This measure will restore some level of balance to MV housing. Rents are very high and will remain high, but at least this will slow down the rate of increase in rents, so that fewer renters are forced out of town by sudden rent hikes. Landlords will continue to reap major profits from this market. But at least when this measure passes, renters will be able to sleep a little sounder, with far less fear of being priced out of town.

Rent control or rent stabilization is bad policy, period. It stifles rental housing growth and subsidizes a special interest group - existing renters, and politically never goes away once put in place. Our elected city council wisely saw this and declined to put it in place to satisfy a vocal minority who don't have the best interests of the city driving their actions. Just look at its effects in city after city out east - devastated neighborhood housing stock, and development elsewhere where the rental markets are not distorted by price controls.

Bout time

I hope the proponents have read what is wrong with the "retaliation" clause in the mediation ordinance approved on March 15 as the Voice editorial reported last week. If tenants are not fully protected from adverse action - including eviction - by landlords who prefer to get around restrictions, an ordinance with restrictions is a recipe for mass eviction.

I'm opposed to rent control. One day, God forbid, I may be out of a job and would want to rent my house. I would hate to have the rent amount dictated to the point where I could not cover my mortgage.
Home owners may not think rent control affects them, but it very ell might in the future. Just something to think about. There are more issues at stake, but that is the one that I think about.

I know some people who got laid off and had to rent their house. I would hate to have the rent out of my control if it won't cover my mortgage

I hope proponents have read what is wrong with the "retaliation" clause of the rent mediation ordinance approved on "first reading" on March 15 by four councilmembers endorsed as candidates by landlord groups. See last week's Voice editorial. If the language of a law imposing restrictions on landlords does not forbid all adverse reactions - including preemptive eviction - then the law will become a recipe for mass eviction. Indeed, a law proposed through the initiative process has the added problem that it will not even take effect until after approved by the City Council or (if not) by voters. If an initiative were to qualify for the November ballot, "bad" landlords could begin evicting tenants left and right (and renting to brand new tenants at market rates). Moreover, any rent control ordinance that is not "means tested" (i.e., limited to tenants in need of the retrictions) will not likely pass in Mountain View.

A TRUE "long view" of this subject would recognize the full effects such measures bring -- not just the immediate benefits for some anxious renters. I've never been a landlord, but I've lived under "modern" US rent-control laws and seen all of these effects, which are inseparable from what the advocates want and talk about:

- The population competing for vacancies *increases* often dramatically. So, vacancies go from being scarce today to nonexistent.

- There's no way to ever selectively apply rent control just to "needy" renters. Higher-income tenants displace them over time (they too benefit from rents suppressed below market rate) and have no incentive to move. They also have the means to bribe their way into "controlled" units. Over time, the population of lower-income renters is forced OUT.

- Frustrated property owners (some of them under heavy financial pressure) find ways to defer maintenance, push out tenants, and pull units off the rental market.

In the name of helping some people, the measure hurts many more in the long run. It is often so, when market-set prices for anything are suppressed by legislation. This will not surprise anyone with a sense of economics, but many people don't have such a sense, and will myopically perceive and defend only the elements of this reality that they like. Reality itself is never as selective as human perception.

When you give the ballot measure a name like that you can tell even the people writing the ballot don't think rent control is something people are going to want to vote for.

I'd appreciate it if the article were updated to answer these 3 questions: Is it advisory or binding? How many valid signatures are needed to get it on the ballot? Does the tenant's coalition have a web site with information on the proposed measure?

@Hmm

Aren't single family homes and condos exempt from rent control under the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act6?

(Unless, of course they have a granny unit which is rented out separately, in which case they are counted as a 2 family unit.)

I sympathize with renters getting socked with enormous rent increases. How can anyone plan their lives with the threat of homelessness looming every year?

On the other hand, not every landlord is a big faceless corporation. If I were a homeowner thinking of renting out the granny unit in my back yard, my biggest worry would be getting rid of a tenant who doesn't want to leave. What if I just don't want to be a landlord any more? If I tell prospective renters that the 1-year lease they're signing means they have to leave after 1 year, why should I be forced to let them stay longer?

