California Apartment Association

Tenant advocates have now filed petitions in four Bay Area cities to qualify a rent control measure for the November ballot.

The latest filing came Monday, June 27, as tenant advocates turned in more than 11,000 signatures to the San Mateo city clerk.

Tenant groups are trying to qualify the San Mateo Community Preservation and Fair Rent Charter Amendment for the November ballot. The measure would limit annual rent increases to 4 percent and implement just-cause eviction policies.

San Mateo County election officials are now counting and verifying signatures. Rent control supporters needed 7,119 valid signatures to qualify the measure.

“This would dramatically change the rules surrounding rental housing, and dramatically changing the rules would benefit current renters and would penalize current landlords of all sizes,” Mayor Joe Goethals told the San Mateo Daily Journal. ”It’s a divisive issue because any resolution creates winners and losers.”

The California Apartment Association opposes any rent control proposal and is committed to defeating any related measure that might appear on November’s ballot.

CAA’s Rhovy Lyn Antonio, government affairs director in the region, served on a task force that identified a number of sensible alternatives to rent control that would address the city’s housing needs.

“Rather than allow these real solutions to work, rent control activists are taking an all or nothing approach to enact a failed policy that doesn’t provide any relief to the low-income families who need the so-called benefits of rent control most,” Antonio told the Daily Journal in an email. “Rent control policies do not reduce the cost of housing,do not make housing more affordable,and do not do anything to encourage more housing construction.”

Election officials are also counting and verifying signatures for rent control measures filed in Alameda, Richmond and Mountain View. Tenant advocates also are expected to file signatures seeking a rent control initiative in Burlingame.

It’s not just rent control proponents who are trying to place the policy before voters. The Alameda Community Preservation Coalition last month submitted more than 7,491 signatures to the Alameda City Clerk for the Alameda Homeowner & Private Property Rights Act.

This simple, one-page law would limit the city’s ability to impose restrictions on the price for which one sells or rents property in Alameda.

The county registrar of voters is now counting and verifying the signatures. If voters ultimately approve the measure in November, it would ban rent control in Alameda, including the binding arbitration.

Related content:

• San Mateo County explores November ballot measure for affordable housing (Mountain View Voice, June 29)
• CAA members help stave off rental owner fees in Alameda (CAA, June 24)