Providence City Council Meeting | Special Committee on H.O.P.E | March 26th, 2026

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the special committee on health opportunity prosperity and education for a regular meeting for Thursday, 03/26/2026. Madam clerk, can you please call the roll?

Chairman Picciato.

Present.

Vice chairwoman Peterson.

Present.

Councilor Inderwal is absent.

Councilor Royas?

Present.

Councilor Sanchez?

Present.

Four present, one absent. You have a quorum.

Thank you very much. At this time, I'd like to entertain a motion to substitute what's before us, sub a. Is there a motion?

So moved.

The motion has been moved by councilwoman Shelly Peterson, second by councilman Miguel Sanchez.

Any discussion? The motion has been approved and is before us. Before we go any further, I also would like to entertain a motion to enter exhibit one, report. The motion has been second. And all those in favor?

Any abstention? Any nays? The ayes have it. It is before us and it is on the record into the record. I also like to entertain a motion to for the exhibit number two, presentation into the record.

The motion has been moved by councilman Roya, second by councilwoman Peterson. Any discussion? Any abstention? All those in favor? The motion carries is into the record.

At this time, just for the public's information, as you can see that those of us those of you who are here, you see a a t a large TV in front of us. But due to the improvement that we've made here in the city council, now you could also see in the both screens to your right to my right and and also to the left and on the side. And hopefully, also you could hear as well better than before. Is that a a thumbs up? Excellent.

And those of you who are watching online, again, this is the the bill that we're taking on and we have a a special a special guest with us that's going to provide us with a presentation and that is for the committee members to review but also have the discussion here. And as a final, we're going to take a motion, and then, hopefully move this forward after so many so many years of discussion, but, many months of discussion within within us, but also in the community. So with that said, I'd like to welcome our colleagues. Thank you very much for being here. I see councilwoman Althea Graves.

Thank you for being here. Councilwoman Jill Davidson. Thank you. Chairwoman and councilwoman Mary Kay Harris. And I believe that is it for us and obviously council members that that are here.

We're also joined by our law department, Etsy Shub Shubli. Welcome. And, of course, our wonderful staff and team from the clerks. Thank you for being here. So at this time, what I'd like to proceed with is the presentation of And before we go, I I just noticed also that our, deputy chief of staff for policy, Aaron Gardner, is here for any questions that we may have within the committees.

Members, if we need clarification, along with our Brandon and also Gabi from Communication. Thanks for being here. I know we put a lot of work into this. So the first item that I would like to bring forward is the presentation by miss give me give me one second. Miss, Tram Hong, senior associate from the policylink.org.

She will she will present to us and speak about rent stabilization across the country and in Providence. Is we have the link. Thank you and welcome virtually. Can you hear us fine?

Yes. Good evening.

Good evening. And is everyone able to hear thumbs up out in the crowd? Excellent. So welcome and, again, virtually to the province city council here at the state capital of Rhode Island. It's nice to meet you, miss Tram.

Yes. Sorry. I'm seeing two of myself. It's a little bit jarring, but good evening, chair Picciardo. Good evening.

And members of the committee, thank you so much for the invitation to join this call to present on rent stabilization and for making it possible for me to do so virtually. I'm based in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. So my name is Trom Huang. I'm a senior associate at PolicyLink, which is a national policy and research institute where I've spent the last few years tracking and documenting every jurisdiction in The US that has implemented some form of rent stabilization, approximately 200 of them. And I also support state and local governments in developing and implementing the policy.

I'm originally from Oregon, a place that has had statewide rent stabilization for over five years and have been in the Twin Cities for the past nine years where I've experienced the impacts of rent stabilization as both a renter and a homeowner. And in having many of these discussions across the country, I like to remind council members that there's a gift in not being the first. It means you can remain grounded in empirical evidence of the long term impacts of rent stabilization that have come from the 200 jurisdictions before you. And with any regulation, whether it's a tenant protection or a zoning change or parking minimum eliminations comes a period of adjustment, anxiety, and uncertainty. However, you have decades of implementation to rely on to show how rent stabilization and robust housing development can go hand in hand.

It's why investors and developers continue to build in Washington, Oregon, California, New Jersey, Washington DC, New York, and many other places that stabilize rents. So during my time with you today, I'm going to cover three main topics. The first is the literature on how rent stabilization works to improve housing affordability. The second is addressing misconceptions about rent stabilization. And the last is focusing specifically on the policy proposed in Providence.

And then I'll be happy to answer questions. And before I dive in, I I can't see video of committee members. So if anyone is trying to get my attention, I only see myself on the screen. Apologies. So feel free to interrupt.

Okay. Certainly will. Thank you very much. And if you can just also I know you mentioned about some, the organization that you, come from and also I think you shared also a little bit about your background and so forth. Can you do that again for me, please?

Oh, sure. Sure.

Yep.

So I'm a senior associate on the housing team at PolicyLink. We're a national policy and research institute based in Oakland, California. And, I myself have an urban planning background. And for the past few years, I've been at PolicyLink where I have tracked and documented every jurisdiction in The US that has implemented rent stabilization, so about 200 jurisdictions. And then I also support state and local governments in implementing and evaluating the policy.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Yes. Thank you. Thanks so much for the warm welcome. Alright. I have slides, and I'm not sure if oh, perfect.

Thank you so much. And I think council members, you have a copy of the slides too, we can follow along. So we'll start with the research. So if we go to the next slide, please. There is overwhelming literature that shows how rent stabilization is highly effective at increasing housing affordability and stability and decreasing displacement for tenants.

