Timing: There will be a public hearing about Wu's proposal in two days. I imagine that the Greater Boston Real Estate Board wanted to make its opinion known before that hearing. Hence the timing.

> additional barriers to evict problem tenants

Section 3 of the proposal has statements about who is and who is not a problem tenant. Landlords can still evict tenants who:

a) don't pay rent

b) violate legal parts of the lease

c) are a nuisance or cause damage

d) use or permit the use of the unit for any illegal purpose

e) refuse to renew their lease of like duration at a rent permitted by the city.

f) refuse reasonable access to the owner

g) are unapproved subtenants

I've had landlords who were some of the sweetest people on Earth, and I've had landlords who were braindead lying control freaks.

A recent landlord thought I was a "problem tenant" for pointing out during the COVID pandemic that without a full screen window instead of a cheap sliding insert, my bedroom did not meet the minimum ventilation standards of the building code. How dare I want ventilation during that time?

Other than a through g, what might you consider to be a "problem tenant?" To many new owners, any tenant with an insufficient income is "a problem tenant." That's dehumanizing in my view.

> ...a written extension or renewal thereof or lease for a further term of like duration...

Looks like my guess that the landlord had the option to force a tenancy-at-will was wrong.

> I just don't see any evidence that that is the case

It's not the case now. It is currently the case for section 8 housing.

As for the proposal, here it is. Just cause protections are in Section 3.

I'm not sure what you're writing. Tenant protections require that tenants be protected.

My guess is that it would be the case that landlords would not be forced to sign a new lease. But without the option to legally evict under the new tenant protections, the tenancy would become a tenancy-at-will and continue that way until a fault is found. Still, I'm not a lawyer or a professional housing advocate, and I haven't read the proposal yet. That's just a guess based on what the law is now.

> a Notice to Quit is not required when a lease ends.

Good point. A Notice to Quit can be given, but it doesn't need to be when a lease ends.

> your landlord can immediately file papers in court and begin an eviction case

But beginning an eviction case is not the same as an eviction that can actually legally displace someone. An eviction is still required to legally displace a tenant if the lease is over, so the legal protections from no fault evictions (that would be part of a sound rent stabilization plan) would apply.

A notable exception is what we're discussing for the future in Boston.

> The petition would also provide new tenant protections, including certain provisions protecting tenants from no fault evictions, which landlords have commonly used to clear out buildings for higher-paying renters.

> It's not an eviction if the lease is over

Maybe you're confused about terminology? A legal Notice To Quit can be given when a lease is about to be over. That's related to the timing of an eviction, but it's not an eviction.

Evictions are needed to legally displace tenants in this state, regardless of whether the lease is over or not. So...yes...it is an eviction if the lease is over.

> Rent stabilization would just add another reason to push the existing tenants out.

That's why a rational approach by the city would combine rent stabilization with tenant eviction protection. Well look at that:

A hearing in two days to discuss

> a home rule petition to the General Court Re: A Special Law Authorizing the City of Boston to Implement Rent Stabilization and Tenant Eviction Protections.

I disagree with your premise and I disagree with your conclusion even if your premise is correct.

As for your premise, just because the government allows something to happen "up to 10%" does not mean that those who make the decisions will make it happen "at 10%."

As for your conclusion even if your premise is correct, the goals involved are not statistical—relating to the mean—in my view. Instead, the goals are based on preventing individual acts of (what seems to be) housing injustice where families have their rent increased by 100% or more by new owners.

> ...I would expect that the timing of this article with...

It's an opinion piece. It's not an article.

> I am somehow devoid of critical thought in your eyes due to my word choice.

I don't think you're devoid of critical thought. But based on your words, you don't seem to recognize the distinction between an opinion piece appearing in the Globe by the CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and the opinion of the Globe.

> Rent stabilization will only make housing challenges worse.

Not for the people who have stabilized rents. Vasil seems to admit this when he wrote:

> While the policy may provide relief to those lucky enough to land a rent-controlled apartment, it does nothing to build the housing stock the area so desperately needs.

Boston and the cities nearby should be able to do both things. They are different, but they are not mutually exclusive.

I used to volunteer with the group monitoring E Coli levels in the Charles River at the same time that my upstairs neighbor volunteered for the group that fed the white geese near the BU Bridge. I'd see him with huge bags of birdseed and joke with him about how his volunteer work impacted mine.

He would talk about individual geese. He would say, "Each one has its own personality, and we can follow them and their families and stories over time." I was thinking statistically. I'm a human, not a goose, and I want a measurably cleaner river for my own species.

I see a similar difference in mindset between people like Greg Vasil and Mayor Wu, but I take the side of individuals over the broad statistical outcomes when it comes to rent control. Even if every statement in Vasil's opinion piece is correct and every prediction comes true, he cannot argue that rent stabilization will only make housing challenges worse for those who have it. If I were a goose thinking about displacing human families instead of a human thnking about displacing human families, then I might have a more detached, objective, and statistical view and agree with Vasil.

