David Sullivan and William Walsh don't agree on much of anything concerning Cambridge city politics. In fact, the two men have become symbolic of the diametrically opposed poles of opinion that now dominate debates over the honest political issue in the city: housing policy. But City Councilor Sullivan, a leading member of the liberal Cambridge Civic Association, and attorney Walsh, who claims to have represented 1000 or more landlords during the last 13 years, probably come closest to agreeing when they talk about the procedures of the Cambridge Rent Control Board, a quasi-judicial agency which administers many of the city's housing codes, including the controversial restraints on landlords that Sullivan supports and Walsh opposes in equally strident tones. Sullivan calls some of the board's methods "fundamentally unfair," and Walsh labels the rent board a "kangaroo court."

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In two small rectangular hearing rooms on the second floor of a Central Square office building, the five-man rent control board conducts its weekly Wednesday night meetings. Two members represent the city's landlords, two represent tenants, the chairman speaks for homeowners, and all serve voluntarily at the pleasure of the city manager, who appointed them.

A long rectangular table stands at the front of the main hearing room and about 10 rows of folding chairs are arranged for the tenants, landlords, and attorneys who are scheduled to appear. At any given time on a Wednesday night those chairs are nearly full because the board almost always falls significantly behind schedule. Due to the annoying waiting period in the unusally stuffy concrete chamber where the final stage of the rent control hearing process is held, and the often months-long wait that preceded it, landlords' and tenants' tempers sometimes grow short by the time they face the board members. To end a repetitious argument or enforce quiet among the audience. Chairman Acheson Callaghan picks up his gavel and taps it with the authority of an annoyed judge. "It's not a court," says one resident familiar with the board's procedures. "But there's a lot on the line so already you're uncomfortable as a tenant."

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Rent control was created more than a decade ago by a majority of the city council and special Massachusetts legislation to enable Cambridge to cope with an "emergency" housing shortage. A city ordinance instructs the rent board to set maximum legal rents for the thousands of apartments falling under rent control and to restrain the eviction of tenants by landlords. The rent board is also empowered to make rent adjustments and to establish regulations or to take other steps necessary to enforce the city's housing policy, which has been amended since the early 1970s to add further restrictions on landlords, developers and would be residents of condominiums in Cambridge.

More important than the technicalities of the rent control board regulations, however, are the political realities which supply the context for the rent board's decisions. Although the city council recently approved unanimously a symbolic resolution to show its continued support of rent control, four of the nine council members--known as Independents--repeatedly support resolutions that would hamper the enforcement of the city's housing policy by, among other methods, denying the board adequate funding to defend its decisions in court. Since any rent board decision may be appealed to district court, this threat, along with other political ploys, help to push the board away from a strictly judicial function. The other factors that significantly damage the credibility of the agency's decision-making process are the attitudes of the board members themselves, who are harshly criticised both by liberals such as Sullivan and conservatives such as Walsh.

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During the winter months of 1981, members of the Harvard Tenants Union (HTU) spent hundreds of hours compiling an energy usage survey of tenants in Harvard-owned buildings. But because Harvard does not recognize the existence of the tenants' union, the results of the survey were never used by the administrators who oversee the University's residential properties, which comprise the largest single portfolio owned by any Cambridge landlord. Members of the union were nevertheless determined that the survey findings, which they said demonstrated a "gross form of mismanagement" by Harvard Real Estate (HRE), be considered. The tenants have an economic interest in keeping down fuel costs because under rent control board regulations landlords may pass energy costs on to residents in the form of higher rents.

After learning that the rent board had embarked on its own program of encouraging landlords to conserve energy members of the tenant's union decided to take their survey results to the board. HRE officials in fact encourage members of the union to seek redress for any grievances against Harvard at the rent board or in court. So HTU Coordinator Michael Turk went to the board to present the survey findings on May 13, along with a half-dozen or so union members.

Turk made a short speech and offered documentation of the study's conclusions, which were based on responses from tenants of 174 Harvard-owned apartments. There followed a short discussion among rent board members, which was dominated by Landlord representative Alfred Cohn. "There are a lot of Harvard buildings on the high end" of energy usage among city properties. Cohn admitted. But he added, leaning back in his chair. "Harvard is now pursuing the problem vigorously and we expect them to soon move past other buildings in the city" in terms of energy efficiency.

Cohn then made a statement which union members said afterwards had shocked and disappointed them. "I would think you are in an extraordinarily favorable situation and would stay a Harvard tenant." Cohn told the residents who had invested long hours uncovering what they believed to be HRE's massive wastefulness.

Cohn explained that Harvard is one of the few Cambridge landlords that can afford the major expenditures needed to reduce fuel consumption. Turk responded that "major renovations" would mean increased rents and that Harvard could cut fuel costs simply by eliminating waste, performing routine maintenance, and obtaining quantity discounts on fuel. These measures, Turk said, had been indicated by the HTU survey and were likely to generatelower rents for Harvard tenants. But Cohn, himself a landlord and the only rent board member to serve since the agency's inception, was not convinced.

Rubbing his eyes and leaning away from the audience of University tenants. Cohn repeated that as occupants of Harvard housing. "You should consider yourselves very fortunate."

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