This is especially relevant as the city considers loosening restrictions on companion dwellings, supposedly to help grow the housing stock. How many homeowners will sink cash into turning a garage into a studio apartment, with the possibility of rent controls and "just-cause eviction" hearings looming on the horizon?

Just maybe a rent control initiative process will get more tenants registered and ready to vote and inspire City Councilmembers (who were endorsed as candidates by landlord groups) to at least fix Section 43.30 of the preliminarily approved "mediation" ordinance to prohibit preemptive evictions. Maybe, but do not hold your breath.

The unfortunate truth is that while the housing market was down, rents stayed low and renters enjoyed this. Keep in mind that rents between 2007 and 2011 virtually stayed the same. Now, since 2011, the rents have increased with the economy. Part of the reason for this recent increase is the City of Mountain View's limitless allowance of more and more businesses. These businesses routinely hire one year or less contract workers, creating transiency and driving up rents. If you want to keep rents down, require companies to hire long term employees and limit industrial complexes. But that would cut into the cityS tax revenues, so is unpopular. And let's face it, there is a certain company that owns Mountain View, expands relentlessly and hires temporary employees as a major portion of their workforce.

Legislate too many controls and landlords have to protect themselves by by taking fewer risks with tenants. That Is, landlords will be hesitant to rent to less than perfect renters if they know that it's a nightmare to get rid of them. In addition, the city of Mountain View monitors rental properties and code enforcement to the point of insanity already.

Many rentals in Mountain View are small, in-law homes, duplexes, or room rentals. Make it impossible for landlords to protect themselves from bad renters and you remove incentives to rent.

Also keep in mind that state laws already limit rent increases, requiring more notice above a certain % increase. Limit future increases and you guaranty maximum rent increases to prevent properties from falling below market values.

If you want affordable housing, stop the city practices that produce high housing costs!

So now those landlords who are responsible for this mess, those who have hiked their rents recently or have been renting at the highest end of the market value, lose nothing. Those landlords who have been renting at "reasonable" rates may increase rents to avoid being locked in to the 2-5% annual max.

I have been renting from the same landlord for the past 9 years. I am paying below market value because I am stable and rarely need anything from her. Will she get scared and jack my rate up so as to avoid being locked if a measure is introduced and passes?

How about going after those landlords that hike rents up and are way above market value? Don't punish the decent landlords (they do exist), that will punish those of us who can still afford to live here. Put some more thought into this.

Good! Let the people vote! Go around the elitists, power to the people! We need to use the ballot box when the representatives only represent the power/privileged class. We need more of this city, county, and state wide! Politicians only look out for themselves and those that give them kickbacks. It's disgusting what is taking place all over this country from the highest offices to the lowest. Nothing but a bunch self-service instead of public service!

Am I correct in my understanding that this measure could only apply to units built before 1995, due to the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act? (Web Link

@ Greg Coladonato

Yes that's right. A city ballot initiative has no power to overturn state law.

@ People Power

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic."

- Benjamin Franklin

So can we vote it down once and for all and then stop hearing about this again and again? The bay area economy will crash (as it always does) then these rental units will sit empty (as has happened before) and no one will be screaming about rent increases. Landlords will be offering "move in" incentives (as they've done before). People are so short-sighted it kills me. I can't think of a better way to mess up Mountain View than having rent control.

Rent control is problematic for many reasons. State law excludes newer housing and more importantly, it does nothing to resolve our supply problem. The solution isn't to thwart the free market, but to help it.

