Real Estate Ind. Reps On Boston's Rent Stabilization Cmte.-Pt. 4

Boston Residential Group CEO and President Curtis Kemeny is not the only member of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee who contributed money to help fund the election campaign committees of Mayor Wu and other City of Boston elected officials, prior to Boston’s November 2021 mayoral election.

Between Aug. 16, 2021 and Oct. 28, 2021, Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Josh Zakim-- the executive director of the Housing Forward-MA organization whose treasurer is Chestnut Hill Realty CEO and former Greater Boston Real Estate Board VP Ed Zuker—also made 3 campaign contributions, totaling $1,000, to Mayor Wu’s 2021 campaign committee, according to data posted on the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance website.

And Related Beal President, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Regional Real Estate Development Leadership Council Co-Chair, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Director and Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Kimberly Sherman also previously made a $200 contribution on June 26, 2017 to then-Boston City Councilor Wu’s campaign committee. And the following day, coincidentally, Related Beal President Sherman also gave a $200 contribution to then-Boston City Councilor and current Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Josh Zakim’s campaign committee on June 27, 2017.

Between Dec. 20, 2013 and Dec. 4, 2020, Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member and Related Beal President Kimberly Sherman also previously made 5 contributions, totaling $2,500, to former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s election campaign committees—during the years when private market rents charged Boston’s tenant majority were allowed to continue to be increased by Boston and Massachusetts’s elected officials.

When Boston Mayor Wu was still a Boston City Councilor, her election campaign committee was also given a $500 contribution on Oct. 15, 2018 by Robert Beal, the then-chair of the Related Beal real estate deal-making firm whose current president is Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Sherman. And, on Oct. 27, 2021 Related Beal Executive Vice-President Stephen Faber also gave a $1,000 contribution to the current Boston mayor’s campaign committee.

In addition, between June 30, 2014 and June 28, 2018, then-Related Beal Chair Robert Beal also made two contributions, totaling $1,500, to then-Boston City Councilor and current Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Josh Zakim’s campaign committee.

National Development Managing Director Brian Kavoogian lives in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts—not Boston, Massachusetts. Yet Boston’s current mayor also appointed the Wellesley Hills resident and Managing Director of the National Development real estate deal-making industry firm to sit on the City of Boston’s “Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee.”

Coincidentally, Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member and National Development Managing Director Kavoogian also gave a $100 contribution to then-Boston City Councilor Wu’s campaign committee on Feb. 16, 2017 and a $250 donation to Wu’s campaign committee on March 22, 2021.

In addition, between Sept. 19, 2004 and June 29, 2018 Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Kavoogian made 7 campaign contributions, totaling $35,000, to the Massachusetts GOP’s Republican State Committee. And between Oct. 16, 2014 and Sept. 16, 2020, Kavoogian also made 6 contributions, totaling $4,750, to former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s election campaign committees.

According to National Development’s website, Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Kavoogian “was a Principal of The Davis Companies, a Boston-based investment and development firm” who later “co-founded National Development’s investment management platform, Charles River Realty Investors in 2006 and currently serves on National Development’s investment committee.”

And the website also indicates that the Managing Director of National Development is “focused on the firm’s investment strategy;” rather than apparently ever have been focused on how to more quickly protect Boston’s tenants from being protected from having to pay inflated monthly market rents for the apartments they currently occupy in 2022.

In recent years, Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Kavoogian’s Newton, Massachusetts-based National Development firm has been involved in the real estate deal that further gentrified Boston’s South End with the construction of the $200 million “Ink Block” luxury apartment project at 300 Harrison Avenue—where the Boston Herald newspaper’s company headquarters used to be.

According to the National Development website, the Ink Block project “includes 315 apartments in three distinct buildings (1 Ink, 2 Ink, 3 Ink)” and 153 “residential condominiums.” In addition, “7 Ink will be a 14-story, 180-unit co-living building on the corner of Albany and Herald streets.”

But according to a Dec. 12, 2020 article by David Shaw, titled “The Gentrification of the South End in Boston, MA”, in 2020 one bedroom apartments in this South End project started “at around $2000/month to rent” and went “all the way up to around $6500/month for a two-bedroom.” And in 2021 at least one Boston realtor’s website indicated that the monthly rent for an apartment at 300 Harrison Avenue apparently now started at $2841/month.

According to “The Gentrification of the South End in Boston, MA” article, “the Ink Block complex” that National Development Managing Director Kavoogian’s firm was involved in investing or constructing “is huge” and “also includes a Whole Foods, Sweetgreen, Corepower Yoga Studio, and numerous other fine-dining restaurants and stores.” Yet only 51 of the 315 constructed apartments included in National Development’s Ink Block project are apparently characterized as “affordable units,” according to the same article.

But although the Boston tenants most in need of regulation of private market rents being restored in Boston in 2022 are individuals and families with low-incomes, the majority of the residential units contained in the Ink Block project of Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee Member Kavoogian’s National Development real estate deal-making firm are still unaffordable to Boston tenants in need of low-income housing.

So don’t be surprised if—nearly 150 days after the November 2021 Boston election--a City of Boston “Stalling Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee”--that also includes a campaign contributor to the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, who lives in Wellesley Hills and is a Managing Director of the National Development real estate deal-making industry firm--fails to do very much in 2022 to prevent your landlord from once again jacking up your monthly rent in 2022. (end of part 4)