BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
The rent control measure going to Redwood City voters in November will drastically reduce future rent increases on certain apartments, but it doesn’t apply to every apartment.
(Read the proposed ordinance.)
I read through the 45-page measure and found a few things that people might find surprising. For instance, enforcement of rent control will require the city to create a new department staffed by a program administrator, hearing examiners, housing counselors, experts offering tenants legal services and bureaucrats to handle the paperwork the measure will generate.
The money for this new program will be paid by landlords — and they’ll probably pass it along to their tenants. The cost will be $120 per apartment.
People are sometimes surprised to learn that California already has rent control. State rent control limits annual increases to the consumer price index plus 5%.
Redwood City’s proposed rent control law limits annual increases to 60% of the increase in the consumer price index.
Rent increases
Let me walk you through the math on that.
Let’s say the current rent of an apartment is $1,000 a month, and the consumer price index (CPI) is 4%.
(Actually, the CPI is 3.8% for the 12 months ending in April 2026, but I’ll use 4% for this example.)
Under state law, the landlord can increase the rent 5% (or $50 in this example) plus 4% for the CPI (that’s another $40). So the rent could go up by as much as $90 a month.
Under the proposed measure in Redwood City, the landlord can only increase the rent by 60% of the CPI.
In this example, the maximum amount of the increase would be $24 a month (60% of 4 is 2.4).
Loophole
I found a loophole that the ordinance doesn’t address. When the tenant’s lease expires, and the tenant moves out, the landlord can set the rent at market rates, ignoring the limits imposed by the ordinance.
The ordinance talks a lot about eviction procedures, but those only come into play during the term of the lease. When the lease ends, the landlord can ask the tenant to leave or go to a month-to-month lease.
Reaction
If the rent control ordinance passes, my guess is that landlords will do the following:
1. Skimp on maintenance — take a look at rent-controlled Berkeley;
2. Offer new tenants the shortest leases possible, maybe one year.
That’s because state law allows landlords to raise the rent to market rate once the original tenant permanently vacates the unit.
Exceptions
Many apartments wouldn’t be subject to rent control if the measure passes. A state law known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act exempts a city from imposing rent control on single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums and apartments built after 1995.
The city estimates there are 10,401 apartments in Redwood City. It’s hard to say precisely how many were built since 1995, but based on data in the city’s Housing Element (its state plan for housing) an estimated 2,500 to 3,500+ multifamily units have been added since the early 2000s. Those units would be exempt.
So rent control would only apply to about 6,900 to 7,900 apartments.
Junk fees
The ordinance doesn’t do anything to stop the junk fees landlords are slapping on tenants. That’s one way a landlord could get more money from a tenant despite rent control.
In other cities, such as San Francisco, tenants are being hit with fees for pest control and trash, “amenities” like a pool (whether you use it or not), and a technology fee for paying your lease online. If these fees aren’t disclosed in the lease, they may not be enforceable. The most interesting fee I’ve seen is for the DNA testing of pets, which is used to track uncollected dog waste.
Rent control’s proponents
The group which led the effort on this proposed ordinance is the local branch of Faith in Action. One of the major funders of Faith in Action nationally is the Open Society Foundation, founded by controversial billionaire George Soros.
Faith in Action tried to put rent control on the 2024 ballot but failed. They submitted 6,395 signatures, greater than the 4,389 necessary. But when the county elections office checked the signatures, many of the signers weren’t registered voters within Redwood City.
This time Faith in Action submitted more than 7,000 signatures, and they apparently met the threshold for a ballot measure. City Council is scheduled to consider the ordinance on June 8. Council can approve the ordinance, which would eliminate the need for a November ballot question, or decide it should go to the voters.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
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