Concord City Council passes rent stabilization ordinance limiting increases
After seven years of discussions -- and to cheers in the council chamber -- the Concord City Council passed a rent stabilization ordinance Tuesday night, joining other Contra Costa County cities like Richmond and Antioch in controlling how much landlords can raise rents annually.
The council voted 4-1 in favor of the ordinance, with Laura Hoffmeister dissenting.
"We are here because we are now looking to try to address a crisis," said Mayor Edi Birsan, just before the vote took place after 11:30 p.m. "And, as was said before, crisis shouldn't last forever ... one of the reasons we are here is we are supposed to react to the crisis and what comes up. That's the role of government."
The ordinance will come back to the council for a formal second reading before it becomes official.
Single-family homes would not be subject to the proposed ordinance. Neither would rented condominium units or rented accessory dwelling units. Duplexes in which the owner lives in one of the units would also not be subject to either rent stabilization or just cause for eviction regulations.
The ordinance will limit annual rent increases to 3 percent, or 60% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is lower, and will apply to multi-family rental complexes of two or more units built before Feb. 1, 1995.
The city will also require landlords to have just cause before evicting tenants, something councilmembers Carlyn Obringer and Hoffmeister said many in the community didn't understand would also apply to single-family homes as well.
Obringer suggested the council consider putting just cause evictions in single-family homes on the ballot, something the majority of the council dismissed.
Hoffmeister said she couldn't support the ordinance because it could punish landlords doing the right thing for a few who weren't. She also said she didn't see rent control solving high housing prices in other cities.
She also said rent raises of 3 percent or 60 percent of CPI was too low.
"Our problem is housing supply," Hoffmeister said. "It costs a lot to own and operate and build an apartment complex. And that's the problem. And our affordable housing people will tell us that they're struggling trying to get money from the state, to make ends meet to do more affordable housing in our community."
The ordinance's just cause section will address owners needing to evict so they can move into their units. The council decided, in the case of single-family home evictions in which the owner would move in, the owner would compensate the tenant by paying them first and last month's rent, plus $2,000 in moving expenses.
Affordable housing complexes will be subject to all rent stabilization and just cause for eviction provisions. However, if the complexes have a regulatory agreement or deed restriction with the city, county or other governmental agency that caps rent increases to 5 percent or less, those agreements will be honored.
If the tenants go over their income ceiling to qualify for low-income housing, the city will go along with state regulations to cap rent to the lesser of 5 percent increase, plus the annual CPI, or a 10 percent increase. Those tenants wouldn't be required to pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for rent.
The ordinance will go into place in April, with rent rollbacks setting rents to their amount in April 2023, plus the increases allowed by the ordinance applying to the previous year.
The ordinance would also establish a process utilizing a hearing officer whereby tenants could appeal their rent increases if they believed them to be inconsistent with the ordinance. Property owners could also request higher rent increases above what the ordinance would otherwise allow to obtain a fair return on their investment property.
According to a staff report for Tuesday's meeting, Concord has approximately 18,100 residential rental units, 9,200 of which are fully covered units that would be subject to both the rent stabilization and the just cause for eviction provisions, and 8,900 of which are partially covered units that would be subject to just cause for eviction provisions only.
All 18,100 rental units would need to be registered in Concord's residential rent registry program.
Everyone who owns property subject to either rent stabilization or just cause protections would be required to register their units with the city annually and pay a yet-to-be-determined annual registration and administration fee.