Even as final returns confirmed the narrow victory margin of a state ballot initiative to abolish rent control, Cambridge city officials vowed to fight to preserve some semblance of rent limits.

Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 met yesterday with state Rep. Charles Flaherty (D-Cambridge), speaker of the house of representatives, to discuss options the city can take to preserve a form of rent control, the mayor told. the Crimson last night. Rent control has been the law in Cambridge since 1970.

"This is the worst thing that has happened in this city in a quarter of a century," Reeves said. "Unless the worst features of Question 9 are modified, people will be displaced because the rents will double or more than double."

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, 51 percent of Massachusetts ballots had been cast in favor of the initiative, Question 9, according to the Associated Press.

Question 9 will prohibit rent control in the state, effective January 1. But the measure affects only Cambridge, Boston and Brookline--the three communities in Massachusetts with rent control.

In a statement yesterday, Cambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy said he will present "alternative ways [in which] the City could remain engaged in preserving diversity and equity in the regulation of rents, while dealing with the transitional issues caused by the passage of Question 9."

Healy will present proposed home-rule petitions which ask the state legislature to allow some form of rent control in Cambridge. The petitions will be offered at a public hearing of the Cambridge City Council's rent control committee and the housing and community development committee today at 5 p.m.

In addition, the city has set up a telephone hotline for tenants in Cambridge's 14,415 rent-controlled units, which constitutes more than one-third of all the city's apartments. The number is 349-INFO.

Healy said Question 9 "creates very difficult problems" for the city. "The abrupt climination of rent control would cause great hardship for many people and undoubtedly have far reaching and unpredictable impacts on the character and diversity of our community."

But the city manager cautiously stopped short of saying the city will seek a reinstatement of some form of rent control.

Mayor Reeves, however, declared the city will go all out to preserve rent control, the housing program which began in Cambridge in 1970. "We will try to see if we can save as much rent control as we can," he said last night.

Cambridge has several options.

The city might petition the state legislature to restore rent control as its currently exists or approve a new system with reforms.

The city could also petition the legislature to set up a vacancy decontrol program. Such an effort would permit elderly tenants to pay below-market rents until they voluntarily vacate the unit, when it would then be de-controlled.

On Monday, the city council voted 5-4 to again reject a proposal to provide elderly and low- and moderate-income tenants with rent subsidies.

The five councillors who voted against Councillor Michael A. Sullivan's proposal deemed it premature. But in next Monday's meeting, a similar order will almost certainly be reintroduced.

'The Times Are Changing'

Meanwhile, supporters of Question 9 celebrated their narrow victory yesterday.

Landlords have charged that below-market rents prevent landowners from making improvements on property and decrease the property tax base that the state can rely upon.

But rent control supporters noted that the measure was defeated in Cambridge, Boston and Brookline, the three communities Question 9 actually affects.

"The fact that over 58 percent of Cambridge voters opposed Question 9 shows, I believe, that, within Cambridge, there is strong support for continuing the system in some form or other," Healy said yesterday.

Lester P. Lee Jr., campaign chair of the pro-rent control group Save Our Communities Coalition (SOCC), agreed.

"They did not [beat] us in the cities that were directly affected by this," Lee said.

But Question 9 supporters noted that the margin of voters was considerably narrower than that in previous rent control referendums.

"We got 42 percent yes votes in Cambridge to abolish rent-control, cold turkey. That's over 13,000 who voted yes," said Lenore M. Schloming '59, a board member of the Small Property Owners Association (SPOA).

"The yes vote in these communities certainly helped us win," Schloming added. "We hadn't even campaigned, we had just figured, 'Oh, we'll never succeed in these communities.' The times are changing."

By all accounts, fundraising was crucial to Question 9's passage.

According to campaign finance reports filed with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the Massachusetts Homeowners Coalition (MHC), which led the Question 9 campaign, outspent SOCC by a ratio of at least 6 to 1.

The MHC spent $617,237 according to the reports, and concluded its campaign with $2276.86 in its account. The anti-rent control forces spent heavily on political advertising, TV and media publicity, consulting and legal strategy.

SOCC, however, is actually in debt. A report filed Monday showed the group has liability of $2216.21, even though it has spent only $90,816.46 throughout its six-month campaign.

"Back in July no one gave us a chance to even win this campaign and we were 40 points down," Lee said. "And we came within 2 points of winning this battle. If we had had more money, I know we would have won it."

Despite its lack of funds, the fledgling group will remain a political force and take the issue to the state legislature or the courts, Lee said.

"We'll come up with a plan to eradicate our debt," said Lee, who has lived in a rent control apartment in Cambridge for 10 years. "We're not going to be the beneficiaries of any large contributions, but we'll continue to get nickels and dimes, like we have during this campaign. We'll get through."

It's questionable how successful the group will be in the courts. Proponents of rent control brought Question 9 before the state's Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) this summer, charging that the ballot question violated the autonomy of local communities. But the SJC ruled that the question was constitutional and ordered that it remain on the referendum.

The campaign chair charged that Question 9 was unfairly influenced by the national real estate lobby. The Greater Boston Real Estate Board, for instance, granted MHC a $75000 loan.

"All they had to do was call up their buddies in the real-estate industry to get their money," Lee said. "The real estate industry has stirred up a hornet's nest. Their greed and selfishness really blinded them to what they were doing."

The fate of SOCC will be decided by its steering committee in a meeting tonight.

"I know they'll vote to continue as a political-action group," Lee said. "The question is how to form ourselves into a lobbying group."

Slavery Comparison

Schloming, the SPOA board member, rejected the home-rule objection of rent control supporters. She compared rent control to slavery in the American South.

"A majority of states in the south wanted slavery, wanted home rule," said Schloming, who has owned a house in Cambridge for 10 years. "But the majority of the country as a whole said, 'No, we're not going to have a country like that. The federal law takes precedent over the states.' The same thing with the landlord-tenant law."

She repeated landlord's assertions that rent control is unfairly restrictive.

"We just feel oppressed by all the regulations, all the red tape. The money is not the big thing; it's all that bureaucracy," Schloming said. "It's a real yoke of oppression."

But Reeves, who occupies a rent-control apartment on Everett Street, said Question 9 will displace elderly tenants.

"We're going to have a lot of people ending up living in Brockton because they won't be able to live here," Reeves said.

The mayor said the real estate market will be inundated by mid-priced properties.

"There's going to be a lot of condominiumization," Reeves said. "People owning real estate in the city in the $150,000 to $300,000 range are going to see that market get flooded."

Will the mayor's rent be raised? "That's all up to the landlords, I guess," Reeves joked. "I may be moving to Brockton, too.