Initiative to repeal California’s rent control restrictions hits milestone

Organizers have a June 25 deadline to gather 365,880 signatures to qualify for the ballot

SACRAMENTO >> A ballot initiative to lift California’s statewide restrictions on rent control has hit a key milestone, with 25 percent of the signatures it needs to qualify for the November ballot, the California Secretary of State’s office confirmed.

Organizers vowed to take their fight directly to the voters after a bill to repeal the restrictions died in its first committee hearing this year at a raucous January meeting attended by over 1,000 people on both sides of the contentious issue.

At issue is Costa Hawkins, a law the Legislature passed in 1995 under pressure from landlords and developers. Those groups sounded alarms being echoed today that rent control only makes the problem worse by slowing development and constraining the supply of housing.

“We just think it’s going to worsen the affordability crisis in the long term,” said Debra Carlton, a spokeswoman for the California Apartment Association, which sponsored Costa Hawkins more than 20 years ago.

Costa Hawkins prohibits cities from applying rent control ordinances to condominiums, single family homes or new construction — anything built after 1995 or after a city first established rent control. It also bans what is known as “vacancy control,” which means capping a landlord’s ability to hike the rent after a tenant moves out and another moves in.

But with rents escalating quickly, evictions on the rise, and one-third of renters — 1.5 million households — spending half of their paychecks on rent, the movement to repeal the law has picked up steam.

“There is overwhelming support for this initiative on the ground. Californians are anxious to see solutions to the housing crisis that can actually provide immediate relief today to families facing skyrocketing rents and displacement from their homes,” Jose Sanchez, of the LA Tenants Union, said in a news release this month on the campaign’s progress.

The repeal initiative was filed last fall by Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE Action. If it qualifies for the November ballot and passes, local elected officials would have much wider latitude in setting such policies. The initiative would not require cities or counties to impose rent control.

Organizers have a June 25 deadline to gather 365,880 signatures from California voters. The campaign reported Feb. 7 that it had collected a quarter of the required signatures and delivered them to the state for certification.