New low for Diehl | Those NIMBY neighbors | Mixed bag on rental bills | Danielle Allen goes for it |Podunk backlash |
Year of the renter? Tenant protections gain Statehouse traction
Landlords would be barred hitting up new tenants with “a fourth month’s rent” under a package of bills that cleared a key legislative hurdle this week.
The fourth month’s rent refers to the dubious practice, embraced by some larger apartment building owners in Boston and other cities, of offloading their broker fees onto their new tenants.
It comes in addition to the first and last month’s rent and security deposit that is standard in the market – and that already weighs heavily on many renters.
But that’s not all. Housing activists would also get a say in disciplining wayward agents, and would-be brokers and agents would have to undergo fair housing and anti-discrimination training, under the trio of bills the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure voted out with a favorable recommendation.
Effectively, that means the bills live to fight another day, with those that are reported out with negative recommendations, or sent to study committees, all done for the year.
State Rep. Tackey Chan, House chair of the committee, said the protections are needed to prevent some big apartment owners from taking advantage of a tight market.
“It’s really about addressing practices in the industry that have come about as a result of the housing shortage,” the Quincy Democrat said.
Enter Lewandowski: MassGOP primary race takes nasty turn
Just when you thought Geoff Diehl couldn’t go any lower, ginning up antivaxxers outside Boston City Hall, the Republican primary candidate goes and hires Corey Lewandowski.
Wonder if Diehl asked the Trump-hack-turned-political consultant why his services just happen to be available right now?
South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem gave the Lowell native the broom after allegations Lewandowski sexually harassed a donor at a dinner they attended together last fall in Las Vegas.
The event was a fundraiser for Victoria’s Voice, a charity devoted to fighting youth drug addiction.
Here’s what Trashelle Odom, the wife of Trump super PAC donor, had to say about her experience that evening, per a statement to the Washington Post in a Sept. 30 story.
“He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful,” Odom said.
Danielle Allen goes for broke in governor’s race
The odds are heavily stacked against the Harvard professor and state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz as they battle Attorney General Maura Healey, the frontrunner with lots of campaign cash and name recognition.
But Allen is not leaving anything on the table, as she continues to find ways to stand out in the Democratic primary with envelope-pushing proposals.
Allen’s latest: Decriminalizing personal heroin and cocaine use and expanding treatment.
Sticking to the conventional political playbook, Healey and Chang-Díaz wouldn’t go near the issue when quizzed by reporters.
It comes a couple weeks after Allen, amid the contentious rollout of Boston’s vaxx mandate, issued an attention-getting call for an “exit ramp” for local mask and vaccine mandates as infection rates drop.
The ground is clearly shifting in the debate on how to deal with the scourge of drug addiction. Allen’s proposal is not just brave, but shrewd politics.
From Title Town to Petty City?
The furor over Tom Brady’s retirement is a reminder that, for all of the Boston area’s grand pretensions, we can be positively petty at times.
The Globe ran three different columns on the GOAT’s perceived snub of the Hub and its fans, including one above the fold. That’s in addition to Dan Shaughnessy’s piece, also above the fold, on how Brady is the greatest player in Boston sports history – which, mercifully stayed clear of the jilted fan angle.
Thanks to a booming biotech industry, and our universities, hospitals, and cultural institutions, Greater Boston punches above its weight.
But at the end of the day, are we just a glorified small town?
If you want to see how the rest of the world views Brady’s retirement, check out this WSJ piece.
Right to repair your iPhone moves ahead
The electronics right to repair bill won the nod from the Legislature’s consumer protection committee, despite some heavy lobbying by Apple and other tech giants.
Consumer advocates and small cell phone and computer repair shops have pushed the bill hard, arguing Apple and other giants routinely refuse to sell parts or provide other basic assistance.
The bill had faced skepticism from Rep. Chan, the House chair of the consumer protection panel, who argued the ramifications could extend beyond cell phones to high-tech hospital equipment and the like.
A big push by the national Right to Repair group, and strong interest in the bill by Senate leaders, however, combined to win the bill a favorable vote from the committee and keep it moving forward.
Deadlocked: Rent control and tenant purchase bills stuck in neutral
They represent possibly two of the most controversial bills under consideration right now at Beacon Hill. And, for the moment at least, both are going nowhere fast.
