EASTHAMPTON — After hearing impassioned testimony from residents, the City Council has adopted a resolution in favor of legislation designed to stabilize rents.

The legislation currently sitting on Beacon Hill is titled An Act Enabling Cities and Towns to Stabilize Rents and Protect Tenants (HD.2501/SD.1084). It proposes a local opt-in option that would impose limits on annual rent increases and require evictions to be based on defined, just cause reasons in certain dwelling units within a municipality.

The council passed its resolution at its March 19 meeting, intending to send a message to Easthampton’s state legislators to support the bill, with only one “no” vote from council Vice President James Kwiecinski, who expressed reservations about the bill’s implications for small landlords and their ability to keep up with renovations and repairs.

State Rep. Homar Gomez told the council at the meeting that he had already signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor.

Public speak time at the meeting was consumed by roughly a dozen citizens who came to air their concerns about the state of rent increases in the city.

“Private equity has moved in everywhere and we’re suffering from that and we need to do something about it,” said resident Deb Friedman.

Several residents of Pleasant View Apartments, which made headlines after being bought by an out-of-state company before the new year and undergoing rent increases of about 35%, shared their recent experiences as well.

Pleasant View resident Nancy Dorian explained that she was given 12 business days to sign a new lease at a $400 rent increase before a “notice to quit” would be issued — or she would be given the option to sign a new lease at an even higher rate.

“Obviously I signed under duress,” she told the council.

As a local artist, Dorian said, “I helped to make this town a more desirable place to live and now I’m getting squeezed out.”

Joseph Scherban, one of the new owners of Pleasant View Apartments through a company called Rowin Capital, informed the Gazette that as of March 12, a letter went out stating that every tenant who signed a lease at the new rental rate of $1,550 will receive a $100 rent reduction for the duration of the current lease term. Scherban also said in an email to the Gazette that residents who signed the lease will be allowed the flexibility to choose either a yearly or month-to-month lease.

“Additionally, our intentions are to try to keep future rents on long-time residents below where new units in the area are renting (much higher),” wrote Scherban.

But these rent increases have not been limited to tenants at Pleasant View. Community social worker Liz Plouffe told the council that she gets calls “weekly, sometimes daily, regarding the need for support around housing.”

Donovan Lee, an Easthampton resident who also works as a builder in the area, expressed that increasing rent prices have been a growing strain.

“If my rent keeps getting hiked the way that it is, I’m not going to be able to stay in Easthampton,” Lee said.

City resident Carolyn Cushing said that even from her perspective as a landlord, the lack of constraints on rent increases in the city has struck her.

“I have a tenant, and I could raise their rent to anything I want … and that’s not fair,” Cushing said.

Councilor Koni Denham, one of the sponsors of the resolution, explained that the need for such a resolution grew out of growing concern in the community surrounding “predatory” rent increases and private investors purchasing property in town.

“They have no connection to this community whatsoever and they are creating not only instability but displacement and we have a responsibility to protect our residents,” Denham said of those investors.

Kwiecinski, a small landlord himself, expressed concern about what the proposed legislation would mean for small landlords when they need to keep up with needed improvements to their property.

“I have pause about doing a broad stroke, across the board restriction,” he said.

However, Council President Salem Derby explained that if the bill passes in the Legislature and makes its way back to the council to choose to adopt the restrictions, there could be further discussions about how to make the rules work best for the city.

Councilor Thomas Peake acknowledged as a professional economics researcher that the field of economics has traditionally been against rent controls, but he said, “I think we have reached a point where we need to reconsider that.”

Peake explained that his reasoning comes from the fact that a contributing factor to Easthampton’s housing demand far exceeding its supply has come from conscious decisions at the city level to restrict housing development through zoning and other measures. Additionally, he said that the city has made conscious efforts to make the city more desirable, driving that demand upward.

Therefore, he said that the “predatory” landlords are “shooting fish in a barrel, and we built the barrel for them.”

Denham explained that she and the other sponsors of the resolution will be working with the mayor and the council to develop an ad hoc committee on rent stabilization in the city.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.