An effort to impose rent stabilization in Providence has collapsed after the city council failed to override a mayoral veto, leaving the measure dead at least until after this autumn’s elections.
The council needed ten votes to override Mayor Brett Smiley’s veto of the ordinance. Nine councillors voted in favour and one against at a meeting on Friday evening, but five members did not attend, leaving supporters one short of the threshold.
The ordinance would have capped annual rent increases at 4 per cent for many households, while preserving routes for landlords to recover legitimate costs. It had cleared the council in April on a 9-6 vote.
Mr Smiley, who has long opposed regulating the price of rent, vetoed the measure less than a day after its final passage. He has argued that rent caps would discourage new housing construction and do little to address the city’s underlying shortage of homes.
Supporters countered that tenants in Providence need protection now from steep increases, and that the absence of any cap leaves renters exposed in a tight and costly market.
The fight has become entangled in city politics. Mr Smiley faces a Democratic primary challenge in September from state Representative David Morales, who has pledged to sign rent stabilization into law if he is elected mayor.
With the override defeated, the question of whether Providence should cap rents is likely to be settled less in the council chamber than at the ballot box later this year.