Santa Barbara’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance Moves Slowly Forward

It was another late night at City Hall as the Santa Barbara City Council worked out the specifics of the proposed rent stabilization ordinance, as the city moves closer to its goal of having the finalized ordinance ready to be put in place in 2027.

Tuesday night’s meeting moved forward at a snail’s pace, as the City Council reviewed the hundreds of public comments submitted regarding the ordinance before going through a lengthy list of more than 120 individual policy considerations, giving a straw poll vote for each one.

This was just the latest in a string of highly contested hearings about rent stabilization, and while there has been consistent agreement from the council’s four-vote majority in support of the general structure of the program, it’s been a tougher task nailing down the minute details of exemptions, the petition process, and the proposed rent registry. 

Barbara Andersen, senior assistant to the city administrator, made it clear early in the hearing that, although there has been significant community input and heated public discourse both in support and opposition, the city was no longer debating whether or not to institute rent stabilization. The goal now was to get councilmembers to give clear direction on how the program will work as city staff completes the written ordinance over the next few weeks.

“The community has been heard. We are not debating for or against rent stabilization,” Andersen said. “Community direction is clear; council direction is clear. This is moving forward, and now we are working to refine the ordinance to create a program that can hopefully meet expectations and objectives.”

Flooded with Feedback

During the official 30-day public review period, from June 10 through July 10, the city received 655 written public comments about the draft ordinance. On Tuesday night, more than 40 members of the public gave comments to the City Council. But these were just a drop in the bucket in the entirety of public feedback over the past two years and more general public discourse about a citywide rent cap dating back even further.

The debate surrounding rent stabilization has added weight to each public hearing, with council chambers filled with passionate city residents, renters, landlords, tenants’ rights advocates, representatives from property ownership groups, and community leaders pleading for their concerns to be considered. 

Throughout the process, property owners have opposed any form of increased rental regulations, with members of the Santa Barbara Rental Property Association alleging that the city’s rent stabilization program could be considered as constitutional taking of property. The landlord group filed a lawsuit challenging the temporary rent freeze and ordinance planning process, though the suit was dismissed by a judge two weeks ago (the group has one week to file an amended complaint).

Landlords consider the regulation too restrictive, arguing that any further limits on rent increases would not allow for a fair return on investment.

“This is not a reasonable rent regulation, in my opinion,” said property owner Michael Myers. “It transfers essential control of private property from the owner to the government.”

Tenants and housing advocates urged the City Council to approve the ordinance as quickly as possible to protect the city’s renters, suggesting a strong policy that would prevent the continued displacement of low- and middle-class workers.

Community organizer Frank Rodriguez said he’s seen the slow erasure of friends, family, and neighbors in Santa Barbara’s Westside neighborhood, where evictions and high market rents have priced out the traditionally blue-collar Latino community.

Rodriguez said city tenants have been pushing for rent stabilization for years, long before the city began earnestly planning for the ordinance in 2025. He recalls canvassing the Westside neighborhood in 2016 when residents were being evicted.

“That was over 10 years ago, and we know this conversation over rent stabilization has been going on for decades before that,” Rodriguez said. “Just a reminder that we’ve been needing these tenant protections to keep tenants housed because they’re leaving our community.”

Small-scale landlords asked for exemptions and considerations for those who offer below-market rents. Other property owners shared concerns about the proposed rent cap of 60 percent of Consumer Price Index (CPI) or 3 percent, saying that the rate would prevent them from being able to keep up with increased costs of maintenance, repairs, and insurance.

Other public commenters included city residents who have been forced to move due to untenable rate increases. One former resident, Miles Hagan, who had attended nearly every in-person hearing for the past year and a half, called in to the meeting over the phone after moving away just last week.

Hagan said he moved because “there was no viable future” as a working-class person in Santa Barbara, where he lived in multiple rentals, all with a common thread: a “deeply unbalanced relationship” between tenant and landlord. 

“This is just the norm for your constituents, and that should embarrass you as elected officials,” Hagan said. “We clearly need more protections for tenants; we clearly need a lower rent cap; we clearly need a rent board that reflects the people it oversees. It’s been put off for far too long.”

Trudging Through

The bulk of the July 28 City Council hearing was dedicated to diving deep into the “RSO Matrix,” a 41-page document with 127 specific policy considerations, staff recommendations, and proposed amendments to the rent stabilization ordinance based on the collected input from property owners and tenant groups.

Much of the big-picture items were already worked out — such as the cap level and inclusion of a rent registry, rent boards, and petition process — but the city’s staff and legal team were still seeking clarification on the details of each of these larger items.

This process was slow and laborious, and at times discussion devolved into disagreements over small but important details, such as the exemption of Section 8 units from the new regulations.

Councilmember Meagan Harmon — who has been in support of rent stabilization throughout her term — agreed with her colleagues on most of the individual considerations but suggested an additional exemption for all “deed-restricted” affordable units. Harmon said that since those units were already rent-restricted, additional regulations could lead to challenges with financing “capital ‘A’ affordable housing.”

“I don’t take this exemption lightly, but what I’m trying to balance here is the stabilization prong with the production prong,” Harmon said.

Councilmember Wendy Santamaria, Kristen Sneddon, and Oscar Gutierrez were in favor of no exemptions beyond those included in state law. Following input from the city attorney’s office, Santamaria and Sneddon said they were willing to explicitly exempt “government-owned” property, to allow for Housing Authority units to be un-constricted by additional regulation.

City staff will work with both the Housing Authority and housing experts to ensure the language of the ordinance addresses the concerns raised over exemptions. City staff will come back with a report on Section 8 vouchers, but Councilmember Santamaria made it clear she would not support exempting private property owners who accept vouchers.

“That is leaving a gap too big for mixed-status families,” Santamaria said.

The City Council gave additional direction on the rental registry, petition process, and rent board. The rental registry, which is intended to eventually fund the program itself, will require all rental units in the city to register. This process will be phased, with only rent-stabilized units required to register during the first phase and all other units being included in the next round. City staff suggested the phased approach to allow for a smoother rollout and implementation.

The fee rate will be decided before the rent stabilization program is launched in 2027. The city is conducting an independent fee study to determine the rate, which is expected to return to council on a 12-week timeline. 

The rent board will be made up of five members — three renters and two non-renters — with two alternates. The City Council suggested the board meet regularly and be allowed to make policy recommendations or enforcement referrals. The board would act in an advisory capacity, with council reserving final authority for changes or additional regulations. 

As the marathon meeting stretched into the night, well past 10 p.m., the council and city staff had worked through much of the long list of considerations. There were still a few outstanding questions, which city staff will research and return when the council reviews the finalized ordinance in the next few months. There’s no certain date set, as the city’s administrative staff will have to regroup after Tuesday’s dizzying hearing.

Over the next few months, the council will need to approve the final ordinance, review and adopt the rent registry fees, and implement the “just cause” eviction ordinance to align with the new rent stabilization policy.

“We’re doing the best we can to turn it over with urgency,” Andersen said.