MassGOP dead broke and down to skeleton crew | Local mainstream media hyperventilates over rent control ballot question while ignoring starter home proposal |
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At a crossroads: As home prices and rents soar, Massachusetts voters next year could face two radically different statewide ballot questions for tackling the housing crisis
They are as different as can be when it comes to proposals to rein in runaway housing costs.
One would slap a 5 percent cap on rent increases, not just in cities like Boston and Cambridge that once had rent control, but in every city and town across the state.
The other would lower housing costs by demolishing local zoning restrictions that stifle the construction of new single-family homes.
But come November 2026, the two statewide ballot questions, which take dramatically different approaches to the state’s dire housing crisis, could both go before voters.
Over the past two days, advocates for these dueling plans say they have collected enough signatures to pass one of the biggest hurdles to getting on next fall’s ballot.
Backed by the state’s powerful teachers and service workers unions, rent control group Homes for All Massachusetts has rounded up more than 124,000 signatures from voters for its sweeping statewide proposal, well more than the required 74,574, Boston.com reports.
For its part, the Legalize Starter Home campaign fired off a press release stating it had collected more than 100,000 signatures for its ballot question, which would bring down prices by boosting the supply of modestly-sized and priced homes.
However, so far, it’s the rent control activists who are grabbing all the headlines in the local mainstream media, even as they push an idea that would make the housing crisis ten times worse.
