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In a special meeting on Thursday, Mountain View’s City Council will make a last-ditch effort to consider some kind of alternative to a citizen-backed rent control measure.
The July 14 special meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Second Stage theater at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.
The discussion about alternatives is being spearheaded by Mayor Pat Showalter, who says she is concerned that the ballot initiative expected to go before voters in November is too rigid and inflexible. In particular, she points out the measure is a charter amendment, meaning its language couldn’t be changed except by another ballot initiative.
In a staff report she authored, the mayor lays out a variety of options for the council, including drafting a competing measure on the November ballot. Showalter proposes that the city could draft a measure with the same language but frame it as an ordinance that could be changed by council members in future years.
Alternatively, Showalter suggests that the council could revive a past proposal for a binding-arbitration program that would empower an independent arbiter to dictate resolutions for disputes between landlords and tenants. That idea came about after months of public discussions among city officials, but it was ultimately scuttled by the council in lieu of a non-binding mediation program favored by landlords.
Showalter said that the council could decide to enact any favored option under its own authority without the need for an election.
The mayor’s call for an alternative has been roundly criticized by the Mountain View Tenants Coalition, which presented 7,300 signatures to the city last month in order to put its rent-control measure on the November ballot. Advocates with the group say the mayor’s efforts, intentional or not, would act as a spoiler and sabotage their measure’s prospects at the ballot box.
If enough signatures are validated, the City Council is expected to officially place the Tenants Coalition measure on the ballot at a special Aug. 9 meeting. At that same meeting, the council could act to place its own competing measure on the ballot.
A copy of the staff report is available on the city’s website.
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Really Voice?
You are starting another thread on the same subject from July 6, Mayor pitches plan for alternate rent control measure. Please post link here. No need to rehash.
It was the over whelming opion fro that thread that the city of Mtn. View should not have rent control.
VOTE NO ON ALL RENT CONTROL!
Very very bad for everyone in Mtn. View.
The Truth — “It was the over whelming opion fro that thread that the city of Mtn. View should not have rent control.”
Oh, so comment boards trump elections? Gee, I never saw *that* law being put into effect in Mountain View…
P.S. Learn how to write in actual English.
@No Truth at All,
I am smart enough to know rent control leads to decay in a city.
Also smart enough to know that in no other business do you have a mob mentality in thinking that it is O.K to take away rights from a property owner and tell them how to run a business but be no where around to help them pay their bills in the bad years. It is outrageous that rent control cities like San Francisco tells landlords that they can not move a family member into their property as the rent board say’s landlord has ulterior motives.
Also smart enough to know that when people have to push these tiny buttons to type, your fingers do not go where they sometimes should.
You are obviously a liberal, the old school liberals used to claim tolerance, what do you call these new anti-tolerant liberals?
You, smart?
HAHAHAHAHAHA
“Also smart enough to know that when people have to push these tiny buttons to type, your fingers do not go where they sometimes should.”
Oh please.
While many people seem to think that there is some kind of a quick fix or silver bullet for rising rents, that is simply not the case. Rent control is not a solution, it merely creates another set of completely different problems ( https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/07/silicon-valley-largest-eviction-rent-controlled-tenants-income-inequality ).
As you can see in the link, in San Jose, the rent control enacted there led to people being evicted instead.
As a rule, capital follows the path of least resistance, and landlords/ property owners will not keep or maintain properties that lose money. It makes no sense intellectually or financially.
The real cause of high rents in the area is the uncontrolled proliferation of high tech office space in the area. Cities see it as being beneficial because more high paying jobs, means more revenue for the city. The downside? Much higher rents as the high paid techs compete with each other (and YOU) for limited housing stock.
Don’t blame the landlords for this one! Most of them are not being greedy, but are reacting to the marketplace. Back in 2008 when the economy tanked, rents actually went down for time. Was anyone asking for rent control then to keep the property owners from losing money or going underwater on their mortgages? No. So why should the benefit only go one way?
In my opinion, the culprits are the greedy cities who have the responsibility to manage growth in a balanced way to benefit all residents; who are instead allowing unfettered expansions of office space in order to fill city coffers at the expense of low and middle income residents.
The only fix is for cities to start limiting (and preferably eliminating) the expansion of office space, while sensibly expanding the availability of housing.
In the interests of full disclosure: I do not own any property nor have I been given any benefit of any kind in exchange for my opinion.
Jim Neal
Old Mountain View