During a pair of public hearings this month, the Mountain View City Council scrapped a number of bad rental housing proposals.
At the first meetings, Oct. 19, the council rejected a moratorium on rent increases, rent control and just-cause for eviction.
The 5-2 decision came after nearly seven hours of presentations, public testimony and council discussion.
Darren Carrington, senior vice president at Prometheus Real Estate Group, said the proposals won’t address the root of the problem — the city’s housing shortage.
“Everyone agrees demand far outweighs supply,” Carrington said, according to this San Jose Business Journal article. “This is the reason people aren’t able to enter or remain in the Mountain View housing market.”
CAA Tri-County had been invited to speak on the current rental market and rental housing dynamics.
“Rent control will have little impact in relieving renters from high-market rents,” warned Joshua Howard, CAA’s senior vice president of local public affairs. “These are the same solutions that gentrified San Francisco, Santa Monica and Berkeley. We would do well to not make a bad situation worse.”
Over 100 local rental housing industry members and affiliates spoke against the proposed mandates, emphasizing that such regulations undermine a city’s rental housing stock while placing an undue burden on private rental property owners to subsidize housing costs.
Mountain View officials were weighing stiffer regulations on rental housing owners after over a month of public comments at City Council meetings. While sympathetic to residents’ housing concerns, the majority concluded that imposing regulations on the apartment industry is not the answer.
The council continued to turn down negative housing policy at its Oct. 28 meeting. Echoing the same aversion to regulations it did the prior week, the council rejected an urgency ordinance requiring rental property owners to offer long-term lease agreements. The city attorney also advised the City Council that local laws cannot mandate owners to give increased noticing requirements as this would contradict state laws that supersedes any local measures.
The actions taken by the Mountain View City Council in the last two meetings underscore its determination to address housing affordability issues while still recognizing that restrictions and mandates on the rental housing industry aren’t sensible solutions.
CAA Tri-County and its members are encouraged to continue their dialogue with city officials in identifying real solutions to Mountain View’s housing issues, such as incentive-based programs that provide housing opportunities for residents. In addition, CAA Tri-County is offering to help the city as it explores a potential mediation program to improve communication among renters and rental owners.
Related content:
- Mountain View: Council addresses rental housing crisis (San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 22)
- Rent control off the table in Mountain View, but policy changes coming (San Jose Business Journal, Oct. 20)
- Council shies away from rent regulation (Oct. 20, Mountain View Voice)