Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce are cruising toward another political fight that could strain their sometimes-friendly, sometimes-cool relationship. And this time, neither one of them started it.

Over the course of the past week, Wu came out in support of a ballot question that would impose one of the nation’s strictest rent control policies on most residential properties across the state, while the major Boston business group — and its counterpart in Central Mass., the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce — joined the real estate-led campaign seeking to defeat the question.

Jim Rooney, the head of the Boston chamber, claimed that there are already housing construction projects that have been delayed because financial backers are “hesitant” about the prospect of rent-capped apartment units. “It does not make financial sense for investors to build the amount of housing we need in Massachusetts under these circumstances,” Rooney said in a statement circulated by the real estate-led opposition campaign. “Rent control is a terrible idea.”

Wu has long been a backer of the idea of rent control, but she spent months hesitating to get on board with the ballot initiative. Even now, she’s framed her support with a bit of qualification. “If this is still on the ballot by this fall, I am a ‘yes,’ voting for it,” Wu said during an interview on GBH News’s Boston Public Radio, emphasizing that her attempts to bring rent control back to the capital city took a different approach. (Boston instead sought state approval to reinstitute the policy solely within its limits, not statewide as the ballot question proposes, and with a notably higher cap on rent increases than the campaign surging toward voters.)

It puts Wu and Rooney on a collision course for the second time over a major real estate issue. In 2024, when the mayor first launched an ill-fated effort to temporarily shift a greater share of the property tax burden from residents to businesses, the Boston chamber initially backed a version of Wu’s plan. Once new data emerged a few months later, however, Rooney’s group changed course and instead urged lawmakers not to approve the tax shift.

The rent control campaign has also prompted a policy fracture between Wu and another key power player: Gov. Maura Healey, who in December declared that she opposes the measure.

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Published by MassINC