Tenant vs. landlord at city public hearing

Serghino René

The issue, as Roberta Jones understands it, is one of fairness.

She had worked for 15 years and was laid off in May 2005. Instead of earning $34,000 a year, she was forced to live on her Supplemental Security Income of $8,000.

Through no fault of her own, she says that she is unable to afford a rent increase ordered by her landlord. Jones, a member of the Elm Hill Avenue Tenant Association, says she is now facing eviction and believes that the reason is her involvement with other tenants who want to collectively bargain with landlords and keep their rents affordable.

“If you think it’s not hard to keep my head high and continue in this struggle, you’re wrong,” she said. “It’s hard! I’ve never lived like this. If I have to leave, I have to live with my son in Baltimore, Md. This isn’t fair to me.”

It might not be fair, but mention any phrase remotely resembling rent control and property owners are quick to draw swords.

In an effort to mediate the boiling tensions between tenants and property owners, city councilors Sam Yoon, Michael Flaherty and Rob Consalvo ordered a public hearing last week in the city council chambers to discuss the idea of collective bargaining.

The councilors listened to testimony from tenants, developers, landlords and labor unions. Though no action was taken by city councilors, the meeting provided a forum to learn whether allowing tenants to negotiate rent as a group was, in effect, the same thing as rent control.

Without a doubt, property owners argued.

Property owners argued that tenants will demand guaranteed below-market rents and would threaten the owner with rent strikes, all assisted by the Rental Housing Resource Center that can impose harsh penalties for “bad faith” bargaining.

Skip Schloming, director of the Small Property Owner’s Association, testified that he is against collective bargaining.

“We can all be sure that tenants will come back at the end of the contract and negotiate for additional periods of below market rent,” said Schloming. “This is rent control for as long as it can be accepted.”

But one tenant organizer describes the need for action as a result of economic greed.

Tenant organizer Steve Meacham of City Life/Vida Urbana said he believes that the several large property owners are disingenuous when they tell tenants that rent increases are needed because the owners’ costs have increased. If that’s the case, Meacham argued, then the tenants deserve the right to see proof.

Meacham and numerous other tenants are convinced that many of the property owners are making substantial profits with their existing housing stock. “Otherwise they wouldn’t expand from no units to over 2,000 units,” said Meacham.

Meacham argued that residents are frequently the reason for the increase in real estate value. In some cases, Meacham said, tenants have worked for more than 20 years to keep their apartments clean and the surrounding areas decent.

“But if you are a tenant, that effort comes back to haunt you,” Meacham said. “Your rent is raised and you’re driven out.”

Meacham then asked a rhetorical question. “How do we determine how much profit is right and how much of that social benefit goes to the tenants?” he asked before answering, “through collective bargaining… Just because rent is market rent, doesn’t mean it’s fair rent. Fair rent is negotiated through fair bargaining.”

But a lawyer for the Mayo Group, one of the city’s largest property owners, says collective bargaining agreements exist in a number of the properties, but from his experience collective bargaining doesn’t work.

“The sense of ownership is not there, the sense of continuity for the tenants is not there and it creates problems for the landlord,” said Taran Grigsby, general counsel for the Mayo Group.

Grigsby argued that the Mayo Group has always been willing to negotiate with tenants on an individual basis and have a long history of doing so. “We have always been willing to come to work out an agreement when there is a disparity.”

But when it comes down to simple math and economics, Grigsby says collective bargaining is a problem. In one instance when the Mayo Group was working with one of the top two multifamily lending institutions in the country, they took a look at a collective bargaining building. They came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t finance it.

“I’m fairly confident that if such a measure were to pass,” Grigsby said. “you’d see two devastating things happen. One, it would not be a chilling effect; you will see an immediate freeze in the development of rental housing in Boston. Two, the existing stock will deteriorate and if you tell a landlord that his income is going to be capped for the sake of tenants, they will stop investing in the building.

“The final unintended consequence is simple economics. Existing stock will deteriorate, because if new stock is not added and existing stock continues to deteriorate, demand would rise, supply decreases and prices would increase.”

Property owners across the city are outraged at the idea. Rent control of any kind spells trouble for owners. Malena Schneeberger, a Boston landlord was visibly agitated. She called collective bargaining “blackmail.”

Anthony Dickson is a small property owner of a three-unit building. The issue on the table doesn’t affect him right now, but he is aware that it might affect him in the future.

“If I state the rent is x, y and z, that’s the way it should be,” he said. “My tenants shouldn’t tell me what I should charge for rent.”

West Roxbury property owner Lawrence Michaels raised several pointed questions during the hearing and concluded that the nation’s idea of free enterprise was now under attack.

“Can I negotiate with my gasoline?” he asked. “Can I negotiate my food? Can I negotiate my taxes? I have to pay taxes! I have to pay market price for gas, food and oil… So I have a few bucks? I worked hard and I deserve it. How about a few dollars in the bank for when boiler blows up, or the oil tank leaks or when I need a plumber?”