After rents spiked under new owners, Pleasant View Apartment tenants back bill that aims to control such increases
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette by Alexa Lewis Staff Writer | February 26, 2025
EASTHAMPTON — When Leslie Sharr came home to Pleasant View Apartments one day in November to find a notice taped to her door alerting her that she could either sign a new lease with a staggering rent increase or alert the new owners of her intent to leave, she immediately started researching the legality of the situation.
“When we first got our letter, I would say we were all surprised,” she said. For many tenants, she noted, the increase in rent presented in the letter was about 35% to 40%.
But what she found wasn’t encouraging. Between rent increases implemented by Pleasant View’s previous owners, the new increases introduced with the sale of the complex in November, and the lack of rent increase controls, Sharr said her rent between February of 2024 and February of 2025 went up 51%, “and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.”
But a piece of legislation sitting on Beacon Hill has offered potential hope for Sharr and her fellow Pleasant View tenants.
Sharr, 76, who has lived in her apartment at Pleasant View with her 89-year-old husband for about 11 years, began to organize alongside other tenants around this legislation, titled An Act Enabling Cities and Towns to Stabilize Rents and Protect Tenants (HD.2501/SD.1084). The proposed legislation is a local option that would impose a limit on annual rent increases and require that evictions be based on defined, just cause reasons within certain dwelling units within a municipality.
State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, is a petitioner on the current House version of the bill because situations like the one at Pleasant View Apartments are something she sees frequently throughout her district as well. In Northampton and beyond, Sabadosa said she consistently hears of constituents having to make tough decisions about their living situations, often being forced into much less stable circumstances because of untenable rent increases.
“But they aren’t seeing any improvements to the property, there haven’t really been any changes,” which is commonly the case with such rent increases, she said.
If this bill were to pass, she said, tenants would have a better understanding of how much their rent would go up each year, and the limits placed on those increases would make for less jarring spikes in rent.
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