Rent control debate returns to Santa Rosa City Council

Santa Rosa’s contentious rent control debate returns to the City Council on Tuesday, and real estate groups are sharpening their opposition in an all-out effort to stop the proposal before it goes any further.

The city last fall hired a consultant to help the council understand the policy options and potential pitfalls of instituting rent control, and that report will be the subject of a 2 p.m. study session.

No action is scheduled to be taken at Tuesday’s meeting, but the local real estate industry isn’t taking any chances.

Mailers have been circulating in recent weeks warning rental housing owners of the dangers of rent control and its common companion, what’s known as a just-cause eviction policy, that only allows tenants to be evicted for specific reasons.

One mailer contains an image of a tall stack of documents labeled “Eviction Process” and warns “evicting a bad tenant could become impossible” under tougher eviction rules that often accompany rent control laws.

In addition to printing the email address and telephone number of every City Council member, the mailer urges landlords to “Tell the Santa Rosa City Council … Just Cause evictions will make our housing crisis worse.”

It directs people interested in more information to a website at www.santarosarentcontrolfacts.com.

Nowhere do the mailers explain who is behind the effort, but it’s the work of the two dominant real estate trade groups in the area. The North Coast Division of the California Apartment Association and the North Bay Association of Realtors jointly funded the mailers, said Daniel Sanchez, government affairs director at NORBAR.

The groups spent about $9,000 on the mailers to rental property owners in an effort to educate them about the upcoming council discussion.

“A lot of people are very concerned about whether the council is going to go in a positive direction by building more housing, or go in a negative direction that’s going to have a decades-long impact on housing availability in our community,” Sanchez said.

The rapid rise in rents in recent years, an acute housing shortage, stagnant wage growth and a persistent homelessness problem have put pressure on the council to act.

Rent control strikes some members of the council as the most expedient way to protect residents from the type of unpredictable rent spikes that are pricing people out of the local housing market or keeping them in substandard housing.

The real estate community has been urging council members to consider less controversial measures, such as educational programs for landlords and tenants, legal guidance for those with questions about rental issues and greater inspections of rental properties to ensure adequate living conditions.

They argue that rent control - or rent stabilization, as modern versions are generally referred to - creates a disincentive to real estate investors to buy rental properties in Santa Rosa or properly maintain the ones they have.

They also say they’re less worried about rent control than the restrictions on how and when they can evict residents.

Currently, landlords have wide latitude to evict residents.

But when rent stabilization is imposed, something that can only be done for pre-1996 properties, many communities also enact rules about when someone can be evicted. They do so to make sure good tenants aren’t pushed out for no other reason than a landlord’s desire to charge higher rents, which they typically can when turnover occurs.

While he understands the desire to protect tenants against such actions, Keith Becker, the president of DeDe’s Rentals, said the reality is that just-cause eviction unfairly puts the onus on the property owner to build and document a case against an accused tenant, which can often be challenging and expensive.

“For bad tenants, for problem tenants, basically this puts them in the position of, ‘If you don’t like what I’m doing, prove it. Take me to court,’” Becker said.

The council is closely divided on the issue of rent control, agreeing on a 4-3 vote in the fall to spend $75,000 on the study.

Councilman Gary Wysocky, who did not serve on the council subcommittee exploring the issue but is one of the few council members to have voiced strong opinions on the issue, said he’s looking for a policy that prevents good tenants from being unfairly evicted, not one that protects bad ones.

“If this proposal protects tenants who are trashing owners’ properties, then that’s a problem. That’s a legitimate issue,” Wysocky said.

The council on Tuesday will analyze the rent stabilization and just-cause eviction programs of several cities in the state, including their policies and administration costs. While no formal vote is planned, any feedback from the council is expected to guide the city’s next steps.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@srcitybeat.