Californians Reject Push For More Rent Control Amid Housing Crisis

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Voters have decided more rent control won't help California's ongoing housing crisis by rejecting Proposition 10.

Nearly 62 percent of voters voted no on Proposition 10, which would have enabled local governments to enact rent-control laws by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. The law banned local rent control on single-family homes and on any housing units built after 1995. The law also froze local rent control laws at the year of their passage, which in Los Angeles was 1978.

The measure was touted as a way to help keep tenants from being pushed into homelessness by skyrocketing rents, but opponents said more rent control would discourage new housing from being built, encourage landlords to leave the rental market and exacerbate the housing shortage.

While the proposition would have repealed the rent control ban, the impact would have depended on how many municipalities actually enacted rent control laws and how strict those laws were.

The rent control measure was just one of the housing-related propositions on Tuesday's ballot.

Prop. 5, which would have allowed older or severely disabled home buyers to transfer their prior tax assessments to their new homes, was rejected by 58 percent of voters.

Voters approved both Prop. 2, which financed housing for people with mental illness, and Prop. 1, a measure authorizing $4 billion in bonds for existing affordable housing programs for veterans and affordable housing programs, but by differing margins. Prop. 2 passed with 61 percent of the vote, but voters were less enthusiastic about Prop. 1, passing it by 54 percent.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)