The rent stabilization ordinance—the most polarizing issue to hit Santa Barbara City Hall in decades—inched forward Tuesday night over the course of a four-hour-plus-meeting, but the controversial measure hasn’t quite crossed the finish line.
The City Council on Tuesday night pored over 127 policy details of the proposed ordinance, after it received more than 650 comments from members of the public over the past month.
“The community has been heard,” said Barbara Andersen, assistant to the City Administrator. “We are not debating for or against rent stabilization. Community direction is clear. Council direction is clear. This is moving forward.”
But what the ordinance looks like remains unclear.
The City Council voted 4-3 in April to limit annual rent increases to 60% of CPI, with a maximum of 3%, or whichever is lower. The city hopes to formally pass the ordinance later this year, with it going into effect in January.
The rent stabilization issue has polarized Santa Barbara City Hall and pit property owners against renters. Tenants and tenant advocates contend that rents have skyrocketed and that landlords who continue to raise rents are driving people out of the community. Landlords contend that rent stabilization will force property owners to cut maintenance of their buildings or even sell their properties.
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 in an election year.
Mayor Randy Rowse, who opposes the ordinance, admonished some members of the audience Tuesday night for criticizing the city.
“Staff is working their butt off to do this,” Rowse said. “They have scheduled every one of these things as an evening session to accommodate people who are tenants. I think we should take that into consideration and not dissolve into some little nasty push and pull.”
Rowse then pointed his finger at a person in the audience.
“You can smile all you want, but being a bully is not the way to get things done,” Rowse said.
One of the main issues that surfaced Tuesday night was whether to exempt certain property owners from having to comply with the rent stabilization ordinance.
Councilwoman Meagan Harmon, who has pushed for a rent stabilization ordinance since she was first appointed to the City Council in 2019, said that affordable housing projects should not have to comply with the rent stabilization ordinance.
Residents are already only paying 30% of their income based on the CPI, which can go up or down in a given year. Placing another layer of control over those rents could be counter-productive to the city’s affordable housing goals, Harmon said.
“What I am trying to balance here is the stabilization prong with the production prong, and the production of the kind of housing that all agree that we want and need in the city,” Harmon said.
For example, Harmon said the city has loaned money to some of these affordable housing projects, and these developers pay those loans back over time to the city.
“That income stream is money that goes directly into our affordable housing fund,” Harmon said.
Harmon said further limiting the amount of rent that landlords of affordable housing projects can collect would risk those loans not being repaid “and we lose the opportunity to reinvest that money into the development of new affordable housing.”
Several property owners spoke at the meeting. Rick Lang said rent control doesn’t belong in Santa Barbara.
“Rent control requires property owners to subsidize the cost of the tenant’s housing regardless of the property owner’s ability and regardless of a tenant’s need,” Lang said. “It’s not fair to put the entire burden of subsidizing our community’s housing on one small group of property owners.”
About an hour before the meeting started, tenants and tenant advocates marched to City Hall and then held a press conference on the steps in front of the pepper tree.
“We are tired of seeing our neighbors being displaced,” said Ana Arce. “That’s why we continue to fight. For all those who had to relocate who are now in other cities or other states. Or the strife was so big and so bad that unfortunately they passed away. That happens too.”
Renter Hillary Blackerby urged the council to keep listening to what the public has said for years and to “stick with it.”
“Please, let’s get it across the the finish line with strong protections,” Blackerby said. “No point in doing half measures here. No baby steps. We are ready to move.”
Nothing was decided Tuesday night. Staff will return with a proposed ordinance for a final vote possibly in August.
