However, if we look at the previous four recessions, we can see that home values weren’t negatively impacted: January 1980 to July 1980: Home values rose 4.5%July 1981 to November 1982: Home values rose 1.9%July 1990 to March 1991: Home values fell less than 1%March 2001 to November 2001: Home values rose 4.8%"Hope this helps!

Too many factors impact the value of a property to get caught up in timing a widespread recession.  

If my area has a high rental rate vs buy rate how does that impact me as somebody looking to be a landlord and own rental property?

I know it'll definitely impact the city itself, but not sure what the impact will be like in the Lamorinda area.

If you are leaving House 1 and turning it into a rental and buying House 2 as a primary, your lending  ability will be impacted because your lender may not acknowledge House 1 as an asset until 1-2 years of rent have been realized.

Although the screening criteria and security deposit changes will probably impact business in a more drastic fashion, I think this issue is what will cause the most "what-if/unease" from people-probably because it's the easiest to explain and also will cause the most headlines for local news. 

Rent control also sometimes helps developers because the % go up on ROI since it's harder for business so the city council woman Lena Gonzales is married to a big developer and he is benefiting from her rent controls which negatively impact small investorslena gonzalez is running for state senator as well so this will get her some votes in the short termRent Control is all about votes then the city gets screwed especially home owners and neighborhoods get blight

The other nice feature is that anything that negatively impacts your score, it either doesn't count or you can just remove the boost feature and your score returns to normal.I am in a near similar situation as you. 

Does anyone know if there are any environmental concerns with this type of property? 

The reason for this is that the fixed or semi-fixed expenses have proportionally less impact on higher value homes than lower value.