LOS ANGELES (CN) - Californians will vote this November on whether to grant cities more power to enact rent control after petitioners garnered enough signatures across the state to put it on the general election ballot.
The measure - called the Affordable Housing Act - is a statewide ballot initiative to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a state bill that limits California cities’ and other jurisdictions’ power to enact rent control.
A coalition of housing advocates behind the campaign to repeal Costa-Hawkins gathered on Monday at the campaign’s headquarters in Los Angeles to celebrate the more than 594,000 signatures collected from all 58 counties in the state.
The campaign has garnered support from state unions, community organizations and state leaders such as Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Mike Bonin. Celebrities, including actors Jesse Williams and Angela Bassett, also supported the measure.
“There are highs and lows in every campaign,” campaign director Damien Goodman said on Monday. “When there are highs, you should celebrate them.”
Michael Weinstein, president and co-founder of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which financially backed the campaign, said advocates could expect the “full force of the real estate industry” to oppose the measure.
“We are shaking the foundations of the establishment in California,” Weinstein said. “You will hear lies and distortions about this effort.”
The campaign was largely sparked by advocates who predicted that the state legislator would not simply bring forward legislation that granted rent control and other affordable housing measures to state residents.
As the campaign had calculated, the Democratic-controlled Legislature failed to pass Assembly Bill 1506 out of committee in January, which would have also repealed Costa-Hawkins.
“We thought Sacramento would fail us,” Damien said.
“The state Legislature is bought and paid for by the real estate industry,” Weinstein said.
In a statement opposing the Affordable Housing Act, the California Association of Realtors said it “understands that, however well-intentioned, rent control is nothing more than a thinly-veiled version of government-mandated price control that doesn’t work.”
Both San Francisco and Los Angeles have rent control policies that have done little, if anything, to rein in housing and rental costs, according to CAR.
“Mandating artificial prices for rental units won’t fix the state’s housing supply and affordability crisis. It only reduces the supply of rental properties and creates an economic hardship for low-income and disadvantaged families,” CAR president Steve White said. “The solution to this affordability problem is to expand the housing stock in California, not introduce price ceilings.”
Steven Maviglio, director of Californians for Responsible Housing - the campaign to defeat the rent control initiative – called the ballot measure an “anti-housing agenda” that will cause a freeze in new housing construction in the state.
“This measure would stop the construction of new affordable housing across the state and make many of the problems it claims to address worse,” Maviglio said. “This measure will not only deepen California’s housing crisis, but lower property values of rental properties and single-family homes.”
When the Secretary of State’s office confirmed Friday that the measure made it onto the ballot, it included a brief comment from the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst on the potential fiscal impact of the measure on state and local government.
