WITH YESTERDAY’S FILING of a home-rule petition with the City Council to impose rent restrictions in Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu followed through on a cornerstone promise of her 2021 campaign. 

Now comes the hard part. 

In her letter to city councilors accompanying the proposal, Wu said the plan would allow the city to “better protect families from displacement caused by exorbitant rent increases,” while also serving to “maintain a robust development market, on which our new housing production depends.” 

It’s the kind of balanced language that the mayor hopes will help smooth the way for the controversial plan to make it through the layers of approvals needed to become law. But the proposal quickly drew heat from both sides of the debate, evoking shades of the old Texas quip that the only thing in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos.

The proposal, which is far from the most rigid versions of rent control, is billed as “rent stabilization.” It would limit annual rent increases to inflation plus 6 percent, and put a hard cap of 10 percent on any annual increases. The measure would exempt new housing construction for 15 years, and also not apply to owner-occupied homes of six or fewer units. 

City Councilor Kendra Lara, who is part of a cohort of progressive councilors favoring a much more muscular set of controls, called out the mayor’s attempt to straddle the divide on the issue. 

“I think that is what happens when you play the fence,” said Lara, who called the allowable annual rent increases in the plan “untenable” and said she’ll move to amend it when it comes to the council. “You can’t be reasonable and in the middle with a housing crisis that is displacing thousands of people,” said Lara, who chairs the council’s housing committee. 

While the proposal strikes strong tenant advocates like Lara as weak tea, it has the real estate industry sounding alarms that the city is flirting with disaster.

“Rent control, also known as rent stabilization, is a proven failure. It increases housing costs, discourages upkeep and maintenance, and disincentivizes construction,” said Greg Vasil, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, in reaction to yesterday’s filing. “We strongly oppose Mayor Wu’s plan to bring government price controls on housing to Boston because it would make the region’s housing crisis even worse. Instead, the city – and all of Massachusetts – should focus on passing pro-housing policies that reduce red tape, encourage construction, and lower overall costs.”

Rent control was banned statewide by a 1994 ballot question. For Boston to reintroduce limits on rents, the home-rule petition must win approval of the city council and then the Legislature. 

City councilors seem determined to have their say, with some eager to put stronger limits on rent increases. 

City Councilor Erin Murphy, herself a renter, said she was still weighing the plan. Murphy has been on record opposing the reimposition of rent control, but “that’s not what I would call it,” she said of Wu’s proposal, which she termed a “watered down” version of rent control, a characterization that actually made her more favorably disposed to the plan. 

Meanwhile, it’s far from clear whether Beacon Hill lawmakers will be interested in passing the proposal in any form. Gov. Maura Healey has said she would go along with allowing the city to pursue its own approach to the housing crunch, but she hardly seems enthusiastic about the underlying idea of regulating rents. 

Everyone seems to agree that housing costs and availability are a pressing problem in Boston. But the emerging debate on Wu’s proposal shows the agreement may end there. 

MICHAEL JONAS

NEW STORIES FROM COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE

Healey makes DC rounds: Gov. Maura Healey had a string of meetings last week in Washington, DC, with federal funding to replace the two bridges to Cape Cod and support East-West Rail figuring prominently in her face time with members of the state’s congressional delegation and key federal officials, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Read more.

OPINION

Bring back Boston’s elected school committee: Veteran Boston political organizer Mukiya Baker-Gomez says it’s time to end the 30-year failed experiment with an appointed school committee and let Boston voters again elect the board’s members. Read more.

Secret ballot vital for union votes: Charles Chieppo says a recent union drive at a Boston-based studio owned by gaming company Activision Blizzard is a good reminder of why workers should be able to decide by secret ballot whether to support a unionization effort. Read more. 

STORIES FROM ELSEWHERE AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Middleborough says it is intentionally snubbing the state’s new MBTA Communities law that required cities and towns served by the T to submit plans for multi-family zoning by January 31. (Boston Globe) 

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

Boston City Council President Ed Flynn encourages his colleagues to adopt more of a literal  open-door policy. (Boston Herald) 

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Hundreds of patients are waiting for beds in Massachusetts nursing homes, according to a new report on the backlog. (Eagle-Tribune) 

ELECTIONS

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador under Donald Trump, says she’s in and becomes the first one-time Trump ally now vying against him for the GOP nomination. (New York Times) 

James Fiorentini, who has served as Haverhill’s mayor since 2004, won’t run for an 11th term this fall. (Eagle-Tribune) 

A political consultant who worked on Harvard professor Danielle Allen’s gubernatorial campaign is launching a new super PAC to support Black Democratic candidates for office. (GBH News) 

EDUCATION

Some students at Mills College in Oakland, California, a small, struggling liberal arts school that Northeastern University took over in June, aren’t happy with the set-up, which one called an “acquisition,” not a merger. (Boston Globe) 

Multiple members of the coaching staff at Abby Kelley Foster Charter School in Worcester have been put on leave as the school conducts an investigation of unspecified “allegations of misconduct.” (Worcester Telegram)

ARTS/CULTURE

Some were joking that a pretty good football game broke out on either side of the main event on Sunday. Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos breaks it down thusly: “Rihanna is one of the few humans in this overexposed, over-curated world whom people simply cannot get enough of.” 

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Massachusetts communities are spending millions of dollars to remove PFAS, or “forever chemicals” from their drinking water supply. (WBUR)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTSThe state Inspector General referred four other state drug lab chemists or supervisors besides Annie Dookhan for prosecution to then-Attorney General Martha Coakley or her successor, Maura Healey, but none was ever charged. (Boston Globe)