About two hours and 15 minutes into Tuesday night’s five-hour meeting on rent stabilization, property owner Rick Lang threw in the towel.
Lang strolled up to the podium, prepared notes in his hand, and spoke to the Santa Barbara City Council.
“I am swimming against the stream here, so I am going to go with a different approach,” said Lang, disregarding his notes and speaking off the top of his head.
“Rental housing is the cheapest housing in Santa Barbara and because of this stuff a lot of landlords are saying ‘I am out, I am selling,’ and a lot of investors aren’t coming in.”
Then, turning to look at the more than 100 people in the audience instead of speaking to the City Council, Lang made an unusual proposal.
“My suggestion to the renters is get together and start buying up this rental property to live in it,” Lang said. “…You really think it is cheaper to own than it is to rent, then by all means, buy this stuff up.”
Lang’s statement drew gasps and headshakes from audience members, but spotlighted the incredible divide between property owners and renters on an issue that has swallowed City Hall, and in an election year where four City Council seats are up for grabs.
The fight over rent stabilization has already tipped the power on the City Council, and this November, could result in a new mayor.
Tuesday night’s meeting attracted more than 125 people, most of whom were renters, with story after story of how rents have escalated and that they are being driven out of the community. On the other side, landlords described capping rent increases as “unconstitutional” and an interference in the private market.
Local owners will have no choice, they say, but to sell to corporations who really don’t care about the community.
The issue has fractured City Hall, pit councilmembers vs. councilmembers, and sparked divisiveness and rancor on the American Riviera.
The situation has gotten so emotional and unusual that councilman Oscar Gutierrez compared himself to Pontious Pilate, the Roman who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion, to illustrate his opposition to putting a rent stabilization initiative on the November ballot.
Pilate, he said, chose to “wash his hands,” and let the people decide who should come off the cross, and that they chose a murderer over Jesus.
“Personally, I am not going to pull a Pontious Pilate and put this on the people,” Gutierrez said. “I just got re-elected in 2024 and spoke to thousands of people in my District and this is something they have been asking me to push for. For the last eight years I have been on the council. I have been carrying this issue on my back. I am going to continue to carry it because I gave the people my word.”
Gutierrez made his comment just shy of three hours into the meeting. About 40 minutes later the council took its most significant action of the night. They voted 4-3 to move forward to limit annual rent increases within a 12-month period to 60% of CPI, with a maximum of 3%, or whichever is lower.
Councilmembers Gutierrez, Wendy Santamaria, Meagan Harmon and mayoral candidate Kristen Sneddon were in support. Mayor Randy Rowse, councilman Mike Jordan, and mayoral candidate Eric Friedman opposed.
The vote marked the biggest win so far for Santamaria, who ousted rent stabilization opponent Alejandra Gutierrez to win a seat on the council two years ago. Santamaria ran as a tenant rights advocate and has primarily focused on such issues during her first two years in office. Santamaria is willing to challenge people around her who disagree with her. She has sparred with the mayor and councilman Jordan publicly over their opposition to rent stabilization. She expressed strong opposition to placing a rent stabilization ordinance on the ballot.
“This would be a battle over money,” Santamaria said. “Who has more money to launch more ads. It is painfully obvious that that is what it would be.”
Santamaria said landlords typically outspend tenants 3-1 when rent stabilization measures are put on the ballot.
“Of course they have the money,” Santamaria said. “We need to be very careful about punting this responsibility to be decided by those with the most money.”
Sneddon too said the decision belongs in the hands of the City Council, and not at the ballot box. She said a rent stabilization ordinance benefits everyone.
“It’s good for business, it’s good for schools, it’s good for seniors, it’s good for families, it’s good for preventing displacement, it’s good for preventing human trafficking, it’s good for addressing human poverty, and hunger,” Sneddon said. “It’s good for health care burdens and alleviating those on the system if we are talking purely in economic means.”
She said the largest group of people becoming homeless is single women who are one rent payment away from living in their cars and then becoming homeless.
“We all win when our community is stable,” Sneddon said.
