By Evereth Woodruff 
Rent control
The recent push for a 2026 rent control ballot question,(“Rent Control Push”, Aug 6) is the latest chapter in a familiar story of well-meaning policies that promise relief but guarantee decline. Once again, we see a proposal that treats the symptom — high rent — while aggressively ignoring the disease: a chronic, self-inflicted housing shortage.
It’s an economic axiom: price controls don’t work. Capping annual rent increases at the Consumer Price Index (or some arbitrary percentage) is an attempt to defy economic gravity. It pretends that a landlord’s costs for mortgages, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance simply vanish when their revenue is capped. They do not. The inevitable result, proven time and again, is the deterioration of the existing housing stock and a screeching halt to new investment.
The data on this is not theoretical. Look at our own history. After Cambridge abolished rent control in 1994, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that formerly controlled properties saw their values jump, leading to increased investment and property tax revenues. More recently, a landmark 2019 Stanford study on San Francisco’s rent control found that while it benefited some incumbent tenants, it also reduced the supply of available rental housing by 15% and drove up market-rate rents across the city by over 5%.
Even more starkly, after St. Paul, Minnesota implemented a strict rent control policy in 2021, permits for new multi-family housing construction plummeted by over 80% in the following months as builders fled the market.
Proponents frame this as a tool to prevent displacement and protect working families. But the evidence shows rent control is a cruel lottery. It benefits a handful of lucky incumbents at the direct expense of everyone else. It makes it harder for young people, new residents, and growing families to find a home, as the supply of available units shrinks. By locking current tenants in place, it creates a stagnant, insider-outsider system that ultimately entrenches the very inequity it claims to solve. It doesn’t make housing more affordable; it just makes it more scarce.
The advocates are right about one thing: housing costs are crushing. But the solution isn’t to argue over how to slice a shrinking pie. The solution is to bake a much bigger one. Legalize multi-family housing statewide. Enforce and expand the MBTA Communities Act to preclude the paper compliance seen in many towns, and invest in commuter rail availability and reliability while fast-tracking permitting for all types of housing.
Until our “leaders” have the courage to dismantle the regulatory fortress that created this crisis, proposals like rent control are nothing more than a damaging distraction.
Gary Durst
North Billerica