The opinion section of newspapers used to be used to publish a variety of opinions that intelligent readers could compare with their own. I hope you can imagine going backwards in time to a different era and respond as if you lived in that era instead of writing "Nice job Globe. Nothing like telling your readership to go f@#k itself." I understand that the media you might be used to reading no longer does that.

Don't bother. The current state flag is embarrassing and nasty, and the state flag will be changing soon. Buy the new one when it finally rolls out. Google "buy Boston flag" for the city flag.

Lucky Strike Social in Assembly has bowling, skeeball, pinball, video games, shuffleboard, and similar things. Many people find one or more of those things to be cool or at least nostalgic.

Very similar conclusions to a 2021 article in Vox:

2021 Vox article by Jerusalem Demsas:

> the researchers were able to identify a few reasons for what happened to the Green Line: Jockeying between two different understaffed agencies with little experience managing large projects and consultants, a laissez-faire approach to allowing stakeholders’ expensive ideas to be added to the project scope “even if impractical,” and public pressure for more as the project dragged on and the demand for transit options increased.

This Slate article by Henry Grabar:

> when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority got to work on the Green Line Extension, the agency only had a half-dozen full-time employees managing the largest capital project the MBTA had ever undertaken.

Demsas's conclusion in Vox:

> American transit agencies need to be staffed up in-house to reduce reliance on expensive contractors and build up institutional knowledge.

Grabar's conclusion in Slate now:

> the conclusion is not just the old left-wing bromide of investing in the public sector. Consultants are paid in public money, after all. It’s a philosophical shift toward an empowered, full-time civil servant class. Spending money now to save money later.

The similarity is because both articles cite Eric Goldwyn from NYU's Transit Costs Project, and because Goldwyn is right.

Dinner at Mooo Beacon Hill is nearby. https://www.mooorestaurant.com/beacon-hill-menus/#dinner-beacon-hill

Make the most of it. You deserve it. Be sure they add the meal tax.

Looks OK.

See "Seals" at the bottom of the page here

> Seals > > Most seals that are found on beaches are quite healthy. Please do not disturb them. Unlike whales or dolphins, seals are semi-aquatic and are comfortable out of the water. Most seals come onto beaches to sleep, nurse, or soak up some sun. In fact, most seals on the beach are perfectly healthy, but sometimes they do need human assistance. Does the seal have any obvious injuries, gunky eyes, or look skinny or underweight? If so, please take notes on its location, size, coloring, and behavior and call the appropriate marine animal rescue team.

The phone numbers are at the website, but I wouldn't call them unless the pup has a problem.

The heritage of New England systemic racial and class injustice dictates that communities near Logan Airport must be the ones who suffer from the environmental impacts of air traffic because the poor minorities who are more likely to live there are less likely to use air transport than the residents of Lincoln, Bedford, Lexington, and Concord.

Of course a six story residential building is better than what's there now, but when you compare this project to what would go up in a city taking steps to cope with a housing crisis by building more, it's not much. How many residential buildings are 10 stories or more in that entire Union Square area? Two or three? Union Square isn't Sudbury. Amenities, colleges, transit, music venues, jobs, and nice places to eat are all really close to there. Some developers in Cambridge were asked by the city to add height. Why isn't the same thing happening in Boston?

You're right because "increase by less" is not the same as "lower." In most situations, building more housing will cause housing costs to increase by less than they would without building more housing. It would take so much new housing to sufficiently flood the market and lower housing costs that no politician would discuss such a dramatic change.

Redditors who don't pay close attention to words think you're wrong because ideology matters more than plain text in the US in the 2020s. It's a shame that so many people feel words first and think about their actual meaning later, if at all.

You can usually tell who is batshit crazy from their words alone. If person 1 compares A to B and person 2 pretends that person 1 was comparing A to C and then writes "/s", person 2 is batshit crazy.

I will likely agree with anyone who has obvious goals of housing justice and a rational, humane urbanism. A person with those goals might be for or against a particular housing development depending on the details and depending on the displacements of the people there now.

If you will permanently remove 5 working class long-term resident families with kids in the local public schools in order to create a tall building with 200 graduate students living in studios then I'll probably be against you. Call me a NIMBY. I won't care.

If you don't increase the rent of those 5 families much and find temporary housing for them while you build your tall building and welcome them back into your tall building when it's done and introduce them to their new neighbors then I'll probably be with you. Call me a YIMBY. I won't care.

I'll support or won't support a particular development based on its alignment with principles of intelligent urbanism or another rational urbanist school of thought. Just because the basic solution is to build more housing, that doesn't mean we have to increase inequality and decrease equitable access to opportunities to achieve that solution.

My view is that YIMBYs should be supported to the extent that they are housing justice advocates.

I have a grudge against simpletons.

I've been living in the Boston area for over 30 years and seen how some places have changed, other places haven't changed, and who has and hasn't profited. My view is that "Build that here" and "Don't build that here" are both stupidly simplistic tropes.

I'll support or won't support a particular development based on its alignment with principles of intelligent urbanism or another rational urbanist school of thought. Just because the basic solution is to build more housing, that doesn't mean we have to increase inequality and decrease equitable access to opportunities to achieve that solution.