Keep in mind that 6 of 7 members of the Mountain View City Council were screened and endorsed as candidates by fictitiously named landlord groups such as the Mountain View "Housing Council" (established in 1980 in response to talk of rent control). The only Councilmember not beholden to landlords is Lenny Siegel. State Assembly candidate Michael Kasperzak's proposal would not affect the "bad" landlords who would simply not volunteer to particiate in his "fair rental practices" program or drop out when caught not abiding by its terms.

There's a slight complication for tenants with below-market rents: The IRS can hit them with "imputed income" for the difference.

Well, vonlost, it makes sense for IRS to do that, because "below-market" rent means someone subsidizes the rent either explicitly or effectively; the renter is getting a tangible dollar benefit.

"Market" rate is what those in the market are willing to pay; it is this demand that renders rentals "unaffordable" to some other renters. Thus the euphemism "affordable" for housing that could never be so without some form of subsidy. Like other lottery winnings (almost none of the applicants are lucky enough to win the token number of subsidized units), the winnings are taxed.

Honestly the big problem we have in Mountain View is there are just more people than the town can comfortably support. New business are coming in. Start ups are everywhere and eating up office space. Residential space is converting to commercial if zoning will allow it. Big employers like Google and LinkedIn are expanding and they're putting up new buildings which bring in more residents with their families and even more commuters. The town is being dragged forward to expand at a frantic rate and our infrastructure is straining to support this. The tax revenue goes up, but you just can't make the roads wider and the existing parking lots bigger. If you build housing you have to make it high density. If you have been on Castro street on the weekend you're well aware of how things are different now. We can put a moratorium on new construction which will slow it down somewhat, but this trend is not going to stop unless we have a market correction (the tech bubble pops) and a crash would be painful for almost everyone for at least the short term. My feelings are mixed because there's a lot of tradeoffs with this growth and it's not as simple as people would have you believe. People who are already here and found a nice comfy place to live are going to dislike any change to their housing situation by a wide margin, which you'd expect and is certainly reasonable.

Now the people who want rent control have a legitimate problem and there are a lot of emotional stories that tug at your heart strings and some cases where renters are being treated badly, but ultimately I think the city should not try to lock rents or keep them artificially low. Why? Because we have huge numbers of people pouring into town who really like Mountain View the demand is going to keep going through the roof. It's easy to paint landlords are greedy and it's a simple narrative but for the most part I believe that's not what's going on. House prices keep going up due to strong demand and low supply so rent is going up. It costs more to buy property so you charge more to rent it. Or maybe you bought property a few year ago and now rent that place for a short term loss because you think your rent will continue to go up so you'll eventually break even and then you'll start making some return on your money after a few years. Or you raise your rent because the same property down the road rents for a lot more money than yours does. That does not qualify as greed in my opinion.

There will be some bad side effects if the city officials decided that rent is the only part of the cost of living here that should not be priced according to the market. If the price difference between renting in Mountain View and the surrounding towns shrink, for instance, the market will respond and more people will try to come here because it will be a relative bargain compared to other towns nearby. It still won't be cheap by any definition, but the price difference will drop. Another effect is that if the cost of rent here goes up more slowly than other towns, people will tend to move away less because they cannot find the same sort of value near so they stay put. They want to move, but they can't. If their home were priced according to the market they would pay more here, but also be able to move if they have to.

Last thing I want to say is that I do not have any rental property in town and there's more people who rent in town that own their home, so there's a risk of the majority of voters trying to force the city to do something that would hurt the minority (those that own property). Let's hope that doesn't happen because that will help a few renters who cannot pay the high market cost of renting in our town, but it hurts the broader community.

So the landlords who don't participate willingly "... could be revealed in a city "naughty" list,"? Gosh MV City Council, way to put some teeth into the program! In Mountain View, two powerful groups kinda own the city: (1) Google; and (2) real estate interests, so this toothless "voluntary program" is useless ...

Why do people think because they work here they get to live here? I lived in four different cities throughout my career and NEVER was I able to live in the city I worked, I always commuted in from a more affordable city. Twice with 1+ hour commute each way. Sucked but I did it.

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You do not have to depend on the IRS to make an "imputed income" determination. Make the renter agree to receive a 1099-MISC statement in the amount of reduced rent, if they want to participate in the BMR.

The renter most likely will pay zero in taxes since they are in a low tax bracket. The landlord is compensated fairly for surrendering their property to the community's benefit.

If the BMR folks cannot agree to this, then they clearly are just looking for a handout.

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What kind of daycare center toddlers have we elected to our city council and to be our mayor?. Let's play nice? Really? Me thinks the question is: can't this all just go away until I'm out of office? I don't want to be the man or woman who stood up for EVERYONE'S quality of life.

Our city council will meet again tomorrow evening. Since they have a let's play nice toddler mentality, good. They can stay up past midnight.