Half Moon Bay moves toward rent control

“This does represent a new program for the city. There’s going to be administrative efforts and costs associated with this; we will have to bring on a mediator, hearing officer, working with legal aid,” Doughty said.

The cost of establishing rent control — which will set maximum annual rent adjustments 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 — is approximately $200,000 for first-year costs, according to a staff report.

City staff believe the ordinance will apply to around 350-400 units within the city, Doughty said, although they are continuing to narrow down units through use of a previously adopted rental registration program.

Tenant protections programs, which will provide relocation assistance to those under no-fault, just cause evictions, prohibit harassment and protect tenants from arbitrary eviction proceedings, among other stipulations, will cost the city a still-unspecified amount.

The city is intentionally passing the resolutions — with the hope of implementing rent control by fall — in tandem, Doughty said.

“Tenant protections, in part driven by what we’ve heard from the community over and over, which is concerns about behavior of some landlords toward their tenants and trying to improve tenant-landlord relations across the board,” he said. “[It’s] commonplace with the addition of rent stabilization — there are problems that can occur. This also takes care of addressing some of those potentials.”

Councilmember Deborah Penrose emphasized that increased tenant protections and the adoption of rent control — which will apply to duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and multifamily units built prior to February 1995 — is not designed to penalize landlords.

“It is not a punishment for landlords. We do not think landlords who are treating. ... their tenants well are going to be punished for this,” she said. “It is a protection for our most needy.”