CAA takes fight over rent control to Massachusetts high court

The California Apartment Association is taking its fight to define the constitutional limits of extreme rent control beyond California, filing a brief last week with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court opposing a sweeping statewide ballot measure.

The outcome could influence how courts nationwide draw the line on rent control regulation, with potential constitutional implications for ongoing policy battles in California and beyond.

The measure would repeal Massachusetts' long-standing ban on rent control and replace it with a regime that caps rent increases at inflation, with a 5% ceiling, while eliminating vacancy decontrol - the ability to reset rents to market rate when a tenant moves out. Plaintiffs are seeking to keep it off the November 2026 ballot.

The case comes to the full court through its single-justice session using a procedure known as "reserve and report," which can fast-track major legal questions - a common approach for challenging Massachusetts ballot measures. The court specifically invited outside input, and CAA answered that call, bringing decades of experience from California, one of the nation's most heavily regulated housing markets.

California's experience - and Costa-Hawkins' guardrails

In its amicus curiae brief, or friend-of-the-court filing, CAA argues that the measure raises serious constitutional concerns under the Takings Clause. Courts evaluating regulatory takings claims look closely at whether laws disrupt reasonable investment-backed expectations. CAA contends the proposal would swing an entire statewide housing market from no controls to near-universal strict rent control overnight - a shift the Constitution does not permit.

CAA's filing draws on California's 50-year history with rent control to make that case. Even in a heavily regulated market, CAA argues, rent control has evolved incrementally and within limits.

Chief among those limits is the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which guarantees vacancy decontrol and exempts single-family homes, condominiums, and newer construction from local rent control. Those protections have served as a moderating force, even as cities have added regulations over time.

The Massachusetts proposal discards those guardrails entirely. By eliminating vacancy decontrol and imposing strict caps across most housing at once, it goes further than any system currently in place in California.

CAA's brief makes clear that incremental regulation does not automatically make rent control lawful. But, the pace and scope of change do matter: a sudden, sweeping shift is far more likely to disrupt settled investment-backed expectations in a way that raises constitutional concerns.

Broad coalition sounds the alarm

CAA is part of a broad coalition opposing the measure. Six other amicus briefs were filed in support of the challenge, including from construction industry groups, a Massachusetts community bank, and major business organizations. Those briefs warn that strict rent caps would discourage the financing, construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of rental housing - with ripple effects across the broader housing sector.

A national debate over rent control

While rooted in Massachusetts law, the case reflects a broader national debate over how far governments can go in regulating rents and whether those policies shift too much of the burden of housing affordability onto housing providers, rather than the burden being shared by the public as a whole.

CAA has been at the center of that debate. In addition to its work in California, the association has filed briefs in major cases in New York and Washington state involving constitutional limits on rent control and eviction policies.

As courts across the country face increasingly aggressive rent control proposals, CAA continues to engage wherever those cases have the potential to shape constitutional precedent.