Rent control will be on the California ballot again
California voters will get the chance to consider a statewide rent control initiative on the November ballot, just two years after they soundly rejected a similar initiative.
The Secretary of State’s office announced on Monday it had reviewed and validated a sample of the nearly 1 million signatures submitted in December to qualify the initiative. The measure only needed 623,212 signatures, 5 percent of the votes for governor in 2018.
The initiative takes aim at the 25- yearold Costa Hawkins Rental Act, which limits the ability of local governments to establish rent control in buildings constructed after 1995 and in single- family homes and condos. While some cities have established certain rent restrictions, including in Sacramento, the current law is considered an obstacle to stronger protections.
The proposal would hand cities more power to block rent increases on units built after 1995, though the buildings have to at least be 15 years old. Landlords could still increase rent up to 15 percent over three years once a unit is vacated, and owners of one or two homes would be exempt from the proposed law.
More Californians consider housing costs an increasingly desperate situation. Fifty- five percent of renters spend more than 30 percent of their paychecks on housing, according to a January Public Policy Institute of California report. The median household value is $ 550,800, 2.4 times greater than the national average, the report noted.
But the campaign’s supporters, led by AIDS Healthcare Foundation President and Los Angeles multimillionaire Michael Weinstein, will have to convince some of the of voters who rejected rent control in November 2018 that California is ready for more expansive tenant protections.
“The housing affordability and homelessness crises are the most pressing social justice and public health emergencies in our time, especially in Southern California,” Weinstein said in December. “We must take action to stop it now.”
The California Legislature last year passed a cap on rent increases, limiting hikes from landlords to 5 percent plus inflation. The law also prohibits evictions unless tenants violate provisions of their leases.
Activists like Weinstein dismissed the new law as inadequate. He wants a law that would prevent any rent hikes on current tenants. A bill to establish rent control, however, routinely fails in the Legislature, most recently in early 2019.
The 2020 ballot battle is sure to reignite financial and political disputes between tenant advocates and landlord associations. The 2018 initiative, Proposition 10, became one of the most expensive campaigns in state history with more than $ 100 million in fundraising.
Real estate, apartment and building groups have disparaged rent control as a construction- killer that would only exacerbate the state’s 3.5 million- unit deficit. The State Building Trades Council pledged on Monday to fight the new initiative.