Nearly two-thirds of voters in Maine’s largest city overwhelmingly rejected a landlord-led attempt to weaken rent control rules in Tuesday’s election.
The result was a victory for the Democratic Socialists of America’s Maine chapter, which defended Portland’s rent control ordinance on a shoestring compared with the campaign run by the Rental Housing Alliance of Southern Maine, a landlord group that came up with the ballot question.
The “no” side won 66.6 percent of votes to 33.3 percent in support of the change, which would have only attacked one element of the rent control law: a 5 percent cap on rent increases when a tenant moves or a housing unit changes hands for some other reason.
Portland passed rent control as part of a progressive slate of referendum questions in 2020. It applies to rental units with some exceptions, including certain owner-occupied units and Section 8 subsidized housing. Landlords can raise rents every 12 months based on inflation and get rent board approval for hikes after major upgrades, but increases are capped at 10 percent.
Landlords found the 5 percent rule after moves as one of the more inflexible parts of the ordinance. The rental alliance, which was formerly known as the Southern Maine Landlord Association, raised $217,000 for their campaign through June 2 compared with just $17,000 for the DSA-led opposition effort, according to the Portland Press Herald.