Landlord trade group MassLandlords has filed suit against the city of Boston for allegedly hiding emails between city officials and members of Mayor Michelle Wu’s Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee.
The group’s suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday, says the group has repeatedly filed public records requests for emails between city employees about the decision to establish the committee and the committee’s 23 members – members of the real estate industry and housing advocacy groups – including invitations to join the body. In response to those requests and a directive from the state Supervisor of Records, the lawsuit claims, city officials say only a single email was ever sent from a city account to committee members: a “welcome email.”
“The City’s implication — that there was absolutely no email correspondence involving any department of the City of Boston and any of these twenty-three individuals in the twelve months prior to their becoming members of Mayor’s Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee — beggars belief,” MassLandlords attorney Peter Vickery wrote in the complaint.
The group asks the court to force Boston officials to turn over the emails and other records it’s seeking, and pay court costs.
At issue, MassLandlords said in a statement, is its effort to determine why the administration largely excluded small landlords like the types it represents from committee membership.
“Whereas the proposal would grant developers a 15-year exemption from rent control following ground-up renovation, the form of “gut renovation” practiced by landlords would not be exempted, and worse, would not be permitted without approval from the rent board,” the group said. “It is essential that the appointment of the RSAC be a transparent process, with ample allowance for public input and commentary from renters and residential landlords, not just for-profit and nonprofit developers.”
The committee included one small landlord, Penguin Pizza owner Dermot Doyne.
The mayor’s office did not return a request for comment, but when asked about the lawsuit on WBUR’ “Radio Boston” show Monday morning, the mayor said she fully stands behind the process that led to the plan’s creation.
