Letter from the Executive Director for December 2025: Tenterhooks

In November, we waited on tenterhooks to learn whether the 2026 rent control ballot initiative gathered enough signatures. Because that was not known at time of writing, we will review accomplishments rather than work to do. It was a busy policy month even setting aside rent control.

We provided testimony on four bills: fire safety (support), daycares in apartments (opposed), rent control (distinct from the ballot proposal; opposed), and right of first refusal (opposed). It takes a lot of time to prepare testimony. Thank you to the three dozen members who provided additional input opposed to rent control.

I also drafted and submitted our letter of interest seeking reelection/reappointment to the Mass Save Energy Efficiency Advisory Council Equity Working Group. We have been welcomed into the room and presently hold a non-voting stakeholder seat. There are a lot of diverse and differing viewpoints with strong moderation, and for those reasons combined, it’s a very high-performance group. In 21 designated equity communities, 100% of insulation, air sealing, barrier removal and heat pumps are being covered by the program.

Speaking of Mass Save, I co-presented at the New England Regional Building Performance Association Annual Conference on the new Mass Save renter offer. My co-presenter, Chris McClellan at Eversource Energy, was great to work with. We helped a dozen or so attendees learn about the program.

Switching away from policy for a second, I am pleased to report a dozen bugs have been fixed for the monthly dues option (all reported bugs are fixed). Also, after years of troubleshooting, we have started to release the fix for the site slowdowns for long-term members. The issue is a bad database query on event attendance records. Some of us have 11 years’ event history, making the query very slow. We’ve already reduced page load times by about a second out of 13 seconds. Further and more significant improvements are expected in December.

There was a rare opportunity to attend a development event, so I accepted. I saw the ceremonial lighting of the Gaetano Pesce Heart at Lyrik, the new public plaza over the pike at Mass Ave. and Newbury St. There are many great public spaces in Boston and surroundings. Our industry contributes a lot to what cities are and can be.

Switching back to rent control, whatever happens with the 2026 ballot, the fight will surely never end. A Harvard sociologist approached us to ask to shadow our opposition; regrettably that was one request I felt compelled to decline. We are coordinating with partners and like-minded associations statewide and making difficult decisions about how much to invest in the fight, when all we really want to do is create better rental housing.

Please join as a member, encourage others to join, become a property rights supporter or increase your level of support.

Sincerely,

Doug

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.