3 ms·

Because of something called vacancy control. You can't raise rents on people in a unit. You could raise the rent of an empty unit to market rate (in Berkeley,

• yonran 6y ago
  To add more context, only a few cities (Berkeley, Santa Monica) had strong rent control with vacancy control in the 1980s and 1990s. Other cities, such as San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles, had rent control but have always allowed the rent to reset to market rate when the unit is vacant. The California Law called Costa-Hawkins phased out vacancy control in all cities from 1995 to 1999. After 1999, landlords have the right to set the initial rent, overriding local vacancy controls. (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&division=3.&title=5.&part=4.&chapter=2.7.&article= https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...) In Nov 2018, California voters rejected Proposition 10 41%-59%, which would have repealed Costa-Hawkins and allowed vacancy controls again (https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_10,_Local_Rent_Control_Initiative_%282018%29 https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_10,_Local_Ren...). Berkeley, Richmond, and Santa Monica would immediately have imposed vacancy controls under their existing laws. In Nov 2020, California voters again rejected Proposition 21 40%-60%, which would have allowed vacancy controls that limit rent increases to 15% per vacancy (https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_21,_Local_Rent_Control_Initiative_%282020%29 https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_21,_Local_Ren...).