Concord considers proposal that would roll back city's rent control limits
CONCORD, Calif. - Concord renters plan to march to city hall on Tuesday evening, in protest of a proposal to allow greater rent increases and loosen eviction restrictions. The proposal is reportedly the result of lobbying by a private organization representing landlords and property owners.
Protesters plan to gather at Todos Santos Plaza at 5 p.m. for a rally, and then march to the city council meeting at 6:30 p.m.
The amendment to the city's Residential Tenant Protection Program is set to come before the council for a final vote at its Tuesday night meeting. The item is not scheduled for a public hearing, but members of the public have the right to request the item be discussed.
The council voted 3-2 in March in favor of amending the program, and Tuesday night's vote would finalize the change. If adopted, the amended ordinance would go into effect in 30 days.
What renters are saying
Local perspective:
Cleo Arias has rented the same Concord apartment for 37 years, and said amending the ordinance could be the difference between having a home or living on the streets. His wife was recently diagnosed with cancer, and Arias, who is retired, said between medical bills and groceries, increasing the rent cap by even 2% could be disastrous.
"I have no place to go. The only thing I can think of is looking for a good place under a bridge for me and my wife. I think we'd have to become homeless," Arias said. "It's hard for us, but I'm suffering the same situation as every other renter in Concord right now. But there's still time. We're going to keep working hard to convince the council that (renters) need this protection."
What's protected
The backstory:
Concord's Residential Tenant Protection Program went into effect on April 19, 2024. The ordinance established a rent stabilization program that restricted rent increases to a maximum of 3%, and limited the reasons a tenant could be evicted.
That ordinance was adopted after 8 years of advocacy by Concord renters.
The council in March voted 3-2 to approve an amendment that set a fixed rent cap at 5% and exempted certain single-family homes and condominiums from "just cause" eviction requirements. The amendment also waived a requirement that landlords provide a relocation fee to tenants evicted for a no-fault reason.
"There has not been enough time since the original ordinance was implemented for the city to gather data and make an informed case for these changes. However, the ordinance was passed after years of data collection through the process of creating Concord's Housing Element, a state-mandated 10-year plan for fair and affordable housing," a news release from the protest organizers states. "The city found that median rents had increased by more than 44% since 2010, outpacing the rise in rental income (37%), and that there was a crisis of economic displacement in concord. The proposed increase of 5% for the rent cap undermines the city's commitment through the Housing Element."
Lobbying for change
What they're saying:
The California Apartment Association, a landlord industry group, has been heavily invested in amending the ordinance, and takes credit for getting the council to reconsider the current cap.
Joshua Howard, the CAA's executive vice president, said the organization opposed the ordinance from the time it was adopted, and supported the amendment when it was introduced by city council member Pablo Benavente earlier this year. Howard said state law already provides tenant protections, and that Concord's ordinance went too far.
"Concord adopted probably one of the most restrictive rent control ordinances in recent memory. In January, the council decided to re-examine the ordinance," Howard said. "Our ask was to rescind it because we felt the state law already limits rent increases and provides sufficient eviction protection."
Howard said amending the ordinance benefits both renters and landlords by providing "reliability, stability and predictability" — that renters can anticipate their rent increases and landlords can count on keeping up with inflation.
Attendees who spoke in favor of the amendment at the March 25 meeting waved signs bearing the CAA logo and contact information, but the East Bay Times revealed those individuals had been hired by a PR firm, Sunshine State. The company's CEO denied she was contracted by the CAA but declined to state who had hired the firm.
Howard did not directly respond when asked if the organization was involved in hiring the "protesters" but said CAA staff were present at the meeting, handing out signs and fliers.
He did criticize Rent Stabilization Program supporters, who he said were recruited by the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, a social justice organization based in Oakland.
"The so-called renter activists constantly recruit people to attend meetings by offering them food or childcare and other things," Howard said. "They staged an insurrection-like disruption. The room had to be cleared."
Twin cities
Big picture view:
Concord's rent control program is one of the stricter such limitations in the Bay Area, but the city is not alone. Nearby Antioch has a rent stabilization program that places similar limitations on its rent increases. That city's program was adopted in 2022 and since then, the community's renters have seen some relief.
A recent report from rental marketplace platform Zumper named Antioch as the most affordable city in the region, and showed that rents in the community had fallen by 14.6% over the last year. In the same 12 month period — Concord's first year with a rent stabilization program — rents in that city increased by 2.1%.