Half Moon Bay council continues rent control 

Currently, the city’s rent control ordinance sets a maximum annual rent adjustment to the lesser of 3% or an 80% cap in changes to the consumer price index, which continually adjusts and is linked to the price of common goods. A registration program set up in tandem with rent control policies requires all property owners to register their rental units. 

Program data shows that 1,063 rental units total have been registered last year, and 377 of those are rent-stabilized units. The registration program currently has a roughly 82% compliance rate. 

Local Realtors and landlords — who requested they be referred to as “housing providers” — turned out en masse to support ending the program in its entirety at the City Council’s meeting May 6. Rent control measures are unfriendly to landlords and incentivize local, mom-and-pop landlords to stop renting out their properties or even sell them, potentially to larger, corporate entities, these residents argued.

In addition, state rent stabilization mandates — which cap increases at 10% per year but puts impetus on tenants to essentially take landlords to court who are breaking those regulations — are already in place, Half Moon Bay real estate agent Barbara LaVey said. 

“We do have protections in place already by the state … and then a lease agreement between landlord and tenant, and that pretty much takes care of things,” she said. “I’d like to try and change the verbiage around landlords and refer to them rather as housing providers. They are our friends. They are in the business of providing housing.” 

Penrose, a supporter of the rent control measure since it passed in May 2024, rejected assertions from community members and other councilmembers that state rent stabilization mandates are enough and that landlords provide rental units out of an “altruistic desire to see people housed.” 

“They do it because it’s going to help them out financially,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with that — there is only something wrong when they are making too much money at the expense of those who are in need.” 

She pointed to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. Coastside Hope Executive Director Judith Guerrero — who regularly works with Half Moon Bay’s very low-income populations to provide rental assistance — said during the meeting she often sees families doubling and tripling up in apartments to afford a place to live. If rent control measures are harming those populations by frightening away landlords, Penrose said that data should be collected to prove that before the program was discontinued. 

“All you do is say, ‘that’s what’s going to happen because my neighbor told me they were going to stop renting, or my neighbor said they were moving out of town,’” she said. “Give me a break. There is no data our town will fall apart with rent stabilization.” 

Ruddock — who voted against the rent control program when it first came to the City Council — expressed concerns around it. The security of rental registration data, anecdotal evidence that landlords and property owners were being negatively impacted by rent control and the bureaucracy and costs associated with the program were among those worries. 

“The mom-and-pop landlord is the best landlord for Half Moon Bay,” she said. “One of the worst trends we’re experiencing as a country is the rise of private equity/corporate landlords, who will increase your rent based on algorithms. These are nameless, faceless corporations that have no accountability to local populations.” 

Ruddock suggested several alternative solutions to the issues created by rent control, including an empty house tax and direct subsidy rental programs for very low-income community members. Staff will be looking into initiatives of this nature based on council direction. 

For its first year in operation, the rental registration and rent control programs generated $92,000 in fees for the city and created $220,000 in expenditures for the costs of operating and promoting the program. Some of those fees were associated with starting up the initiative, and costs might go down over time, staff said. 

But many residents expressed concerns around the fiscal sustainability of the program, especially given Half Moon Bay’s tenuous finances. 

“I ask myself why, and I ask you the question, why would we bring a fiscally irresponsible program costing the city 200K plus already, to a city that’s already in a deficit?” Realtor Linda Crose-Andersen said.

Other community members were even more direct about their displeasure. 

“This is a horrible program,” coastside resident Nancy Fontana said. 

Penrose encouraged her fellow councilmembers to understand why coastside tenants and renters who might be positively impacted by such a rent control program hadn’t come out to voice their support at the meeting. 

“Many of our lower income folks are living in this state of fear they will be deported any day by ICE. They’re not going to come to some City Council meeting and make themselves publicly heard,” she said. “They used to come, but in this new era of fear, they’re not coming anymore.”