California Secretary of State Alex Padilla formally assigned an official number for a California rent control ballot initiative, which will now be known as Proposition 21. The Rental Affordability Act (RAA) will expand rent control throughout California.
The California Apartment Association says, the measure attacks California’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and would welcome back the extreme forms of rent control that proliferated in California in the 1970s and make California’s housing crisis even worse.
Steve Maviglio, spokesperson for No on Prop 21, says, “Two years ago, California voters soundly rejected Proposition 10, Michael Weinstein’s deceptive initiative that would have made our state’s housing crisis even worse. Now he’s back with a nearly identical measure that would inflict more damage on a state that is already in an economic freefall brought on by the pandemic. We need to defeat this measure that will limit affordable housing, kill blue collar jobs and reduce funding for state and local services.”
Anti-housing activist Michael Weinstein is bankrolling the campaign to pass the Prop 21 measure, using funds from the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The measure first qualified for placement on the November California ballot in early February after more than one-million voter signatures were submitted in support of the measure.
Campaign supporters say the Prop 21 measure has added key endorsements from federal and state elected officials; local city councils; and social, housing, and racial justice organizations. Initiative advocates say it will remove current state law restrictions, giving cities and counties the power to implement and expand rent control policies that limit how much rents can increase each year. Local communities would be allowed to:
– Expand rent control to more buildings while exempting newly constructed buildings
– Exempt single-family homeowners who own up to two homes
– Allow limits on rent increases when a new renter moves in
Source: Connect.Media