Here is another update:
By Ben van der Meer – Staff Writer, Sacramento Business Journal
Mar 8, 2018, 2:33pm PST
Over the last few years, as Sacramento has emerged as the top housing market in the country for year-over-year percentage rent increases, housing activists have warned there would be a backlash.
That backlash has now taken shape in the form of a proposed rent control measure, with advocates gathering signatures to try to place it on the November ballot. If successful, the measure would allow rents within the city to rise by no more than the percentage increase in the consumer price index for existing renters. Moreover, landlords would be able to evict tenants only under certain circumstances, such as failure to pay rent or violating lease terms, and a nine-person board would be created to deal with rent disputes.
One of the three proponents of the measure, Omēga Brewer of SEIU Local 2015, said pursuing rent control aligns with working on behalf of her union’s membership.
“If we’re going to be advocates for members, we can’t just stick to collective bargaining rights,” said Brewer, a political coordinator for SEIU who lives in Sacramento. Many of the union’s members, rank-and-file state employees, are directly affected as the city’s rents go up, she said.
While proponents fully support the measure, Brewer said, she’s hasn’t ruled out talking with leaders, developers and property owners about other ways to address the issue. And while the measure is just aimed at the city, she acknowledges other areas, particularly urbanized but unincorporated Sacramento County neighborhoods like Arden-Arcade and Carmichael, also could be prime targets for more renter advocacy.
But Jim Lofgren, senior vice president with the California Apartment Association, said rent control distracts from the bigger need of building more affordable housing.
“It’s the wrong solution to a very serious problem,” Lofgren said of rent control. His organization is largely made of multifamily property owners. In addition to affordable housing, he said, there needs to be more progress on “missing middle” housing development. “We need to rally around increasing supply.”
Lofgren said his group fears the local measure will pair with a proposed statewide ballot initiative to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which limits rent control to properties built before 1995. If both make the ballot and pass, he said, development of new multifamily will grind to a halt.
Brewer said she doesn’t expect rent control to curb development locally. Many rent control advocates point out that rent restrictions in San Francisco haven’t stopped development there.
She added that SEIU hasn’t taken a position on the Costa-Hawkins repeal. But she said the seeds for the current lack of housing took root long ago, and more than one kind of garden tool will be needed to dig them out. Streamlining development is another strategy she said could be explored.
To which Lofgren would say: Give it time. Most apartment owners don’t want to chase off renters by continually raising rents, he said, but their own costs were rising and many properties had years of deferred maintenance during the Great Recession.
“Rents will plateau in another year,” he said, adding, “Especially if we focus on supply.”