As we hear of new city council candidates, I hope they consider the following:
1) Require all rental units to publish their percent (%) rent increases in an open database so renters can make more informed decisions. For the few landlords that want to gouge, they may think twice if their record is public. When people buy homes, they can see price history, why are renters disadvantaged?
2) Provide easy to access to free ombudsman support/legal services to renters to help enforce existing state and local fair housing laws, especially for renters who don't speak English or are vulnerable for other reasons like age.
3) Support the construction of in-law units, especially in neighborhoods around job or transportation hubs.
4) Support micro-housing where infrastructure will support it. It's crazy for a city to argue it won't allow smaller homes because they are "inhumane" in a city where people currently live in their cars. Example of micro-in law modular units found in Atherton: Web Link
4) Create an integrated transportation plan for cars, buses, and bikes. Each of our systems including the free Google buses don't seem to integrate well with other modes of transit.

These reforms help all renters, all the while supporting property rights and quality of life.

I saw somewhere online that Cupertino mayor Barry Chang is going to give a talk about his proposal to charge $1000 per employee to fund low/mid income housing, including rent subsidies. I think that is a much better idea than rent control. You take the money from the source of the problem and give it to those being affected most. Rent control only makes the problem worse.

I mean $1000 per employee of big high-tech companies, such as Apple.

If you want cheaper housing, build more housing. Specifically, get rid of the 2 story limit all over the city. Build more housing.

Rent control pits existing renters against new renters, while keeping existing renters uninterested in voting for supply. If you want to continue renting here, you need to vote for more housing (both rentals and condos).

Also, Townhouses should be opposed. 4+ story condos should be built everywhere available.

If you want to keep rents from being hiked aggressively, build condos. You create a lot more property owners, and some will eventually turn into rentals. Prices are hiked slower, as individual people don't have a front office to keep a stream of tenants flowing.

While the balance or imbalance of jobs to housing occurs regionally, it is also a matter for each city and city council to consider. In Mountain View, the City Council has authorized far more jobs than housing. Part of the result has been soaring housing prices - including the opportunity to raise rents. All seven members of the current (and immediate past) City Council are homeowners who have profited personally and handsomely from their official decision-making. Six of seven of the current members of the City Council were endorsed as candidates by fictitiously named landlords groups. Two of the three Councilmembers elected in November 2014 were secretly aided by the expenditure of some $100,000 in "dark money" from landlords. Even if they knew nothing about the source of those expenditures, special interest groups do not make a habit of endorsing and spending money for candidates that will likely vote against their interests. The chief advocate for landlords on the City Council is 4th-term Councilmember Michael Kasperzak (now running for state Assembly). Kasperzak pushed for the motion on December 15 to adopt a "mediation" ordinance that would allow and encourage landlords who wish to raise residential rents more than a percentage per year (7.2) to simply evict existing tenants and rent at market rates to new ones. Kasperzak and his landlord-endorsed colleagues could fix what the Voice editorial (last week) suggested was and is an unintended consequence. But if providing the option of preemptive eviction was deliberate, Kasperzak and the others (John McAlister, Chris Clark and Pat Showalter) will fix nothing and simply approve the mediation ordinance on "second reading" now set for April 26. I have offered to meet or talk by phone with each of the four who voted for the ordinance with its easily fixed flaw in section 43.30 but none of them has responded yet. It appears that they were all ready to adopt the ordinance as written on "second reading" on March 22 but Kasperzak was not present to cast the needed fourth vote. He was on a city junket to Wasington D.C. in this context, it should come as no surprise that some folks are proposing a rent control-just cause eviction initiative.

Rent control will raise any currently reasonable rents sky high ,immediately, as it is the owners' last chance to do so.

Vacancies will become nearly non-existent. Commuting out of town for work can occur as people hang on to their rent deal here, if any are left in light of rent control discussions. So housing consequently can become even harder to find, and the really high rent, new places can charge anything they want as housing built in the last 20 years ARE EXEMPT from any rent control. Ironically, the more of them built, the more the rent market rates are raised to match what they charge.

So we'll end up with older housing becoming no longer affordable very quickly to catch up to market rates before rent controls can go into effect, and any still with good rates will never turn over, and more and more new projects will replace the older, cheaper stuff with no limit on their rent rates.

Consequence: Only the well off can live in MV = the complete gentrification of MV, which is what wealthy snobs seem to want anyway. Exclusivity for the rich.

