Cities Adopt Rent Control as Housing Production Plummets

(The Center Square) – California cities are adopting rent control as housing production plummets, leading to further declines in the housing development necessary to make rents more affordable. The neighboring Los Angeles County cities of Maywood, Bell Gardens, and Cudahy, each dense, renter-heavy communities long known for their affordability, have adopted rent control measures, according to The Los Angeles Times. The efforts are aimed at preventing outmigration of longtime residents as vast shortfalls of housing production and increasingly high desirability have led housing prices to explode.

Citing high levels of local poverty, especially among the elderly, the City of Maywood froze rent increases through September and is limiting rent increases afterwards to the lesser of 4% or the annual rate of inflation, writing, “the city finds such an increase provides a just and reasonable return on a landlord’s property.” Should a landlord wish to make any capital improvements, they can file an application to pass on half of the cost of such improvements to renters, amortized over five years. Bell Gardens’s and Cudahy’s measures went even further, respectively limiting rent increases to the lesser of 4% or half the rate of inflation, and 3%. (Excerpt from Just the News.)