A Massachusetts landlord trade association is in a legal battle with the city of Boston over public records it says the city withheld to hide illegal lobbying by housing advocates who influenced the city’s stalled rent control plan. the mayor.

Douglas Quattrochi, chief executive of MassLandlords, Inc., which filed a lawsuit against the city of Boston in Suffolk Superior Court last year, claims in an Aug. 7 affidavit that the city has failed to produce 10 documents it believes exists around the formation of the city’s Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee.

“I found the combined response to be primarily off-topic, missing documents that I believe exist, missing another document that I know exists, in bad faith designed to hide illegal lobbying, developer interests and influence donors,” Quattrochi, whose organization opposes rent control, wrote in the affidavit.

“I believe Boston’s delayed and incomplete responses are consistent with a desire to protect from scrutiny certain public officials, particularly the mayor, and unregistered lobbyists who illegally advance their private interests at public expense,” he added.

A first hearing in the case on MassLandlords’ motion to have the court inspect Boston city email systems that Quattrochi said he knew existed as it related to a rent control email he sent to Mayor Michelle Wu, is set for next Friday in Suffolk Superior Court.

If this document appears, MassLandlords’ motion calls for further action by the city to facilitate supervised access by the trade group to inspect the city’s information systems for other documents related to the records request.

City Hall on Friday deferred comment on the city’s latest Oct. 4 filing, “specifically where it states in the first paragraph that the city has produced all responsive records and the case is moot.”

The proposal of the Advisory Committee for Rent Stabilization “was the basis of a government bill that would establishing a form of rent control in Boston”, which on February 13, 2023, the mayor submitted to the City Council for submission to the Legislature, wrote Quattrochi.

The committee includes representatives appointed by the mayor from tenant advocacy groups focused on rent relief and eviction protection, politically connected developers and unions, and people without “obviously relevant expertise,” his affidavit said.

“The policy advanced by the RSAC was developed without input from the owners’ organizations,” Quattrochi wrote. “It strongly reflects the interests of developers. It favors the well-connected over the well-informed. It favors donors over non-donors. It rewards those who have engaged in lobbying activities even where those activities have not been legally reported.

“The mayor benefited politically from this corruption. The city’s response supports the mayor’s corrupt purpose,” his filing states.

Quattrochi’s statement cites records from the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance that “suggest that the reason for the appointment is undue influence.” Seventeen of the committee’s appointees have previously been personal donors to political races in Boston, with an average donation of $10,462 per appointee before Feb. 17, 2023, he wrote.

“In my professional opinion and personal experience in Massachusetts, this is not representative of the average person affected or involved in the housing crisis, who donates little or nothing,” Quattrochi wrote.

His affidavit also refers to “illegal” lobbying, which he says was done by three housing groups with representation on the committee, City Life Vida Urbana, the Hyams Foundation and the Boston Tenants Coalition – about which Quattrochi claims should have been disclosed by the scope. of his records request, leading him to believe the city’s incomplete response was “designed to conceal illegal activity.”

Under state law, persons appointed to the Rent Stabilization Advisory Committee would be “legislative or executive agents if, as part of their normal activities as an employee or compensated contractor for any organization, they have contacted the city about rent control, which requires a state . favorable act,” he wrote.

Quattrochi’s filing notes the failure of the organizations and their individual committee representatives to register as lobbyists with the secretary of the commonwealth, with attachments showing his blank search requests on the state’s website.