear that voters fed up with the ever-rising cost of housing will vote to approve rent controlno matter the details. And rent control advocates have signaled for months that they would prefer to see a policy passed in the Legislature rather than an expensive and bruising ballot question campaign.

Still, the deal has far from universal support. Real estate groups NAIOP and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board — two of the biggest rent control opponents in the state — have yet to agree. The official “No” campaign was not involved in the compromise negotiations. And legislative leadership, which has historically opposed rent control of any form, has not weighed in.

But the support of Healey, who has made housing one of her top priorities, could prompt more serious discussions about the deal.

“I’m going to do everything in my power as governor to support that compromise and support something that will bring lower rents and also more homes to the market,” Healey said at the SEIU event.