This post was updated Nov. 26 at 11:23 p.m.
The Los Angeles City Council signed a compromise proposal Nov. 14 to allow rent increases in the city, ending a pandemic-era ban that has stood since 2020.
The council approved the proposal by a 10-2 vote, allowing landlords to raise rents by up to 4% next year. The plan will only apply to units under the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance – rental properties that were built on or before Oct. 1, 1978 – which covers around three-quarters of all multifamily rental units in LA. Since the pandemic, renters have been able to avoid evictions based on rent debt, and landlords have not been able to increase monthly rent prices on RSO units.
Council president Paul Krekorian and council members Curren Price and Katy Yaroslavsky did not vote due to a conflict of interest, as they all own rental properties.
Under the new measure, landlords who pay gas and electricity for their tenants, who are subject to separate restrictions, will be allowed to raise rent by up to 6%. If the council hadn’t approved the Nov. 14 compromise, rent increases would have been higher – up to seven and nine percent for landlords who pay utilities.
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield proposed the 4% cap during the housing and homelessness committee meeting the prior week, amending Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez’s proposal to continue rent freezes for an additional six months.
[Related: LA City Council committee approves amended motion to increase rent]
However, some landlords don’t think the 4% increase is enough.
Daniel Yukelson, chief executive officer and executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater LA, said in an emailed statement that the council promised landlords the emergency rent freeze would expire in January 2024, but the council broke that promise of capped increases.
“For almost four years and approximately $3 billion in lost rent increases, the Los Angeles City Council once again has pulled the rug out from underneath housing providers by severely restricting allowable rent increases,” Yukelson said in the emailed statement.
During the Nov. 14 meeting, Councilmember Tim McOsker proposed a 7% increase for housing providers that own 12 or fewer units and a 4% increase for larger landlords. However, he said he could not see the proposal passing, so he instead proposed asking the Housing Department and city attorney’s office to analyze the feasibility of his initial proposal.
“I want to look particularly at those small mom-and-pop landlords to make sure that they can stay in the business of providing housing,” Councilmember McOsker said during the meeting. “I think nobody here wants to see an increased exodus of family owned businesses, going to investments, investors that will be patient money and just wait us out and create a bigger disaster than we have today.”
Some landlords said during the meeting’s public comment period that setting the increase cap to 7% instead of 4% would have allowed landlords to provide better services for their tenants.
“We urge you to allow the seven percent rent increase so that we can give our tenants the properties that they deserve, so that we can take care of their needs, so that we can make ends meet,” Iran Daniel, who is a landlord, said during public comment. “Our rents are not enough.”
During the meeting, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who seconded the original motion for another six month ban, said the rent increase will cause evictions, leading to increased homelessness.
LA’s pandemic-era freeze on rent increases is set to expire in January, and the increases permitted by the new proposal will begin in February. McOsker said he felt the new proposals considered the interests of both landlords and tenants.
“This is rent stabilization. This isn’t rent control, and rent stabilization means that we’re considering the interests of the landlords as well as tenants,” he said during the meeting.
Comments are closed.