For the first time in decades, the Los Angeles city council overhauled its rent control rules on Wednesday, sharply lowering the annual rent increases facing tenants in one of the country\u2019s most expensive cities.<\/p>\n
The decision follows years of debate over how heavy a hand the city should have in regulating its sprawling rental market as living costs have soared and the gap between rich and poor has widened. It comes amid a national focus on affordability punctuated by New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani,<\/a> who won a decisive victory last week after running an outsider campaign centered on a promise to \u201cfreeze the rent\u201d for that city\u2019s tenants.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we have before us right now is an opportunity to make L.A. more affordable,\u201d said City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who championed the measure, at a rousing press conference with tenant activists before the vote. \u201cBecause when people can afford to stay in Los Angeles this entire city thrives.\u201d<\/p>\n The action marks another significant victory for tenant organizers and their allies on the city council who in recent years have substantially boosted protections for renters, including greater restrictions against evictions, taxpayer-funded legal support and additional leeway to repay overdue rent. Under the new rules, Los Angeles landlords whose buildings are covered by the city\u2019s rent stabilization laws \u2014 about three-quarters of the market \u2014 will be allowed to increase rents by between just 1% and 4% each year, depending on inflation. Currently, landlords are allowed to increase rent between 3% and 8% annually.<\/p>\n Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass applauded the council\u2019s action, saying that it’s part of her broader focus on making it easier to live in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will help Angelenos afford their housing, prevent people from falling into homelessness and restrict skyrocketing rents,\u201d Bass said in a statement.<\/p>\n The council\u2019s 12-2 vote came after a heated, nearly two-hour hearing that exposed deep ideological divisions and disagreement over whether the changes would provide a lifeline to struggling tenants or cause landlords to go out of business. The decision, which requires an additional vote to ratify specific language before becoming law, is likely to go into effect before many tenants face their next rent increase in February.<\/p>\n Los Angeles landlords decried the move, saying the loss of income will make it harder for them to maintain their properties, force them to sell and discourage the development of new apartments in a city that has long faced a severe shortage.<\/p>\n \u201cThis vote will go down in history for our housing supply and our providers,\u201d said Chris Gray, president of Moss & Company, a large property management firm in Los Angeles. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n Los Angeles, like many cities in California, remains mired in a homelessness and affordability crisis. Nearly 44,000 people are homeless, according to the most recent official estimate<\/a>, and one in three tenants spend more than half their income on rent.<\/p>\n Over 1.5 million Angelenos live in the city\u2019s 651,000 rent stabilized apartments. Generally, the limits on rent increases apply to apartments built before October 1978.<\/p>\n State law prevents the city from changing that date, though landlords of more recently built apartments in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California must abide by less stringent rules prohibiting larger rent hikes<\/a>. Single-family-home rentals and apartments built within the last 15 years are exempted from rent controls except in special circumstances. In any case, when someone vacates an apartment, there is no cap on how much the landlord can increase the rent for the next tenant.<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for the wave of tenant wins in the city. Fears of massive job losses at the outset in March 2020 led the city to prohibit evictions for failure to pay rent and, for the first time since rent control rules went into effect, ban rent increases in stabilized buildings.<\/p>\n The \u201crent freeze\u201d lasted nearly four years, far longer than in other large cities<\/a>. When unwinding the COVID-era protections, councilmembers replaced them with permanent rules that were much stronger<\/a> than what had been in place beforehand.<\/p>\n Tenants, for example, can miss one month\u2019s rent before their landlord is allowed to initiate eviction proceedings. Renters cannot be evicted at all unless they breach their lease, the owner wants to live in the apartment or other specified reasons. Low-income renters receive legal support in eviction court.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s housing politics shifted in favor of tenants beginning with Raman\u2019s victory in 2020 and continued with the election of progressive councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Ysabel Jurado, all of whom voted in favor of the new rent restrictions Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m tired of us talking about trying to make the city of Los Angeles a world-class city when we are not even throwing down for our families,\u201d Hernandez said at the press conference prior to the vote. \u201cToday is an example of stepping up and doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKeep LA Housed,\u201d the coalition that put on the press conference, formed in the wake of the COVID emergency and is made up of more than a dozen tenants\u2019 rights, community organizing and public interest attorney groups. It has pushed for a Tenant Bill of Rights that included many of the changes now passed by the city council.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s vote is the \u201ccapstone\u201d of that effort, said Christina Boyar, staff attorney with Public Counsel, a coalition member.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has been the longest fight, the biggest fight and one of the most meaningful fights,\u201d Boyar said.<\/p>\n Discussions over changing the formula for allowable rent increases formally began two years ago when councilmembers set aside money to hire Economic Roundtable, an L.A.-based consultant, to analyze the city\u2019s rules and compare them with others.<\/p>\n