Mountain View final week adopted a coverage guaranteeing that rent-controlled residences demolished for brand spanking new rental housing are changed with items which might be reasonably priced for lower-income tenants.
Below the brand new guidelines, which take impact instantly, such initiatives will now not be topic to town’s hire management ordinance, which permits landlords to lift rents as excessive as they please when new tenants transfer in.
As an alternative, rents might be capped at below-market charges so the items stay “naturally reasonably priced.”
Already, state regulation requires that items coated by native hire management should be changed with reasonably priced items when renters make lower than 80% of the realm’s median revenue — $94,320 for a single particular person. If the items are changed with for-sale condos or townhomes, these should even be reasonably priced. Builders are free to construct extra market-rate items, if permitted by native zoning guidelines.
However for rent-controlled items occupied by renters making greater than 80% of the realm median revenue, cities can determine whether or not alternative rental items ought to stay hire managed, or if rents must be “deed restricted” and restricted to below-market charges.
On Tuesday, the Mountain View Metropolis Council voted unanimously to make the latter items deed restricted, reasoning that leaving them as rent-controlled may end in rental charges spiking “significantly larger” than present ranges.
Rents in these items will now be restricted to $2,635 in 2022, in accordance with a metropolis report. That’s in comparison with town’s estimated common market-rate hire of $4,137 for a one-bedroom.
At Tuesday’s assembly, tenant advocates and residents praised the coverage for serving to retain housing affordability within the metropolis.
“Taking concrete steps to verify Mountain View stays an economically various group that’s open to all I believe is implausible,” stated resident Tim Mckenzie.
Different Bay Space cities which have native hire management ordinances and should below state regulation defend rent-controlled items throughout redevelopment embody San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Hayward, East Palo Alto and Los Gatos.
That regulation, SB 330, which went into impact in 2020, additionally protects items which might be already deed restricted or have been occupied by low-income tenants for at the least 5 years. Tenants are assured a unit as soon as development is accomplished. However solely low-income tenants should be supplied reasonably priced items.
When builders tear down residences protected below the regulation to construct townhomes or condos or townhomes, the brand new items additionally should be reasonably priced. Earlier than SB 330, the Mountain View Metropolis Council in 2018 and 2019 accepted two controversial redevelopment initiatives on Rock Road that razed 79 rent-controlled residences and changed them with market-rate townhomes, doubtlessly displacing round 100 residents.
Regardless of these restrictions, builders largely backed SB 330 as a result of it additionally rolled again some regulatory boundaries to constructing houses, together with stopping native housing development moratoriums and requiring native governments to extra shortly allow new initiatives.
On Tuesday, metropolis staff stated there are at the least two new initiatives within the growth pipeline for which rent-controlled items may very well be changed with deed-restricted leases below the brand new coverage.
They assured the council they are going to assist tenants at these complexes discover non permanent housing and finally transfer again to rebuilt properties to keep away from being displaced.
“The factor I’ve realized tonight,” stated Vice Mayor Alison Hicks, “is the significance of clear noticing upfront.”