Monterey’s rental registry, one year in, is giving a clearer picture of the city’s housing market.

The idea of creating a rental registry in the City of Monterey was first floated in 2020, but gained no traction with City Council. The tenor changed in 2023 during Tyller Williamson’s first year as mayor, and with two new members on the council – Kim Barber and Gino Garcia.

Amid considerable pushback from landlords, the council voted that year to enact a registry, starting Jan. 1, 2024, that would require landlords to register their properties with the city and provide data about how many units they rented and at what price, among other things. The idea behind the registry, broadly, was to give the council and city staff more data to get a clearer picture of the city’s rental housing stock, which could both help identify trends in the market and potentially help decisionmakers craft policies that, ideally, could help renters and landlords alike.

On Tuesday, Jan. 21, city staff presented the council a review of the program just over a year in. They reported that 73 percent of landlords and tenants in the city have so far registered with the program.

And there are plenty of interesting data points in the registry, despite gaps in the data: The neighborhood with the most registered rental units is New Monterey, at 1,409; Oak Grove, with the second most registered units, has 639. Casanova Oak Knoll, meanwhile, has an average rent of $2,370 per month against a $70,875 household income.

Many landlords showed up to the meeting to speak against making further changes to the program, wanting to let it play out more first. Williamson concluded the discussion by saying no pending policies like rent control were in the works – the registry is about gathering data.