Back on the State Ballot this November: RENT CONTROL!

Written by Apartment Management Magazine on . Posted in Blog

Back on the State Ballot this November:  RENT CONTROL!

California’s rental housing providers are again under attack this November.  A new ballot initiative that we’re calling “Proposition 10, Version 2.0”, if passed, will drastically expand California’s rent control laws by repealing the protections we now have under the Costa-Hawkins Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which protects vacancy de-control and limits how far local governments may go in expanding rent regulations. 

Not much more than a year and a half after two-thirds of California’s voters rejected Proposition 10, backers of that measure have garnered enough signatures, nearly one million signatures, to qualify a similar rent control measure for the November 2020 ballot.  We must defeat this latest attack on rental housing providers!  This new ballot initiative is an extremely dangerous threat to all rental property owners!  If passed:

  • Your right to increase rent to market once your tenant vacates a unit will be severely restricted – vacancy de-control will no longer exist, and you will be limited to an increase of no more than 15% over three years.  Whether your previous tenant was there for years and paying way below market or whether you make substantial capital improvements to your vacant unit before re-renting it, you could not raise your rent by more than 15% for the first three years, and then be subject to local rent “caps.”  In other words, if you have any units renting for far below market, you will never catch up, and your property value will suffer.
  • Rent control will be expanded to single-family homes and condominiums when more than 2 are owned.  No longer will single-family homes or condominiums be exempt from rent control, even if they are owned by YOU personally and not a corporation.
  • Local rent control will be expanded to all properties built before or during 2005.  That’s right folks!  Cities like Los Angeles will be able to expand its draconian price control measures to rental properties built after 1978 up to and including 2005 initially.  Only properties built within the last 15 years, on a rolling 15-year basis, will be exempt.
  • If this ballot initiative were to pass, economists predict it will result in the loss of local revenues leaving less funding for our schools, police, and fire departments.  Passage of this ballot initiative Will REDUCE the value of your rental property and your rental income.  This ballot initiative imposes NEW YORK TYPE RENT CONTROL, and as we have seen in New York, rental property values have dropped 30% to 40% following the passage of the state’s stricter rent control laws in 2019.

We at the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA) strongly OPPOSE the RENT CONTROL ballot initiative and we are launching a statewide opposition campaign to defeat this latest threat to our property rights.  Our campaign to stop this expansion of rent control will likely cost $80++ million.  Therefore, we are suggesting that each of our members help in the fight by contributing $100.00 PER UNIT to help us DEFEAT the initiative’s well-financed proponents. 

Like its predecessor, Proposition 10, Michael Weinstein, President of the A.I.D.S. Healthcare Foundation, has planned to invest at least $25 million to $30 million to gain passage of his latest rent control initiative.  That means, “WE” as an industry must again raise at least three-times that amount, or about $80 million to $90 million to defeat Weinstein’s latest attack on our industry, our investments and our retirement.  We need your support once again.

The title and summary that will be seen on the ballot will state: ““Expands Local Governments’ Authority to Enact Rent Control on Residential Property.”  Sadly, many of our fellow Californians, not knowing any better, will think this is a good idea.  But obviously, this newly proposed ballot measure is deeply flawed and would stymie new housing development which we desperately need here in California.  Like its evil predecessor, November 2018’s Proposition 10, this proposal does not address the true problem that we have here in California – there is just not enough housing for the people that live here.  And, this latest ballot measure will do nothing but make matters worse.

Please give what you can but give generously – every dollar counts!  100% of funds received will be used in the fight to oppose the initiative.  Help us to ensure the voice of reason and common sense is heard and that your property rights and property values are preserved.  We need YOUR financial support to WIN!  Give us the resources we need to defeat this ill-conceived ballot initiative!  Please contribute today, and don’t delay!

Please contribute to our opposition of extreme forms of rent control.  Mail in your contribution today using the enclosed envelope.  Make your check payable  to:  Issues PAC of AAGLA, c/o Reed & Davidson, LLP, 515 South Figueroa Street, Suite 1110, Los Angeles, California 90071-3301; Attn. Cary Davidson, Treasurer, or contribute online at: https://secure.anedot.com/aaglaissuespac/donate.  For more information call us at (213) 384-4131.

Editor’s Note: As of the date this article was written, the “Rental Affordability Act” had not yet been given a ballot measure number.