RED ALERT: Los Angeles County to Vote on Extending “Temporary” Rent Cap of 3% for Six More Months

At tomorrow’s Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting (November 7^th), the Board will vote on extending the existing, so-called “temporary” rent cap of 3% for an additional six months until June 30, 2024, as well as limiting rent increases on “luxury units” to only 5% (Agenda Item 19). 

Enough is Enough! Rental housing providers were promised that this below limitation on rent increases would expire on December 31, 2023, which is still well beyond the end of the COVID-19 emergency that was declared allowed to expire by the Board of Supervisors. All AAGLA members with properties in Los Angeles County’s unincorporated areas need to call and email ALL 5 County Supervisors TODAY and tell them to vote NO on this proposed breach of their promise.

As you will recall, this artificially reduced, “temporary” cap was put into place at the urging of Supervisor Sheila Kuehl back in November 2022 without any data to support it as an extension of the COVID-19 rent increase freeze that had been imposed for rent stabilized units. Now Supervisors Lindsey Horvath (herself a renter occupying a rent stabilized unit in West Hollywood despite her huge approximately $220,000 per year County Supervisor salary – and clearly facing a conflict of interest) and Supervisor Hilda Solis are trying to break a year-long promise to end this “temporary” rent cap. 

This is the SECOND TIME this shameful approach has been attempted by Supervisors Horvath and Solis since March 2023 when they again tried to wrongfully extend COVID-19 protections under the guise of a “homelessness emergency.” Supervisors Horvath and Solis need to be told NO AGAIN by Chair Janice Hahn and Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell, who still have integrity for keeping their promises. To do otherwise, would show that the Board of Supervisors has abandoned their ethics and would instead force more mom-and-pop rental property owners out of business and thereby greatly reducing the already limited supply of naturally occurring affordable housing in the unincorporated areas.

If the Supervisors want to do a REAL study on the Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protection Ordinance (RSTPO) formula for determining annual allowable rent increases that takes into consideration BOTH the cost of rent AND the soaring costs faced by rental housing owners, then AAGLA would support such a study. However, such a study should NOT be wrongfully used as a reason to pull the rug out from underneath already struggling rental housing providers at this 11^th hour as we now approach the end of this “temporary” and artificially low rent cap. Until and unless a comprehensive study is completed on the cost of rent AND the myriad of costs incurred in operating and maintaining rental housing, rental housing owners must be allowed to resume normal operations and begin the long recovery process utilizing the existing RSTPO formula for determining rent increases without any further artificial and unfounded manipulation.

AGENDA

MOTION

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