PROPONENTS OF TWO POTENTIAL ballot measures aiming to tackle the state’s dire housing crunch – pulling from entirely different playbooks – had to contend with more than formal opposition to the campaigns this week.

They also took fire from those advancing the other housing measure and from legislative leaders openly frustrated by the number of initiatives looking to circumvent the conventional lawmaking process by taking issues directly to voters.

The Legislature has been thrust into the middle of a record-breaking year of ballot measures that could see 12 questions go before voters. While lawmakers have decried the surge in ballot campaigns, and said some of them represent an intrusion of wealthy special interests bankrolling the efforts, proponents say years of inaction on Beacon Hill in addressing issues through legislation has forced their hand.

That tension came to the fore during back-to-back hearing days on housing-related ballot measures.

One proposal, put forward by a collection of pro-growth groups led by Pioneer Institute senior housing fellow Andrew Mikula, is pitched as making it easier to build starter homes. The initiative would lower to 5,000 square feet the minimum lot size required for single-family homes to be built as of right in areas with adequate public water and sewer infrastructure.

Another, proposed by housing advocacy groups under the banner of the Homes For All coalition, takes aim at the skyrocketing rental market with what would be the strictest statewide rent control law in the nation. The measure would cap rent increases year over year to the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is lower, with certain exemptions.

Everything in the policy toolbox is needed to address the housing crisis, Carolyn Chou, executive director of Homes for All, told the special joint committee reviewing ballot measures. “I think we all agree that we need to do more for production,” she said, offering an implicit nod to the starter home ballot question. “We know zoning, cost and supply, interest rates – these are big barriers here to building, and we’re all committed to that.” But, she said, the rent control measure is needed to address “the crisis right now.”

Over the two days of hearings, those testifying on one ballot measure at times took shots at the other.

While rent control proponents acknowledged the need for more housing production, they argued that the state cannot build its way out of the crisis and that supply-oriented solutions like the starter home proposal are not sufficient on their own. Rezoning proponents, meanwhile, warned that if lawmakers did not enact the lot size change, voters may opt for price controls on rents they say would stifle the housing production market.

The head of the Massachusetts Municipal Association representing cities and towns urged the committee not to adopt the rezoning language, saying it would impose a one-size-fits-all solution to issues that should be decided by each community.

Mikula, the leader of the rezoning campaign, suggested leaving control entirely in local hands has been the barrier to the change that’s needed. “The need to zone for more housing at the local level,” he said, “is fundamentally a collective action problem” that needs to be tackled at the state level.

Lawmakers often used their hearing time to question why proponents opted to pursue their goals through the blunt instrument of ballot questions rather than enact change through the legislative route.

Sen. Brendan Crighton of Lynn warned them that “you lose the ability to compromise.” There is “willingness” from the Legislature and the governor to work on proposals like reduced lot size requirements, Crighton said.

Legislators could try to reconcile the opposing arguments and pitch a legislative solution to convince proponents to drop their ballot question campaigns.

Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Republican from Sutton, floated the idea of “a grand bargain of some sort” on the rezoning effort.

But top Democrats didn’t appear interested in brokering such a compromise themselves, at least on the contentious rent control question. Instead, their irritation at the flood of ballot proposals at times seemed to veer into wishful thinking.

“What would be really wonderful for the Legislature is if you all got together and figured out what a middle ground is,” Sen. Cindy Friedman, the hearing co-chair, told proponents of what would be the strictest rent control law in the country and opponents of the measure, who warn that it would be catastrophic to the rental economy. “We’re left in the middle,” she said. “So if you guys can just start talking to each other, and appreciate where you’re both coming from it would be enormously helpful for us, for you, and actually for the whole Commonwealth.”