O.C. City To Create Rental Registry to Enforce Rent Control Laws

Santa Ana, the first city in Orange county, California to adopt rent control and eviction protections, is creating a rental registry and Rental Housing Board to enforce the city’s rent control laws and resolve some disputes between landlords and tenants, reports Roxana Kopetman in the OC Register. Rent increases in Santa Ana are capped at 3 percent or 80 percent of inflation for buildings built prior to 1995, according to the article.

City officials are creating a seven-person board to oversee enforcement of rent control laws and a rental registry to help the city better track rental properties and rent costs. The board “will consist of three tenants — including a mobile home tenant — two landlords and two at-large members with no financial interest.”

Additionally, “Landlords will be required to register their units annually and then pay a fee for that registration. Those yet-to-be-determined fees — a part of which can be passed on to some tenants — will help pay for the program.” 

“But some council members and apartment owner representatives say the city created an expensive and confusing ‘bureaucracy.’” and that the city should focus on building more housing units.