Sneddon has emerged as the endorsed mayoral candidate by the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party in the November election. It’s perhaps the most striking policy position between her and Rowse, who opposes rent stabilization.
The proposed ordinance has caught the attention of Santa Barbara’s most well-known attorney, Barry Cappello.
Cappello spoke Tuesday night in opposition to the rent stabilization ordinance and the temporary rent freeze that the council approved in February. Cappello is representing four property owners in a lawsuit against the city over the rent freeze.
Cappello has a reputation as a fierce and sometimes ferocious attorney. While Santa Barbara is rich with attorneys, Cappello is at the top of the mountain and when he walks into a room, the mood gets serious. He worked as the city attorney for Santa Barbara from 1971 to 1977.
He is the reason why Santa Barbara has district elections; he sued on behalf of Latino plaintiffs and forced the city to move from an at-large to district elections. He won a $70 million lawsuit against Sable Oil on behalf of property owners and has had many other high-profile cases.
Cappello spoke to the City Council Tuesday evening and did not mince words.
“When you read our lawsuit you will see that you have made some fatal errors,” Cappello said.
He urged the council to read the lawsuit and set aside the rent freeze. That must be done first, he said, before creating a rent stabilization ordinance. Cappello said he would withdraw the lawsuit if the city halts the rent freeze, and that the firm would work with city attorneys on a legally defensible rent stabilization ordinance.
“We’re happy to dismiss it. We’re happy not to take your money,” Cappello said. “We’re happy not to take the citizens’ money, and it will be significant, believe me.”
City Councilwoman Meagan Harmon, who must leave office this year because of term limits, has advocated for a rent stabilization ordinance longer than any other councilmember. She brought it up shortly after she was appointed in 2018, but never had a council majority to pass the policy until Santamaria was elected.
While the council directed staff to start drafting an ordinance for potential vote in June, Harmon was the most vocal councilmember Tuesday night to make sure the ordinance doesn’t accidentally harm tenants. Harmon, a renter, said she worries about what happens to rents when people move out.
“Of course, this stabilizes rents for those of us who are in rental units right now, but the minute that we move out, I have real concern that rent prices are going to shoot up,” Harmon said. “I would like to see if there are some alternatives to try and balance that instinct.”
In addition to Gutierrez’s reference to Pilate, Tuesday’s meeting included other references to Jesus.
Rev. Nicole Iaquinto quoted the gospel of Mathew in the Holy Bible, 25:35, saying “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” She later said families live in constant fear that a rent increase could drive them out of their homes.
“Jesus makes it very clear that when we care for those who are vulnerable, we are participating in the work of God,” Iaquinto said. “Housing, shelter and belonging, these are not secondary concerns. These are essential to what it means to be a compassionate and just society.”
Emotion filled the meeting. Many of the speakers aimed their comments directly at Rowse, one of them even yelling at him and speaking profanities. The tenants showed a team spirit, cheering, laughing and supporting each other in the back of the council chamber, staying until the end of the discussion, which lasted about five hours.
Among the speakers was Gavin Spencer, who said he was born in Santa Barbara, that his family was pushed out, but he is attempting to make a life here. He said he is for the “strongest version of a rent stabilization ordinance.”
He told a story of how he once applied for job at the Paradise Cafe, which was owned by Mayor Rowse at the time. He said he didn’t get the job. Spencer looked directly at Rowse and said:
“You asked me what high school I went to,” Spencer said. “Well, it wasn’t Santa Barbara because we got pushed out. You kindly showed me the door. Maybe I could have been your employee. Let’s pass rent stabilization today.”
Don Katich, general manager of Radius Commercial Real Estate, said “there is nothing stabilizing about this policy.”
He said the ordinance was full of tenant protections, but “shockingly,” no landlord protections.
“It will drive investment capital away from Santa Barbara, precisely when that capital is needed to build the housing requirement under the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment,” Katich said.
After the meeting, under the darkness outside of City Hall well past 10 p.m., Katich walked up to Stanley Tzankov, co-founder of the Santa Barbara Tenants Union. Katich extended his arm and shook Tzankov’s hand.
“We will live to fight another day,” he told him, as both men smiled.