A rent control proposal and another bill, dubbed “rent control lite,” that would give tenants – and effectively nonprofit housing developers as well – first crack at buying apartment properties failed to make it out of the Joint Committee on Housing by Wednesday’s deadline.
Instead, supporters of the bill, championed by Sen. Pat Jehlen, managed to win an extension that will give the Somerville Democrat and other lawmakers more time to hammer their differences over the bills.
But that’s going to be a tall order. Rental property owners and nonprofit housing developers and tenants are lobbying fiercely on both sides of the issue, with little middle ground.
No No No NIMBY
Here’s a thought-provoking essay by Dan Winslow, president of the New England Legal Foundation. www.newenglandlegal.org. Winslow is a former judge, legislator, and chief counsel to a Massachusetts governor. The New England Legal Foundation advocates for private property rights in New England.
“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins,” said an anonymous judge when an assault defendant claimed that he had the right to swing his arms in a free country. The admonition would well apply to property rights in America, where property rights are civil rights protected by the United States Constitution. Your right to your property should end where another person’s property rights begin.
But that’s not how the law works in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, abutters and even abutters to abutters have presumptive standing to file legal challenges to any proposed development of their neighbor’s property. Standing to file a lawsuit usually requires that the party filing the lawsuit make an initial showing of actual of harm. In Massachusetts, and other states that allow presumptive standing for abutters, the ability of naysayers immediately to say “nay” to development, growth and jobs gives lopsided power to the NIMBY. For “not in my backyard.”
Massachusetts’ presumptive standing law creates the immediate power to sue, obstruct, and delay even when there is no possible impact on neighbors. For example, a large landowner who wishes to develop a portion of her property deep in a forest, hundreds of yards away from her nearest abutter, which the abutter cannot see, hear, smell, feel or perceive in any way, still needs to engage in legal battles with NIMBYs on the issue of standing to sue.
Despite a 2020 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court tightening the “person aggrieved” requirement to sue, presumptive standing allows abutters to object, sue and potentially kill new development, and all the jobs, tax growth and opportunity that new development creates, merely because their backyards touch the edge of the forest. NIMBYs can and have blocked housing, jobs, solar energy, sidewalks, bike paths, growth and progress in Massachusetts.
Presumptive standing allows NIMBYs to oppose new development, even when the NIMBYs themselves create the same impact by their own property on their other neighbors. Imagine, for example, “Tower X”, a tall residential tower in Boston. Tower X, when built, forever changed the views of the city’s skyline. Fast forward years later, imagine their neighbor wishes to invest in construction of a new tower next door, “Tower Z”, creating hundreds of jobs and increasing the city’s tax base. Is it fair that the owners of Tower X have presumptive standing to object to the exact impact that Tower X created for its neighbors when it was built?
The situation calls for further legislative correction. And, at least for NIMBYs who attempt to block affordable housing development, the legislature enacted the Housing Choice Act to require that NIMBYs post a bond to cover the costs incurred by developers of new housing if their lawsuit fails on the merits. It’s a good start but can fall short because projects are at risk from delay and uncertainty as much as from cost. Instead, two simple changes would help de-NIMBYize development in Massachusetts:
First, abutters (like all other litigants) should have standing to sue to block development only when they can first show actual, particularized harm to their property rights by the proposed development. Does the new project create unreasonable glare, noise, smell, vibration, unsafe traffic conditions, or other tangible harm for the abutter? If yes, then abutters have shown actual harm to their own property rights and can file suit to compel changes in their neighbor’s project to mitigate the impacts.
Second, under the equitable concept that “those who seek justice must do justice,” an abutter should not be able to sue to block their neighbor when the abutter’s own property creates the same impacts on its own neighbors. If your building casts a shadow, you cannot complain when a new project casts a shadow. If your building blocks your neighbors’ view of the harbor, you cannot complain when a new project blocks your view of the harbor. Treat others the way you would want to be treated. And if you don’t, you cannot sue them.
These legislative fixes would have an immediate and positive impact on development, housing, job creation, and new growth in Massachusetts. When NIMBYs lose, everybody else wins.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.
Contrarian Boston seeks contributors
Have a news tip? Is there an issue you would like to see explored? Interested in writing up a news item or short opinion piece? As Contrarian Boston gets on its feet, I would like to add more news and a wider range of commentary as well.
Intrigued? Drop me a line at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
Thanks for reading and see you Friday.