The Santa Barbara City Council narrowly approved housing and rent stabilization measures in a 4-3 vote during its meeting on January 27, 2026.
Following a sharply divided debate, the City Council advanced a temporary freeze on rent increases and more stringent “just cause” eviction protections, while the City prepares and adopts a formal rent stabilization program.
At the center of the debates was the ordinance which sought to establish a temporary rent increase moratorium and could potentially last through December 31, 2026.
Supporters said the ordinance prevents landlords from imposing preemptive hikes before permanent regulations are implemented.
However, critics termed it a heavy-handed approach that might be unconstitutional.
Council members dedicated a considerable portion of the meeting to clarify which properties would fall under the purview of the new regulations. Under state law and the proposed local ordinance, the rent regulations apply only to buildings that were constructed before 1995, while single-family homes and most condominiums are exempt.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are typically exempt if they were built after 1995. However, the Council noted that this may result in complications depending on when the unit was legalized.
Some public speakers suggested the Council should exempt “missing middle” housing, or units rented to individuals earning up to 120% of the Area Median Income, to protect “naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Proponents of the moratorium highlighted that several local workers, including those in the healthcare and university sectors, cannot afford to live in the city and argued that tenants are bound by economic realities and budgets that are disrupted by annual rent hikes.
Opponents of the Ordinance
The rent moratorium was opposed by Mayor Randy Rowse, Councilmember Eric Friedman, and Councilmember Mike Jordan, along with representatives of the rental industry, and some community speakers.
Expressing concern that the ordinance was leading the City down a legal path with “no exit ramps,” Mayor Rowse said he preferred negotiation over a general freeze.
During the City Council meeting held earlier this month over the ordinance, he characterized it as “morally wrong” and “discriminatory” toward a section of property owners. He had flagged concerns about freezing rents while property owners were grappling with increasing costs.
Mayor Rowse had voted against the measure in both the emergency and ordinary forms.
Speaking on behalf of the Santa Barbara Rental Association, Betty Hepson said the moratorium was “unconstitutional.” Claiming that the measure involves the “physical taking” of property rights under the Fifth Amendment, Hepson cited federal case law to suggest that the ordinance would lead to significant financial liability for the city.
Councilmembers and speakers noted that a section of local and small-scale housing providers felt that the ordinance would be an unfair burden that disregarded their mounting maintenance expenses and individual circumstances.
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This is going to be bad for everyone involved in the long run. Renters will get a short term benefit, and long term harm. Property owners will have to sink or swim, and those that sink will be selling to larger entities who won’t give a hoot about their tenants going forward. The City and its taxpayers will be funding an as yet unfounded and undeveloped layer of bureaucracy associated with implementing, managing, enforcing, and regulating this fastracked endeavor. Good luck.
Your crystal ball, as usual, is full of mud.
I am your typical mom-and-pop landlord. My wife and I are both 77. We have and have had small rentals here and other places. I would like to make an assumption, that hopefully, we can all agree on. Landlords are in the business of making money. Those of you who are employed are getting paid, and the businesses that you work for or own are making a profit. The landlord is no different. They have a significant investment in the equity of their properties and considerable costs supporting them. The landlord that is not making money will not stay in business. They will not supply housing.
What are the causes of the high cost and the scarcity of housing? There are several factors. Among them are:
Lack of new housing.
An ever-increasing population.
The high cost of building and construction.
Zoning.
High mortgage rates.
Onerous building codes and regulations.
Ever-rising costs of insurance, maintenance, government fees, taxes, utilities, etc.
Municipal, County, State, and Federal policy.
Adverse legislation.
And now criminal litigation.
Are Landlords, as a rule, the cause of these factors? Landlords want things to be as inexpensive as possible and they want profitable housing to invest in. If there was an ample supply of housing, prices would stabilize.
Our legislatures have done little to correct the problems listed above or create additional housing. They have made small steps like allowing Granny-flat construction and modifying subdivision regulations (now tossed out by a lower court decision). The burden of mitigating the problem is placed on the landlord by legislation such as this(Rent Control)and other legislation. Currently, governmental laws and regulations are not only making investing in rentals unprofitable but they are also taking basic ownership rights away from property owners. Property owners no longer have control over who lives in their property or on what terms. On the whole, governmental actions are to blame and regulate the landlords instead of finding and correcting the root causes. These are complex, difficult issues that require complex and difficult solutions. To date, the government has not been up to the task. They are taking the easy way. They blame the landlord and make him pay for the inability of our government to do its job.
