Costa Hawkins Act

Five Bay Area cities will be voting on whether to implement rent control in November, but a California law has long-restricted rent control statewide.

Five cities, five ballot propositions all with the goal of stopping big rent increases and protecting tenants.

The proposition in Burlingame says they’ve suffered from unreasonable rent increases, in San Mateo it says exorbitant rent increases, in Mountain View, excessive rental increases, in Richmond it says housing has reached a crisis level, and in Alameda, it says high rents are an immediate threat to the public.

To afford anything larger than a one-bedroom rental unit in Santa Monica requires a household annual income of $100,000.

This was one of the findings in a report issued by the Rent Control Board that found the city's rental market became less affordable in 2015 than in any previous year.

When a rent-controlled unit is vacated, the owner can raise the rent to the market rate for the next tenant. The median rate for new tenants in 2015 was up in all categories, according to the report.

One block north of fabled Hollywood Boulevard, and a stone’s throw from the iconic Capitol Records Building, sit three rent-stabilized, two-story apartment buildings, known to residents as the Yucca-Argyle complex. One building is peach-colored, one green and the third yellow. Each is organized around a small courtyard and in back is a parking lot for tenants’ cars. Together they are home to roughly 50 families, the residents ranging in age from young children to old-timers who have lived in the complex for more than half a century.