Fairfax residents rebuke rent control ordinance's “outsized impact”

Will Sherman reports on a recent Fairfax City Council public discussion on the possibility of repealing “extreme” rent control in 2024. Residents are concerned about investors gradatim pulling out of Fairfax, which feeds into a citywide revenue doom-loop.

Facing down a 2024 ballot initiative to repeal what are among California’s strictest rent and eviction controls, Fairfax, California City Council held a Special Public Meeting that went well past dark on the Summer Solstice, to deliberate amendments that might pacify the opposition.

Residents in attendance used their two minutes of public comment to speak out against their government’s one-sided overreach into private transactions.

“There’s handshakes that still exist in this town, beyond leases,” said Candace Neal-Ricker to the five councilmembers. “This is really mucking a lot of that old Fairfax way up.”

Under the ordinance which took effect retroactively to February 2022, affected landlords can only increase rents by 5%, or 60% CPI, whichever is lower.

Outside Fairfax city limits, under state law, rentals can increase their value at twice or more that rate.

What opponents call extreme rent control is forcing landlords to protect themselves at the expense of their renters, long before voters get a chance to repeal it.

“We’ve raised our rents, because I feel like we have to” said a Fairfax landlord who introduced himself to the council as Emoji Salin, “if we don’t raise it for a year, we can’t raise it the year after—we can’t make up for it.”

“It seems,” he added, “like some people are taking their rentals off the market.” This drew murmurs of agreement from among the roughly 40 people in attendance, some standing in the back of the high-ceilinged Fairfax Women's Club.

During a break in the proceedings, Neal-Ricker said that she knows of at least 23 units being taken off the market since the ordinances took effect.

In an online poll by Fairfax Residents, a grassroots organization opposed to the new laws, 20% of the 308 respondents answered they either would, or probably would, pull their space from the rental market if rent control ordinances remain in effect. A further 10% said they maybe would.

This email was originally published by the MarinGOP.

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