After years of urging the Legislature to rein in the soaring cost of housing in Massachusetts, tenant advocates had finally found momentum earlier this year.
A ballot question they put forward that would have restored rent control for the first time since the 1990s had for the first time in recent memory commandeered the attention of real estate groups and the Legislature — sparking talks that could have led to new tenant protections as soon as this month.
But that progress came to an unceremonious halt Tuesday, when the state’s highest court threw out that ballot question, seizing on a technicality that justices said rendered it unfit to appear before voters.
In the stunning 27-page ruling, Justice Frank Gaziano wrote that the rent control question could not move forward because it would have exempted units in religious facilities. Under the Massachusetts Constitution, certain matters, including religion, cannot be subject to an initiative petition.
“By including an express exemption for facilities operated solely for religious purposes, the petition impermissibly makes religion ‘a factor in [the petition’s] application,’ ” Gaziano wrote.
The ruling came on the heels of a similar decision last week in which the Supreme Judicial Court tossed a ballot question that would have lowered the state’s income tax to 4 percent. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by opponents seeking to keep it off the ballot.
The rent-control ruling was a huge blow to tenant advocates and likely kills off any attempt at a compromise they were negotiating with some members of the real estate industry in order to head off a costly ballot battle between the two sides. Now, longtime housing advocates have to reassess their path forward without the pressure of a ballot campaign bringing people to the table.
“This decision doesn’t change the fact that high rents are displacing workers and seniors from communities across Massachusetts, forcing people to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent, and making it impossible for young families to save money to achieve the dream of owning a home,” said Carolyn Chou, the executive director of Homes For All Massachusetts, the coalition of tenant groups behind the ballot question.
The rent control question would have repealed the 1994 referendum that banned rent control in Massachusetts, and barred most landlords from raising rents by more than the rate of inflation, or 5 percent per year, whichever was lower. It would have been the strictest statewide rent control program in the United States.
Its sponsors have been lobbying the Legislature for years, as housing costs have soared to some of the highest levels in the country, and more and more renters struggle to keep up. The real estate industry has repeatedly blocked tenant protection proposals on Beacon Hill, so last year advocates decided to go directly to the voters and filed a ballot measure for this November’s election.
The question had quickly flipped the politics of rent control — long a lightning rod issue in Massachusetts.
For the first time in years, tenant advocates had leverage on Beacon Hill. Now, that leverage is gone.
“Rather than accept any restrictions on their ability to extract profits from our communities, a few private equity-backed real estate investment corporations financed this lawsuit in a desperate attempt to avoid a ballot campaign they were set to lose,” Noemi Ramos, chair of the Yes campaign, said in a statement.
The ruling immediately raised questions for Attorney General Andrea Campbell, whose office last year certified the rent control petition as eligible for the ballot. Last week, when the SJC threw out the income tax ballot question, the court cited Campbell’s summary as the primary reason, saying it did not adequately inform voters about an important component of the tax repeal
“When we certified it, we thought we were obviously on the right legal footing,” Campbell said of the rent control decision during an appearance on GBH’s Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “But [the SJC] determined that . . . even a minor exemption here, even if it’s a minor issue, as we described it, was enough to say that this relates to religion because it exempts housing used for religious purposes, and thus it cannot proceed.”
Opponents of the rent question had warned it could devastate housing development and the rental market, and vowed to spend huge sums to defeat it. Now they won’t have to, and officials with the “no” campaign cheered the ruling.
“While we firmly believe that Massachusetts voters were prepared to vote ‘no’ in November, today’s decision puts the issue to rest and protects our housing pipeline and our communities from the proven damage that rent control inflicts,” said Conor Yunits, spokesman for Housing For Massachusetts.
Developers, too, were relieved. Many builders had reported the mere prospect of the ballot question was giving investors cold feet about financing projects in Massachusetts, slowing construction already.
The proposal was a “pretty scary and potentially dangerous piece of policy,” said Noam Ron of Boston-based Hudson Group, a real estate firm that has built housing across Boston’s Leather District and Chinatown neighborhoods.
“We’re in a housing crisis. We’re going to be in a housing crisis for the rest of my life, and probably my son’s,” Ron said. “Putting up additional barriers to building housing isn’t good for anyone.”
To head off the ballot question, some prominent developers and real estate groups in recent weeks attempted to push a more modest compromise policy through the Legislature, which would create a “local option” for rent control, allowing cities and towns to limit annual rent increases if they so choose. Rent caps under the compromise would have been set at the consumer price index plus 5 percent, with a ceiling of 10 percent.
The prospect of a compromise was quickly gathering momentum, fueled in part by developers’ fear that fed-up renters could carry the ballot question to victory. At least some polls indicated those fears were founded. More than 62 percent of the voters surveyed in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll late last year said they would support capping annual rent increases to “no more than 5 percent statewide.”
Last week, the powerful commercial real estate group NAIOP, a leading opponent of rent control, agreed to come to negotiate a compromise to put before the Legislature. Governor Maura Healey also said recently that she supports a legislative compromise.
But the SJC ruling deals a significant blow to the compromise negotiations, perhaps ending them entirely.
Still, some still maintain that a compromise is the right way forward.
For developers, some uncertainty remains because the proponents of rent control could simply refile a ballot question for the 2028 elections with the confidence that many voters support rent caps.
“The SJC ruling is a welcome development for our industry, but is ultimately more of a postponement,” said Gilbert Winn, CEO of WinnCompanies, who helped lead the compromise negotiations. “The two sides were fairly close on a workable plan and I hope efforts to reach a compromise will continue. The investors who support housing production in our Commonwealth need clarity, not another two years of uncertainty.”
Chou, of Homes For All, said that tenant advocates would continue to push for rent control, and that the group is “committed to continuing conversations with all interested parties aimed at delivering the relief tenants so desperately need.”
Chris Van Buskirk and Catherine Carlock of the Globe staff contributed reporting.
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.