Providence saw a jump in new apartment construction during its latest fiscal year, outpacing any year in the past two decades. Forty percent of these units were set aside as affordable housing. This uptick followed Mayor Brett Smiley’s push to loosen zoning rules and speed up development, as reported by CNN. Smiley’s team focused on supply-side fixes, changing zoning and permitting to get projects moving faster. The city ended up with more new apartments than in any of the previous twenty years (The New York Review of Books).
Smiley’s decision to block rent control, however, became the central controversy of his time in office. In April 2026, while facing a strong primary challenge from state lawmaker David Morales, Smiley vetoed a City Council bill that would have capped annual rent hikes at 4%. The ordinance was designed as a targeted stabilization policy, not a blanket freeze. It carved out exemptions for owner-occupied landlords and would have let new apartments avoid the cap for up to 20 years, with other new units getting a five-year delay before regulation. The council then fell one vote short of overriding the veto, so the measure stalled. Smiley said the ordinance could push developers to build elsewhere in Rhode Island and argued he vetoed it "on principle because it’s wrong for the city," adding, "sometimes you have to do what’s right, even if it’s unpopular" (The New York Review of Books).
Political fallout and policy debate
Smiley’s veto put him in direct conflict with a key progressive goal in a city known for its liberal leanings. Morales, a 27-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, made rent stabilization the centerpiece of his campaign and called the veto "absolutely shameful." He promised to sign rent control within his first 100 days if elected. Smiley, who had served as chief of staff to Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, insisted rent control would drive developers away from Providence, making it tougher to fix the housing shortage. He called it "a false promise" and described the policy as "good, cheap, easy politics." Morales countered, "I’ve been unapologetically supportive of capping rent hikes at 4% a year because I believe our neighbors deserve that basic stability" (CNN Business).
The failed override kept Smiley’s veto in place and left Providence without a rent-stabilization law before the mayoral handoff. The vote missed the mark by a single council member, whose absence proved decisive. Morales then pledged to use the outgoing council’s framework, which would cap rent increases at 4% over a 12-month period. If enacted, Providence would become the first city in Rhode Island to adopt rent stabilization (Truthout).
Morales defeated Smiley in the September 9, 2026, Democratic primary, marking the first time a sitting Providence mayor lost a primary challenge. Morales was widely expected to win the November general election in the heavily Democratic city. Daniel Denvir, co-chair of Reclaim and member of the Rhode Island Tenants Union, said, "The campaign for rent stabilization and Brett Smiley’s veto of it laid the whole framework and groundwork for both David Morales’s race and the council slate." Morales committed to working with the new City Council to put a 4% rent-increase ceiling in place after taking office.
Housing pressures and national context
Providence’s rental market has come under strain from college students and higher earners moving in from Boston, Connecticut, and New York, according to Brenda Clement of HousingWorks RI. The city’s aging housing stock has left many apartments unfit for occupancy, shrinking available supply. Supporters of rent stabilization argued that new construction does not shield tenants in older buildings from steep rent hikes, especially where unsafe or uninhabitable units remain. The policy fight focused on whether to prioritize long-term supply growth or immediate limits on rent increases.
Median rents have jumped 40% since 2020, and Providence ranked as the least affordable metro area for renters in 2025. Rhode Island’s 2026 Housing Fact Book found that no city in the state had home prices affordable to a household earning the state’s median income. In Westerly, the lowest-priced market in the report, a household needed over $61,000 a year to afford the average two-bedroom apartment, while the median renter income was just above $50,000. About one-third of Rhode Island homeowners were labeled cost-burdened, spending between 30% and 50% of their income on housing (WPRI).
Rent control remains popular in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Maine, and St. Paul, Minnesota, but its results are mixed. It has curbed rent hikes for some tenants, yet in some cases has led to higher rents for unregulated units and slowed new construction. Smiley and his team reviewed policies in Portland and St. Paul before concluding that rent control would "perversely… exacerbate our affordability challenges." His opposition was rooted in a supply-and-investment argument: if Providence alone imposed rent controls while nearby Rhode Island towns did not, developers could pick locations without such rules, making it harder to build the apartments needed to address the city’s shortage.
After losing the primary, Smiley said he would not endorse Morales and voiced concern about the Democratic Socialists of America’s growing role in local politics. "I personally don’t believe that that we should be welcoming the DSA into the Democratic Party with open arms," Smiley said. "I’m very worried that this is a little bit like the Tea Party on the right years ago."
For more on the background and policy debate, see our previous coverage.