Gary, thanks for your clear and perceptive statement:

"Six of seven of the current members of the City Council were endorsed as candidates by fictitiously named landlords groups. Two of the three Councilmembers elected in November 2014 were secretly aided by the expenditure of some $100,000 in "dark money" from landlords. Even if they knew nothing about the source of those expenditures, special interest groups do not make a habit of endorsing and spending money for candidates that will likely vote against their interests. The chief advocate for landlords on the City Council is 4th-term Councilmember Michael Kasperzak (now running for state Assembly)."

Someone posting here said that it would be a good thing for Kasperzak to go to Sacramento, just because it would get him out of Mountain View. I disagree. The last thing we need is another Assembly member who is enthralled with the power that big money brings to the table.

Yes!

My research shows that this rent control initiative is largely being driven by Mountain View Day Worker Center (MVDWC). See Web Link
MVDWC is the million-dollar building that was generously donated in 2006 by Mountain View residents and local charities, including the Mountain View Voice who still support it today, and it enjoys a rent-free location on Escuela Ave.
See Web Link
So it would seem that MVDWC are not only OK with illegal immigrants and visa overstays (If you hire one without checking I9 work authorization, you are the one who is committing a federal offence) but who are now campaigning for rent control to 'prevent' the hard working people who have long-term invested in buying their own property in Mountain View from making a decent income if they choose to rent. A bit of a slap in the face for Mountain View residents, I think, as well as being a poor long term strategy.
You can read a bit more about the director of the MVDWC here: Web Link

@mvresident2008

Well that's incredibly frustrating, but does explain a lot. Thank you for sharing. Very enlightening indeed!

We do not want to turn Mtn.View into East Palo Alto. That is what happens when rent control comes to a city.

We are in a boom cycle now, and a bust will come soon enough. The business cycle lasts roughly 10 years so we are due soon for a correction. It has always done this since 1980.

Market rents since 2000 thru today are up only 33%. You can not use the rents from the artifisal lows of a recession and be honest about your discussion.

I will not support this, and will vote no.

MVResident2008 & Karen & several others writing above have seen through this.

What it sounds like we'd be getting, will not be what rent control or eviction mediation creates.

Many problems with rent control, and even rent stabilization, have be mentioned above. To recap a few, it discourages housing growth in the older more affordable buildings are the ones that will fall under government rent control; it causes less available housing for a few reasons like discouraged landlords and less resident driven turn over; properties may cost less to live in, but get very run down as even good landlords don't have much choice and they may even just quit since it's more complicated and not profitable to provide housing, especially in older buildings that require major work more often; etc.

Eviction mediation proceeding slowly (and it does) will not help immediate neighbors of those facing eviction when landlords have to remove tenants that harm, abusively disturb, or endanger those living around them. If this process bogs down, the good tenants have to escape by moving and only the bad tenants will be left!

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Can we have a ballot measure to require a civics course to teach the law of supply and demand and the law of unintended consequences?

To repeat Young Libertarian:

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic."

- Benjamin Franklin

This is not a simple supply and demand situation.

Many experts in this area that I've read or heard speak agree that MV can never build enough housing to halt increases or lower the cost of buying or renting here. (Only a recession can do that. They come in cycles.) Manhattan is fully packed to the sky. How cheap are those units? They're certainly not even moderately priced!

New building brings with it various problems. Most newly built stuff is unaffordable due to its high cost of land purchase and greed, and will remain so despite rent control because it is exempt. Only the older, affordable stuff is subject to rent control by law. And as the older buildings require funds for keeping them sound, their owners, without the ability to increase the building's income sufficiently to repair and sustain them as major problems arise, give up. In addition to all the regular upkeep like painting and appliance replacement, etc., certain problems are a huge cost in older structures, like all new pipes or wiring or a new roof costing several tens of thousands of dollars, etc. There're also taxes, insurance, city fees, and a mortgage note to pay. So instead of repairing or reworking the building, its easier and more profitable to sell it off to be scraped for big construction of even more units to take its place. But even if there are more units, they are not affordable at all for anyone except those with the highest incomes.

