My family owns two small apartment complexes, and we oppose extending the “temporary” rent freeze. Making the rent stabilization ordinance permanent would cause lasting harm to small business owners while failing to address the root cause of affordability.
High inflation drives affordability problems. It peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022 and, despite declining in 2026, remains above the roughly 3 percent average for 2000–2020. Inflation raises costs for everyone — including goods, services, housing, and fuel. Apartment owners’ costs have reached record highs over the past six years, eroding already razor-thin profit margins. Freezing rents foists a regressive tax on apartment owners diminishing land values by further reducing profitability.
We currently have stable housing supply and demand in Santa Barbara. The occupancy rate in Santa Barbara is currently 97.6 percent; down 0.1 percent from the prior year and indicating a stable rental market.
Indeed, for the past 16 years, the number of renter-occupied apartments has remained roughly unchanged, with supply and demand relatively balanced. The issue is inflation, not a supply-demand imbalance.
The proposed legislation also exempts all new apartment buildings from the rent freeze. If the legislation becomes permanent, no owners should be exempt from this regressive tax. Favoring new-building owners over existing owners unfairly burdens small businesses and rewards large developers that need no preferential treatment. We have a constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
At the very least, this legislation should be indexed against inflation such that rent control terminates automatically when inflation returns to 4 percent or less.
