If you’ve been looking at skyrocketing rental prices around Los Angeles and fantasizing about an expansion of rent control, we can’t blame you. Unfortunately, it looks like that dream won’t be coming true any time soon. A measure in Sacramento that would have been the most sweeping addition to rent control in generations has officially been tabled.
Brought up by Santa Monica assembly member Richard Bloom, the proposal, known as AB 1506, was introduced in February. The idea was to repeal a law called the Costa-Hawkins Act. That act prohibited rent limits on any single-family home or apartment building built after 1995.
Repealing that act might have paved the way for establishing rent control for more recently-constructed buildings, in addition to the older buildings already covered by local policies, insulating residents in newer buildings from radical price increases. Tenants groups have been advocating for a reassessment of Costa-Hawkins pretty much since it went into law 22 years ago.
Landlords and developers, on the other hand, think the law is essential, because in their minds, if they can’t charge market-based rents, it makes it hard to sustain their businesses. And, as far as AB 1506 goes, it looks like those interests will win out, at least for now. The bill has been pulled off the assembly’s vote schedule for at least a year.
“Looking at the entirety of the legislative process, the right thing is to step back and do additional work with various constituencies,” Bloom told the L.A. Times.
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