It took two years, an economic consultant's report and many meetings to implement rent stabilization and three related ordinances in Salinas. It took just one night for a new Salinas City Council to knock it down.
On Tuesday, April 22, Salinas City Council voted 5-2 in support of steps to rescind four ordinances. Councilmembers Andrew Sandoval and Tony Barrera, who are the only remaining members of council from 2023 and 2024 who voted in support of the policy last year, cast the two dissenting votes.
The vote on Tuesday was not binding, but directs city staff to bring a formal ordinance to council that will rescind four ordinances following up on a request to do so in March. They are a suite of three passed last fall: a tenant anti-harassment ordinance; a just cause eviction ordinance requiring landlords to provide three months' relocation assistance in the event of a no-fault eviction; and rent stabilization, capping annual rent increases at 2.75 percent for units in buildings built before 1995. The fourth was a residential rental registry approved by council in 2022, that took effect May 4, 2023.
The registry required property owners to list their rental properties with the city and pay a fee of $45 for units built after 1995 and not subject to the rent control ordinance, and $170 per rent-stabilized unit.
As of April 14, city housing staff reported that 50 percent of suspected rental units—10,963 units—have been registered. Of those, two-thirds (7,317 units) fall under the rent stabilization ordinance.
Laying out these data points, among others, was part one of the City Council's meeting on Tuesday. But it was the subsequent public discourse and councilmembers' comments that were emotionally charged.
The charge began almost immediately when Mayor Dennis Donohue opened the microphone to public comment. It was clear that dozens of people intended to speak; the council chamber, with a capacity of 90, was well beyond capacity, and police discussed whether to thin the room for safety. (One officer told this reporter it was not safe to sit on the floor due to crowding.) An overflow crowd spilled into the hallway, and even more people onto the sidewalk outside the building, where people listened to the meeting through a speaker.
Looking at the packed house, Donohue proposed giving both sides a set amount of time: Proponents of keeping the ordinances in place would get 45 minutes, allowing additional time for interpretation for Spanish speakers, and proponents of rescinding the ordinances would get 30 minutes.
Councilmember Tony Barrera urged a structure allowing everyone to speak. "Some of these people have been here for a long time," he said. "If you do not allow these people to speak I am walking out of this room right now."
After the dressing down, Donohue returned with a new policy for the public comment period: Speakers, in any order and in any number, would all be allowed one minute.
What followed was about two hours and 15 minutes of rapid-fire comments conveying a deeply divided community either in support of or opposition to rent control.
One renter, Maria Gomez, said in Spanish that she received a notice earlier that day of an 8.8-percent rent increase. "It is really hard to be able to make ends meet," she said. “Please listen to us. Thank you.”
Rental owner Jennifer Mills said, "I am very upset about this ordinance…I plan on selling my rentals and taking my money somewhere else."
Those two themes continued, with passion, through the night. On one side were renters offering stories of scraping together money to pay high rent, only to face malfunctioning appliances and other issues that would go unaddressed. On the other were landlords arguing that continued investment—particularly in older properties subject to rent control, a restriction implemented in 1995 when California's Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act passed—in Salinas would diminish.
The latter was an argument that clearly resonated with several councilmembers.
"Investing in real estate has always been a really good investment in this community, it’s stable," Councilmember Margaret D'Arrigo said, even before the public comment period began. "We don’t want to deter people from investing in this community.
"For me, it’s a business decision—What do we need to do to move this city forward?"
Two former city councilmembers spoke in support of keeping in place the ordinances they voted for. "I am here to say the same thing as when I voted in favor of this ordinance," said Orlando Osornio, who lost his reelection bid in November to Gloria De La Rosa. "We need to listen to people who are experiencing real problems. I haven’t had a single landlord tell me this ordinance would make them homeless."
Some councilmembers expressed surprise that rent control was a divisive subject, and a desire to see some consensus-building around the issue. "I really am disturbed that this is a divisive subject," D'Arrigo said, before making a motion to repeal all four ordinances.
"We’ve got to come together as a community and work out as a solution," said Councilmember Aurelio Salazar. "We’ve got to take this back to the drawing table…for now if it needs to be repealed, it needs to be repealed."
Councilmember Jose Luis Barajas made a variation of D'Arrigo's motion—repeal all four ordinances, but also to pursue the creation of a rental assistance program to help struggling renters and for city staff to provide monthly reports on new construction to improve accountability on increasing housing supply.
"We need to work on the supply side," Barajas said. "Other jurisdictions have helped stabilize rents by increasing supply. That’s simply economics. Emotion aside, the data tells us we need to focus on building."
Sandoval spoke about his and the previous council's support of development and increasing housing supply, which he argued was compatible with immediate protections for current renters in existing buildings. "It is not an either/or," he said.
Barrera advocated for a middle ground, and asked council to support a motion to give the new ordinances another six months to gather more data to evaluate their effectiveness, noting they just took effect on Jan. 1. He also pushed for two town hall style meetings, building upon other councilmembers' comments calling for a community-based solution. "Imagine landlords and tenants getting together and coming up with solutions instead of the politicians," Barrera said. "I am going to put the olive branch to my colleagues—it’s not about you and it’s not about me, it’s about trying to come up with solutions."
Donohue echoed what many others had said earlier raising concerns about whether rent stabilization would provide long-term security for tenants, and also noted the statewide protections provided to tenants through Assembly Bill 1482, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which caps rent increases at 5 percent plus cost-of-living, or 10 percent, whichever is lower. It also requires one month's relocation expenses in the event of no-fault evictions; the city's ordinance goes further in each regard. (AB 1482, in addition, ends in 2030.)
Council voted 5-2 for Barajas' motion. That means city staff will return with draft ordinances rescinding the rental registry, rent stabilization, anti-harassment and eviction ordinances, as well as with a proposal for a rental assistance program and for monthly housing updates. Those ordinances will all require subsequent action from council before they take effect, but the direction was clear.
At the end of a long night, at about 9:15pm after hours of discussion and public comments, the council voted and the chamber erupted in boos and shouts of "disgraceful!" and "shameful!" while some landlords applauded the decision.