Bay Area lawmakers are throwing their support behind a new state bill to tighten rent control, a proposal cheered by tenant advocates but met with fierce resistance from landlord groups across California.
Assembly Bill 1157, dubbed the Affordable Rent Act, would lower statewide rent caps already in place for most apartment buildings and expand the restrictions to single-family rental homes. The bill advanced out of the state Assembly’s housing committee on Thursday.
“With renters making up roughly half of the state’s population, California must take every step to help keep families from being displaced, keep workers near their jobs, and ensure no one is pushed into homelessness due to a substantial rent increase,” the bill’s author, Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, said in a statement.
Democratic assemblymembers Mia Bonta from Oakland and Alex Lee from Milpitas co-authored the bill.
AB 1157 is one of at least 160 bills California lawmakers have proposed this year to alleviate the state’s housing crisis. They range from a measure to roll back environmental reviews that can stall new development to a $10 billion affordable housing bond and a now-amended bill that would have forced counties to help pay for city-operated homeless shelters.
The rent control bill aims to reform a 2019 law that expanded rent restrictions statewide. That law, AB 1482, capped rent hikes at between 5% and 10% a year, depending on inflation. It mainly applies to apartment buildings that are 15 years old or older.
If approved, the new bill would lower the rent increase limits to between 2% and 5% a year. It would also extend the rent caps to all rented single-family homes and condos, which are now exempt unless owned by a corporation, trust or LLC. Additionally, it would eliminate the current law’s 2030 sunset date, making the restrictions permanent.
The bill would not impact local rent control ordinances in cities including San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley and Mountain View.
Opponents of the bill argue that additional regulations on rents would discourage new housing construction because it would make it more difficult for developers to turn a profit.
They also point to academic studies showing that in areas with rent control, tenants are less likely to move, and some landlords opt to stop renting out their units. Fewer available rentals can mean higher prices for units without rent control.
“Policies like AB 1157 that penalize property owners while ignoring the core issue of housing scarcity will only worsen our problems,” the state’s most powerful landlord and real estate groups wrote in an open letter published this month.
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Whether the bill has enough support to become law remains to be seen.
It comes less than six months after California voters resoundingly rejected a November ballot measure that would have allowed local governments to significantly expand rent control. It was the third time since 2018 that voters had shot down such a proposal after opponents labeled it a “housing killer.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed the initial statewide rent cap bill into law, opposed the recent ballot measure. He has not taken a position on the new bill.
