Rent control

The 2018 ballot is shaping up to be a voter referendum on rent control in Los Angeles County. Affordable-housing advocates already have filed a proposed ballot initiative that would allow for the creation of new rent-controlled units in California for the first time in 20 years. And local activists in four cities in Los Angeles County — Inglewood, Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena — have filed or are preparing to file rent-control ballot initiatives they hope to put before voters in November 2018.

After rent stabilization measures received mixed results around the Bay Area in the last election, voters in Pacifica will have their turn on Tuesday.

Volunteers who have been campaigning since the summer hope to convince homeowners, a group that makes up the majority of the city’s population, to vote for Measure C, which would limit how much landlords could raise rents.

Gloria Stofan, a resident since 1966, volunteers with Fair Rents 4 Pacifica. She said that, after speaking to four people, two said they’d vote no on Measure C, one said yes and one was undecided.

Portland voters decided overwhelmingly Tuesday not to adopt a form of rent control.

With all precincts reporting Tuesday evening, Question 1 on the city ballot was defeated by a nearly two-to-one margin. According to unofficial results, the vote was 13,466 to 7,595, or 64 percent to 36 percent, against the rent stabilization ordinance. Thirty-seven percent of the city’s 56,205 registered voters turned out to cast ballots.

The developers of a 20-story apartment tower planned for near Capitol Records in Hollywood announced today that they would voluntarily make all of their units rent-controlled. Subjecting the approximately 210 new apartments to the city’s rent control stabilization ordinance will cap rent increases at 3 percent per year. The ordinance applies to housing built prior to 1978—not new projects—so the decision is almost totally unheard of.

Housing activists in Inglewood and Pasadena on Friday announced plans to put rent control initiatives before their cities' voters next year as part of a regional groundswell of interest in rental caps.

These campaigns come after a spate of Bay Area cities put rent control on the ballot last year. Rent control supporters in two cities — Mountain View and Richmond — were successful, and those outcomes fueled hopes that Southern California communities could also limit rent increases.

The efforts come as California faces a housing crisis that shows no signs of abating.

Supporters of an initiative which would establish rent control in Pasadena as well as limitations on the termination of rental tenancies officially notified City officials Wednesday afternoon of their intention to publicly circulate a petition supporting a new City Charter Amendment to those ends.

The notice of intent to circulate the petition was signed by Pasadena housing activist Michelle C. White; Nicole Marie Hodgson, who is a leader of the year-old Pasadena Tenants Union; and 85-year-old Pasadena renter Robert Roberts.

Voters in Portland, Maine, rejected a ballot measure last week that would have established a rent stabilization program in the small coastal city, capping off months of debate over how to address rising housing costs.

Instead of amending the city’s rent control law, Councilman Tam Nguyen said housing officials should focus on creating more affordable housing — and stop “pounding” on the landlords. But Councilman Raul Peralez argued that new housing developments take years to approve and build — and Nguyen last year voted against an affordable housing project in his district on Senter Road.

“When you’re talking about a city that has 4,000 homeless people — waiting 10 or 15 years to get those homes can’t be the only solution,” Peralez said.

In 1981, Minneapolis was facing an affordable housing crisis. Rents had risen 61 percent in the five years since the repeal of Nixon-era rent controls; they were expected to increase another 10 percent the following year. A number of condominium conversions had decreased available units, and the city’s vacancy rate had fallen from 4 to 3.4 percent. With rent increasing as much as 7.6 percent in just a few months, tenants found that they could not survive.

Amid soaring housing costs and a tight rental market, tenant advocates are urging the San Jose City Council on Tuesday to limit increases for rent-controlled apartments to inflation levels.

Currently, landlords can raise rents in the 44,359 apartments subject to the city’s rent-control ordinance by no more than 5 percent a year. Tuesday’s proposal would limit increases to the area’s consumer price index, a variable rate determined by the federal government and considered an inflation gauge.