In the short run, rent control, legislation and regulation, to date, have only been a short-term panacea. It will only create less housing and make the problem worse in the future. If the landlord cannot make a profit, he will stop investing in housing. Exacerbating this lack of profit is the increase in adverse legislation, loss of private property rights, and now the threat of prosecution. Under these conditions, landlords will only maintain their properties at a minimal level because they know they will not be reimbursed for any improvements. Landlords are now leaving units empty rather than letting tenants obtain rights over their property. The landlord can find other easier and less risky places to invest. What is the alternative if the investor does not provide housing?
We’ve already responded to this copy and paste.
Look at San Francisco who established similar rent control in 1979 to see how rent control plays out.
When prices are capped, landlords have a massive incentive to stop being landlords. In SF, this led to a 15% reduction in rental supply as owners converted apartments into high-end condos or TICs to escape regulation.
Because the price gap between a rent-controlled unit and a market-rate unit is so vast, tenants never move—even if their life circumstances change (e.g., kids move out, but the parents stay in a large four-bedroom). This prevents the natural “filtering” of housing stock.
Because the supply of available units shrinks while demand remains high, the cost of the remaining non-controlled units skyrockets. Essentially, new residents and young families pay a “premium” that subsidizes the lower rents of long-term residents.
End result there are a few winners and lots of losers. And lots of rent control units in really bad condition.
The obvious solution is to build more housing. Why not start with getting rid of the ridiculous $25K permit fee for an ADU?
And make sure to vote out the 4 that voted for this! Harmon, Santamaria, Sneddon and Gutierrez. Shameful.
Where can I apply to have my city utility bills, fees and taxes frozen?
If owning rental property is so difficult you should probably just sell it and take the capital gains (or roll it over into another property somewhere else). Or is this alternative unappealing because in fact you know that you are getting very wealthy from your exploitation of a basic human need? Hypocrisy seems the basic message of landlords and corporate owners. In simple terms, they would not be doing this if it was not profitable.
There are several proven methods for transitioning a property out of rent control to maximize profitability:
Condominium Conversion: Subdivide the building into individual luxury units for separate sale. While this requires a specific legal process and map filing, it often yields the highest total exit value.
Tenants-in-Common (TIC) Strategy: Sell fractional ownership interests in the entire property rather than individual subdivided units. This bypasses the lengthy and expensive condo-mapping process while still allowing for the sale of “units” to individual owner-occupants.
Redevelopment (Ground-up): For aging or distressed assets, demolish the existing structure and rebuild. New construction is exempt from local rent control ordinances, allowing for market-rate leases and modern amenities.
Certainly we will see this happening over the next years.
The city’s stance appears contradictory: they mandated rent freezes during the pandemic while maintaining strict requirements for property taxes and utility payments. This suggests the current push for rent control is less about lowering costs and more about shifting the financial burden onto landlords. There is a growing sentiment that owning property equates to ‘excess wealth,’ which is a biased foundation for housing policy.
Gouging renters is what equates to excess wealth and a deficit of morals.
Implementing rent control is poor policy and the antithesis of a thriving community. If you want lower prices, the solution is simple: build more housing, full stop.
CITIZEN – ok, explain. Explain, in detail (no make believe hypotheticals or Chat GPT), how increasing supply in THIS town will make homes actually affordable to anyone other than the upper middle class.
When I say “affordable,” I mean in the sense that we’re all talking about here: something a person on an income of under $80K (eg, what a teacher, nurse, cop, or anyone without a professional degree generally makes during the family-starting age) could afford to purchase.
You’ve seen how all new development goes instantly to out of towners and 3rd home buyers. So, do explain how building more housing is the only way to make it affordable for our essential workers to be able to live here.
Wave good bye everyone to the last few middle class homeowners in Santa Barbara. It is time to roll the welcome mat out for the corporate vultures the city council has now invited in. You all know who to thank for this, and don’t forget it when elections roll up.The clock is ticking pretty loud before the doomsday rental scenario will be made permanent and the last genuine fiber of the city gets destroyed.
Drama queen.
We now have our own Mamdani cabal on the city council
Sure we do Rube.
More con nonsense.
Yep, it’s the Santamaria ‘thang’ out here. Very socialist.
Drama queen.