Rent control is not an answer. Vote "No" on it.

Let's look at better ideas.

The real problem is the massive fraud and abuse of the skilled guest worker program (H1b) plus discriminatory hiring practices in SV hi-tech. Every year we import thousands of so-called "(non)skilled" guest workers and recent college grads from out of the state/country into Mountain View to work at Google, et al. They don't know the rental market and end up paying half their paychecks for the blocks of transient housing apts being built by the likes of Prometheus. They also displace both jobs and housing for long time Mt View residents. They don't care about paying $3000 for a 1-bedroom because it's only for a year or two max. Add to that the fact that "average rent prices" are all reported (inflated) by the Zillows out there who's best interest is in jacking up the rental market. It artificially drives up rents. It's all about tech CEO / developer greed, and the Mtn. View city council membership is complicit by rubber stamping any development Google and residential developers want.

No David, this isn't greed as much as you want to paint it so. It's simply supply and demand. Not only does tech drive it but also this is one of the most beautiful, fabulous places to live from climate to social life to outdoor activities. These all come with a price.

When implying greed you exhibit envy.

Anyone that's studied economics knows that price controls are a horrible idea. Rent control is merely a wealth transfer from landlord to tenant. It will also restrict future supply in the following way. Given Mtn Vieww has few if any empty lots to build on, new units will come from replacing older units which will be difficult to do w rent control in place.

We need to stop the theft of greedy tenants.

It appears that the rent control-just cause eviction initiative was motivated by gamesmanship on the part of city councilmembers who were endorsed as candidates by landlord groups. To this day, some of these councilmembers seem determinated to enact a toothless "mediation" ordinance that would merely give some apartment renters the right to complain about further rents increases (over 7.2% per year) and maintain for landlords the option of simply serving eviction notices instead of rent increase notices. Do the initiative proponents have a website or other contact information?

All of you commenting and liking each other's comments for the sake of your profits are too obvious. You all try to spread fear and create the impression that rent control is a terrible thing and it's "naive" (some of you are less respectful) to think otherwise.
Shame on you for recurring to racism and discrimination making mention of the migratory status of people, lies about a very committed community leader we've had for years in our City, Maria Marroquin. Your links are useless and you even managed to link a different Maria Marroquin, which just shows how ignorant you are about what you talk about.

Shame on you.

I personally didn't think rent control was a good idea. I didn't know much about, just didn't agree with the things I knew about it in principle. That's why I reached out to my dear friend, Maria Marroquin, and asked her to explain why she thought it was a good idea. We talked about it and she introduced me to other people who taught me more and more, and now I don't think it's a bad idea at all.

I was starting to lean towards voting for rent control in the city, but being a frequent reader of the Voice and since I've been following this topic for more than a year now, I've noticed a trend in the negative comments. Your tactics are disgusting. Let the people of Mountain View vote. If you're going to make your case, make it factual and respectfully. Don't bad mouth our community members and spread lies.

Rent control won't affect single homes. It only applies to buildings with four or more units. And it won't affect new development because only buildings built before 1995 are rent controlled. Mountain View can't become East Palo Alto, don't compare it. The rent increase on rent controlled units will be 100% CPI, with a minimum of 2% and a top of 5%. There will be a committee appointed by council where public can make recommendations on who to appoint.

Stop spreading lies and misinformation. Shame on you

"Rent control won't affect single homes. It only applies to buildings with four or more units. And it won't affect new development because only buildings built before 1995 are rent controlled. Mountain View can't become East Palo Alto, don't compare it. The rent increase on rent controlled units will be 100% CPI, with a minimum of 2% and a top of 5%. There will be a committee appointed by council where public can make recommendations on who to appoint"

While most of above is true, it will affect new development as described above. Rent control slows down the growth of supply because new development will require the removal of old supply. More ownership housing will eventually replace rental housing. Also why do you think a bureaucratic committee would do a better job than a landlord or a tenant.

Most people once they learn some economics, see the problems with price controls.