Rent control in Half Moon Bay could happen in the coming months, as four of five councilmembers and advocates want it to help low-income workers — amid some concerns from others that the action could be costly to implement and hurt new housing efforts.
Housing — particularly for lower-income, Latino and farmworker communities — has long been a crisis issue in Half Moon Bay. But proponents see rent control protections as one potential solution to alleviate high and oftentimes unpredictable costs of living for these communities, they said at a meeting Nov. 14.
“I work as a farmworker and community promoter. My husband works in gardening and landscaping,” Half Moon Bay resident Rocio Avila said during public comment in Spanish, translated into English via meeting translator. “Half Moon Bay needs our essential services, but the pay is very low, and that’s why the situation has backed us up in a corner. We don’t have the conditions to be able to live in Half Moon Bay. The way that we can live in a dignified manner depends on you— we are counting on your decision to open up rent control.”
Those in opposition included speakers from the San Mateo County Association of Realtors. They pointed to high implementation costs, bureaucratic red tape and the negative implications for smaller “mom-and-pop” landlords and property owners as reasons to disavow rent control.
“Our concern is that some of them just give up if there are more onerous protections on them,” SAMCAR executive officer Alane Gilbrech said while discussing the challenges ‘mom-and-pop’ landlords who care about their tenants could face. “In the efforts to help the tenants, you may actually end up hurting them.”
The possibilities for rent control ordinances are complex, but Assistant City Manager John Doughty presented two differing options. One is an ordinance consistent with the 1995 Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act, enforcing yearly rent increase limits typically between 3% to 5% for multi-family buildings built prior to 1995. The second would be to adopt a city enforcement ordinance consistent with the 2019 Tenant Protection Act, which would limit yearly increases to generally between 5% to 10% for multi-family buildings built prior to 2009. While the Tenant Protection Act is an already-existing state law, an ordinance could take the responsibility of its implementation away from individual tenants and into the city bureaucracy.
Doughty said councilmembers have chosen to pursue the Costa Hawkins path.
Such an ordinance would apply to roughly 350 housing units in the city, and implementation would place an impetus on the city to regulate and enforce rent control, instead of private citizens or entities holding the responsibility.
The city cost would be around $300,000 in its first year and annual operating costs of around $150,000 to $200,000 in following years, according to a staff report.
Mobile homes
Potential plans for tenant protection included mobile homes, which would be applicable to the Canada Cove and Hilltop Mobile Home parks, and code enforcement relocation assistance.
Vance Verderame, operating manager of Canada Cove mobile home park, spoke against the idea, explaining that Canada Cove maintains all infrastructure and amenities in the park and government regulation could upset this balance.
“There will be unintended consequences that will upset a very fine balance we’ve achieved here,” he said. “If homes go up in value, why would we need an extra layer of government intervention? Does the city want to get in the mobile home park business?
Council perspective
Councilmember Robert Brownstone spoke directly to those who opposed such an ordinance during the meeting. He said he had been receiving emails from Realtors asking he say no to rent control, and was surprised they thought Half Moon Bay would not be in favor.
“I don’t understand why you think this is a community which wouldn’t support rent control,” he said. “We’re only as strong as our weakest links, people who can’t afford expensive attorneys, people who have to make the choices between paying rent and feeding their families.”
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Councilmember Debbie Ruddock was the only councilmember to not overtly support a potential rent control ordinance, pointing to high costs of implementation while the city is currently in a structural deficit and losing money.
“I don’t have enough information to support rent control at this time,” she said. “I especially am having a hard time wrapping my head around the cost for setting up a rental control bureaucracy in the city, including enforcement and potential litigation.”
She said she would support revisiting residential security measures and continuing licensing and registration for landlords to potentially stop tenant abuses, including the issues that can occur with little regulation of sub-tenancy.
Councilmember Harvey Rarback also voiced strong support for preventing potential sub-tenancy abuses through further regulation, but made it clear that he believed Half Moon Bay should be a “leader” in rent control as well.
“It seems to me that we really have an obligation to our lower-income renters in Half Moon Bay,” he said. “[I’ve heard] horrible stories of large families sharing a room without access to a kitchen, substandard conditions, rent being raised arbitrarily.”
He, along with Mayor Deborah Penrose, both specified that they would be in favor of implementing a Costa Hawkins ordinance, which would cap yearly rent increases at 5% or the consumer price index, whichever is lower. Penrose specified she thought rent control was necessary, but hoped it could be a stopgap measure until more affordable housing made living in Half Moon Bay easier for low-income residents.
Public comment
For Carolina Carbajal, whose Spanish was translated during public comment, rent control could be a step in the right direction to solve a housing crisis that leaves lower-income and Latino residents who work in the city with little ability to reside in “dignified” housing.
“I think rent control in these few homes we have is important, because we don’t have the luxury to have a kid in their own room, so we live a family of four in one room. That’s our reality, but we’re working for you all, for your country, and we want this to get better. We’re not asking for free stuff, something just we can afford,” Carbajal said.
Fernando Peña, SAMCAR government affairs liaison, said his opposition to rent control came from concern for housing providers and the community as a whole. Regulations like these will discourage much-needed housing from being built in the community, he added.
“The most important thing is to take care of our immigrant community and our low skilled and low income but we have to think creatively we can’t just keep blaming housing providers and landlords and Realtors,” he said. “Rent control has many unforeseen negative consequences for small mom-and-pop housing providers, including withdrawal of units possibly from the market place.”
Vice Mayor Joaquin Jimenez said rent control could be a valuable tool in combating the impact gentrification has had in the community and improving quality of life for Latino and other low-income communities and children.
“I strongly support rent control in Half Moon Bay,” he said. “Of course I’m going to support rent control. Us Latinos and other low-income communities are struggling.”
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(1) comment
Hooray for Half Moon Bay. When SAMCAR and the California Apartment Association spent millions against a rent control initiative in Burlingame, they and their city council lackeys said no, just wait and we'll build affordable housing. See how that has worked out? The housing that has been built is only for moderate income people. A single person in Burlingame making 100k a year is categorized as low income and has few, if any, options but to leave. Families have the toughest time.
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