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So #AB1482 passed in the California State Assembly. The bill is a huge step in the right direction. It is also not enough.
HUGE HUGE shout-out to all of the tenants across the state, including so many of my friends, who worked their butts off to get this anti-rent gouging bill through the Legislature. We can and will do so much more still to get REAL rent control
Folks have been circulating a number of questions about today's bill. Though we were not sponsors of the legislation, I do understand some of the thinking that went into the bill. To start:
(a) #AB1482 is not rent control and is not meant to be considered as such. It stops gouging in protected units, but it doesn't stabilize rents across market. It can't when it concedes rental increases far above inflation + above median rental increases: d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/makebankspay/p…
[The data tells us that on average, rents have been growing well above inflation in, say, L.A. for a few years. This bill wouldn't stop that at the middle and low range of rent increases, but would stop sky-high rent increases on one tenancy]
(b) #AB1482 has no vacancy controls, which I believe is the sine qua non of a true rent stabilization measure. You know why the CAA stopped opposing this bill? Because they think it will shut tenant advocates up for the next 10 years (the lifetime of this bill)
(d) An enormous number of single-family home rentals are not covered by this ordinance. And without eliminating Costa-Hawkins, cities and counties can't do anything about that either
(e) Just Cause. The addition of Just Cause was one of the reasons I think this bill was less than ineffective, as it was in danger of becoming had the Governor not intervened. Nevertheless, the JC protections here are dangerously weak. They apply only after one year of tenancy
...and they only allow relocation for No Fault evictions at one-month's equivalent of rent. The equivalent under LARSO here in L.A. is 3-4 months of an average rent for non-qualified tenant categories, and double that for qualified tenants. And... THESE RELO #s are too low!
A true rent stabilization law would keep the general price level of rental units at or near the cost of inflation... or, preferably, below it. If it's above inflation, you end up with a feedback loop where the cost of housing drives inflation (as one the biggest components...
...of a person's expenses), driving average rents up further, etc.
Make no mistake, a rent gouging bill alone could incentivise organised landlords into making full use of the rent cap annual maximum, driving rents up to the limit every year in cities without rent controls
Make no mistake, a rent gouging bill alone could incentivise organised landlords into making full use of the rent cap annual maximum, driving rents up to the limit every year in cities without rent controls
This is something critics of this bill from the Left can agree on with the real estate lobby. The latter (especially landlords) truly believe this will be the net effect. They keep saying it.
Which is why we shouldn't sit on our hands. We still need REAL rent control.
Which is why we shouldn't sit on our hands. We still need REAL rent control.
Final thoughts: The author of the bill, the bill's tenant and community activist sponsors, and even (seemingly!) Governor Gavin Newsom, and legislative leaders Toni Atkins and Anthony Rendon all accept this is far from enough. So y'all... Let's push the hell out of them!
