Santa Ana recently became the first city in Orange County, California to enact rent control. The city plans to create a registry of all rental properties in the city. Landlords are required to register their properties with the city and pay an annual fee. Apparently, Santa Ana public officials have been drinking the Kool-Aid of…
The city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, recently capped rent increases to 3 percent. The previous cap limited rent increases to $20 or 3 percent, whichever is lower. Tenants and housing activists are unhappy. One activist said, This decision to increase the rental cap, which protects its more vulnerable tenants, shows how the city protects developers…
In recent years, voters and politicians have increasingly embraced rent control in response to rising housing costs. The resurgence of rent control is an example of democracy in action. Democracy means unlimited majority rule, that the majority may do as it pleases simply because it is the majority. If some individuals are acting in a…
In my previous post, I wrote about a ruling by the rent-guidelines board in Kingston New, York. That ruling reduced rents for 1,200 units in controlled by the city’s rent control ordinance. Another ruling allows tenants to protect rent increases between January 2019 and August 2022. If allowed to stand, these ruling sets a very…
As previously noted on this blog, construction of new housing in St. Paul has been greatly reduced compared to the years before voters passed a rent control law last November. Many developers argue that they are having difficulty attracting capital because of the law. Despite a recent amendment to the law that exempts new construction…
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a growing number of cities in the bay area are passing rent control laws. Those laws, the headline states, could be a “turning point for the housing crisis.” However, the housing crisis is a supply shortage, and rent control doesn’t build housing. Housing activists believe that more controls and…
As has been previously noted on this site, the city of St. Paul has amended its draconian rent control law. In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal notes that “according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there have been only two hundred (200) residential building permits in Saint Paul through April…
In her essay “The Anatomy of Compromise,” Ayn Rand wrote that when basic principles are involved, compromise is surrender: When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the…
St. Paul recently amended its draconian rent control law to exempt new construction for twenty years. One of the largest developers of multi-family housing in the city, Ryan Cos., said that a twenty-year exemption wasn’t enough to incentivize construction of new housing. City officials responded that the exemption was made “in consultation with developers—including Ryan.”…
On October 1, the largest rent increase in ten years went into effect in New York City. In June, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board voted to allow increases of 3.25 percent for one-year leases and 5 percent for two-year leases. Tenants were unhappy, as many had called for a rent freeze. In a written statement,…
An Amendment in St. Paul When voters approved one of the nation’s most draconian rent control laws, developers in St. Paul reacted exactly as had been predicted: they halted housing projects. In September, the St. Paul City Council amended the rent control ordinance to exempt properties less than twenty years old. This returns a smidgen…