There are several rent control bills in California right now.
AB 36 will allow cities to enact rent control on older buildings. AB 36 would not apply to new construction, only to buildings older than 10 years. This should help to prevent supply crunches, or at least not make them worse.
AB 1482 would set a state-wide cap on rent increases, for example inflation + 10%. The idea is to stop massive rent increases that lead to evictions. The exact number hasn’t been determined yet, the bill sponsors are trying to figure out a good number that protects tenants and gives landlords a legally guaranteed return on investment.
These bills will face a lot of corporate opposition. It’s important that our electeds here from renters, homeowners and “mom & pop” landlords as they consider these bills.
AB 36 sounds like it would encourage a lot more turnover on older buildings, incentivizing the redevelopment of what is currently affordable housing. New York has similar regulations, and what you end up having happen is that landlords will either redevelop or renovate to whatever the threshold is to get out of the affordable housing requirement.
In California landlords
are already allowed to pass through “reasonable” capital costs on rent controlled units, so they can essentially already do this.
This is true in theory but in practice often hard to get approved. For example, in San Francisco you can never apply for a pass through on buildings occupied by the elderly or disabled even if that tenant sublets to non-protected people.
In my experience, pass throughs are a theoretical concession instead of a practical one.
AB 36 will allow cities to enact rent control on older buildings. AB 36 would not apply to new construction, only to buildings older than 10 years. This should help to prevent supply crunches, or at least not make them worse.
AB 1482 would set a state-wide cap on rent increases, for example inflation + 10%. The idea is to stop massive rent increases that lead to evictions. The exact number hasn’t been determined yet, the bill sponsors are trying to figure out a good number that protects tenants and gives landlords a legally guaranteed return on investment.
These bills will face a lot of corporate opposition. It’s important that our electeds here from renters, homeowners and “mom & pop” landlords as they consider these bills.