Rent control

Rent control, long the scourge of New York City landlords, is becoming more popular across the country.

Lawmakers and tenant advocates in California, Illinois and Washington state are looking to repeal laws banning cities from imposing rent control or limits to regulate rent increases, the Wall Street Journal reported.

California is poised to be the largest battleground this year. Advocates have gathered 100,000 of the roughly 365,000 signatures required to put a measure on the ballot in November to repeal a 20-year-old law that put statewide limits on rent control.

The Glendale Tenants Union submitted a proposed rent stabilization ordinance on Tuesday to the city of Glendale, which began the formal process of placing the initiative before voters on the November 2018 ballot, according to a statement released by the organization.

The city now has 15 days to respond with an official summary, where the union must then collect 10,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Written as the "Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act," this is the organization's second attempt to introduce rent control in the city since forming last year.

A week before Christmas, Linda Morales spotted a bright orange notice from the Planning Department taped to the side of her Potrero Hill apartment building.

The notice at 701 Hampshire St. informed tenants of planned renovations by the building’s landlord.

The plans include adding a fourth story to the six-unit apartment building — increasing its height from 26 feet to 37 feet — and removing five ground-floor parking spaces to make room for two additional residential units.

Rent control, until now the domain of Chicago’s far political left, could be going mainstream with two major Democratic candidates for governor endorsing the concept.

State Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston and Chicago businessman J.B. Pritzker each say they would support legislation to lift a statewide ban preventing local governments from limiting how much rent landlords can charge.

Lifting the ban, which was enacted by the Legislature in 1997, would allow home rule units such as the city of Chicago to enact ordinances controlling rent increases.

Amina Rubio thought little of the notice she received in the mail in October 2016 informing her that the Powell Street apartment building where she’s lived for nearly 20 years was under new management.

At the time, the name of her building’s new owners, Veritas Investments and its subsidiary, Greentree Property Management — one of the largest landlords in San Francisco — didn’t ring any bells, so it was a fact of life easily tucked away in the back of her mind.

Washington cities are prohibited from regulating rent prices, but one lawmaker wants to change that. Democratic state Representative Nicole Macri says she'll propose a bill in 2018 to end the rent control ban.

Macri, a resident of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, says it's time for lawmakers to take dramatic action and give local communities more control over rental housing. She lives near an elementary school where many students don't have permanent housing.

Extra assistance for renters who are displaced through no-fault evictions failed to pass a second reading at the Oakland City Council last night after Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington had the legislation pulled from the agenda's consent portion of the calendar and scheduled for a future council meeting's non-consent portion, where it will likely be debated and amended.

Organizers with San Diego Tenants United say the time for rent control in San Diego is now and that too many people are being displaced by rising rent costs.

They've gathered over 8,000 signatures on a change.org petition to implement rent control in the city.

"People are getting priced out of their homes, they're getting displaced, to the degree where you're seeing mass displacement," said organizer Rafael Bautista. "We're making homeless people by not creating rent control in San Diego."