And it provides broader benefits to entire communities, not just the households whose rents are stabilized. Next slide. One really important data point that I want to share since conversations about the housing crisis are rightfully gloomy, is the potential for positive impact. And this is analysis from the National Equity Atlas, which shows that if Providence renters were not cost burdened in 2022, they would have gained over $358,000,000 in disposable income. That is money that could have gone to down payments, college savings accounts, groceries, health care, and the local economy.

And I'm sure this number has only grown, since 2022. And the report that I shared with you all is filled with research and statistics on the impacts of rent stabilization, but I also want to highlight some specific stats. So if you go to the next slide, we can start with the effect of rent stabilization on stabilizing rents, which sounds quite obvious, I know, but is actually one of the things I find most overlooked when we're discussing the benefits of rent stabilization. So the research shows that rent stabilized tenants pay less than non rent stabilized tenants. And in LA, that difference is more than 3,600 a year.

In San Jose, California, renters who are stabilized save over 3,700 a year in rent. In New York City, it's over 6,000 a year and even upwards of 18,000 if you are a tenant in Manhattan. In Santa Monica, California, the savings are more than 6,400. And in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before rent stabilization was abolished, rents in stabilized units were 44% lower than non stabilized units. Next slide.

I also want to talk about how rent stabilization improved stability, especially in places where tenants are feeling the pressure of displacement and gentrification. In LA, moving rates decreased by 37% after the city adopted rent stabilization, and it decreased the most for black and Latinx renters. In New York City, during the late nineties, during a period of rapid gentrification, rent in unregulated apartments in gentrifying neighborhoods increased by an average of 43%, but only 11% in rent stabilized apartments in the same neighborhoods. Next slide. From a governing and implementation perspective, rent stabilization speed, scale, and cost efficiency are unrivaled by other policy options.

It can take effect almost immediately and have tremendous reach. For example, in San Francisco, 173,000 homes are stabilized by rent stabilization, which is three times the number of affordable units that are provided through all other rental housing programs combined. And in New York City, more low income households pay affordable rents in rent stabilized housing than in public housing and subsidized rental housing projects combined. Now we need all of those programs, but the pure number of households that can benefit from rent stabilization is staggering. Next, we'll move on to addressing some of the misconceptions about rent stabilization, and the biggest being its impact on the housing market.

Now when discussing this, there's an important distinction to make between its implications for the construction of new housing new housing production and the impact on preexisting housing supply. There is no evidence that rent control reduces the production of new housing. This is from longitudinal studies in New Jersey where over 100 jurisdictions have had rent stabilization since the nineteen seventies. And studies nationwide including the coverage of LA and Washington DC. Those studies found no negative impact on construction rates.

In general, other factors have far more influence on construction delays and housing production than the presence of rent regulations, such as interest rates that compel investors to invest in other commodities, tariffs that impact construction costs, and global supply chain issues to name a few. The main difference between these things and rent regulations is that it's much easier to stop rent regulations from passing at the local level than, say, persuading the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates or the president to get rid of tariffs. Another way to think about this is looking at what happens when a city gets rid of rent stabilization, which is what happened in Boston, Massachusetts. And contrary to the industry's claims that ending rent control would lead to a construction boom, the city did not see an increase in construction. In fact, the housing market tightened with vacancy rates dropping from 4% to two point nine percent four years after rent regulation was abolished.

So in regards to, rent stabilization's impact on preexisting housing supply, opponents of rent stabilization often point to the Diamond Study on San Francisco. We can go to the next slide. Which that study documented how some landlords converted their rental housing to condominiums. So there are a few nuances to uplift from that study. A closer look at the study shows that condo conversions were correlated with areas that were rapidly gentrifying.

For the most part, the condo conversions did not happen in other neighborhoods that were experiencing a normal housing market. In normal market neighborhoods, landlords were apparently content to continue renting properties presumably because rent stabilization was allowing them enough return and was not problematic. The removal of properties largely occurred in gentrifying neighborhoods in which landlords wanted much higher profits and removed units via condo conversion to get them. Now one thing to think about is that condo conversion is not a reduction of the overall housing supply, but rather a repurposing of rental housing supply to home ownership housing supply. It is a mischaracterization, therefore, to claim that rent stabilization reduces overall housing supply based on this study.

And in addition, if condo conversion is an issue, jurisdictions can follow in Washington DC's footsteps where they passed complimentary condo conversion laws. And DC's condo conversion law also pairs with its tenant opportunity to purchase law, which prioritizes giving current residents the opportunity to become the owner of their rental home upon condo conversion. So the main lesson from San Francisco is that property owners can take advantage of loopholes to get out of the policy. And this doesn't mean that the policy doesn't work. We saw the statistics that showed it helped affordability, but rather that the policy had design flaws and we can fix those rather than writing off rent stabilization as a whole.

If we go to the next slide. On a more positive note, we have seen rent stabilization and robust housing production go hand in hand. And this is not because rent stabilization creates units. It doesn't. Right?

It's a protection tool, not a production one. But it further proves the point that other factors beyond rent regulation shape production. We've seen this in places across the country, In the Bay Area, for example, the six cities that had rent control produced more housing units per capita than cities without rent control. In Montgomery County, Maryland, which passed rent stabilization in 2023, building permits hit a ten year high in April 2024. And in Portland, Maine, passed the strongest policy in the country in 2020, the city experienced a 175% increase in the number of units permitted for development between 2020 and '21, despite the policy having no new construction exemption.

So of course, this is, again, not to say that rent stabilization creates units, but rent stabilization and housing production in the right environment can go hand in hand. The next slide. I want to also tackle a myth about property values. So I've done more research on this recently given concerns that have come up, and a review of the literature shows that rent stabilization does not reduce property values. One study of New Jersey cities found that there were no significant differences between cities with and without rent stabilization when it came to new cons