OAKLAND — With inflation on the rise and the pandemic still raging, the Oakland City Council has given tenants of rent-controlled units some relief by lowering the lid on rent increases.
As a result, landlords of the city’s regulated units can raise the rents a maximum of 3% starting July 1 instead of 6.7%, which would have been allowed by the current ordinance that ties rent increases to the regional Consumer Price Index.
“With gas prices nearing $7 (per) gallon, the increased costs of food and everyday expenses, I could not, in good conscience, allow this exorbitant spike to take effect,” Councilmember Carroll Fife, who pushed for further reduction of the rent increase cap, said in a statement after the vote. “Thousands of Oakland residents will rest a little easier knowing their housing is secure.”
A 6.7% rent increase would have been the largest in the ordinance’s two-decade history, which during that period ranged from 0.6% to 3.6%.
Fife’s proposed ordinance, which the cCouncil approved on a 6-1 vote with Noel Gallo dissenting and Loren Taylor abstaining, caps rent increases at either 60% of the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower.
Like all rent control laws in California, the ordinance can only apply to certain types of housing units. In Oakland, it generally applies to residential buildings with two or more units built before 1983. Excluded are rental units built after Jan. 1, 1983, those regulated or subsidized by government agencies, nonprofit co-ops owned and occupied by a majority of residents, and all single-family homes.
Other Bay Area cities that have capped rent increases based on the regional Consumer Price Index include San Jose at 5%, Richmond at 5.2% and Berkeley at 2.1%.
Chanee Franklin Minor, manager of Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Program, called FIfe’s proposal “sound public policy.”
“The (rent control) formula was drafted 20 years ago, and now we find ourselves in a very different situation with the prolonged housing crisis, as well as the pandemic,” Franklin Minor said. “We’ve heard from many renters fearful of becoming homeless.”
For more than two hours, dozens of people called into the council meeting to comment on the proposal. Tenants urged the council to support it, saying a 6.7% rent increase would push them out of their homes.
“My landlord increases the rent by the maximum amount every year, even while ignoring needed repairs,” said one educator named Alexander.
Others said rent-controlled apartments are the only way they can afford to stay in Oakland, while others said they often move in a constant search for lower rents.
“I was born and raised in Oakland, and between ages of 10 and 18, my family had to move six times,” one Oakland resident who identified herself as Sierra said.
“As a nonprofit worker, I would not be able to continue to afford living in Oakland without my rent-controlled unit,” resident Lauren Chiarulli told council members.
But some landlords urged the council to reject or modify the proposed ordinance, saying they too are impacted by inflation.
Danny Gonzalez, who owns a duplex, said small landlords like himself are being squeezed too by the increase in inflation and other costs.
“It seems to me that the city is closing off pathways for us — Black and Brown people — to close the racial wealth gap through property ownership,” he said in urging the council to consider amending the proposed ordinance to let landlords “bank” the 3.7% of the 6.7% increase that would be cut this year for the next few years, regardless of the CPI.
Councilmember Loren Taylor expressed a similar sentiment, noting, “We are leaning toward more corporate and turning the majority of our housing stock into those that will be owned by large corporations because they can absorb the cost. It gets too difficult to run a rental property here in Oakland and others.”
Taylor, who owns a single-family rental that isn’t regulated by the ordinance, offered an alternate proposal that would essentially cap rent increases at 3%. Gallo supported that motion but the other council members rejected it.
Franklin Minor pointed out that landlords have multiple options for petitioning the city to allow them to pass along costs to their tenants for things such as utility increases, capital improvements or other operating expenses. She said the program staff conducts regular outreach for small landlords.
Council members who supported the ordinance spoke of the housing crisis in Oakland and renters’ desperation.
“This is one concrete way I think we can ensure more families don’t become homeless,” Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas said. She said there’s a need for the city to establish a rent registry to keep data of renters, landlords and price changes across the city.
“There is a tendency in the state to shift dramatically to the lens of the rental property owner,” Councilmember Dan Kalb said. “Shifting to that takes away from the more urgent lens of the renter.
“No ordinance is going to have only great consequences and no negative consequences for anyone – those laws don’t exist, or if they do, they were passed decades ago,” Kalb continued. “So we have to decide where we are going to land, and focus on those who may need protection the most. To me, that falls on looking through the lens of the renter.”
