San Pablo’s City Council this week approved sending a rent protection ballot initiative to go in front of voters in November that would cap annual rent increases at 3% and increase tenant rights in the city.
The measure aims to combat increased costs of living and decreased spending on housing and homelessness, according to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and Rising Juntos, the community organizations who led the campaign to qualify the initiative for the ballot.
The organizations submitted 2,420 signatures, of which the Contra Costa County Elections office determined 1,719 were valid. The measure needed 1,325 signatures to qualify for the ballot.
San Pablo’s annual rent increases are currently capped by state law at 5% plus the local cost of living, with a maximum increase of 10% per year. The proposed measure would enforce a hard cap on annual rent increases at 3% or 60% of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for the region, whichever is lower.
The rent protection measure would be one of the strongest in the state of California, according to ACCE.
Additionally, the measure includes tenant protections that allow tenants to file a formal complaint to the city under the circumstance that a landlord comes short of providing adequate housing services, failing to make repairs or taking away a service. Landlords would have the right to apply for changes in rent contracts under the circumstance that they don’t receive a reasonable return on investment.
The San Pablo measure is part of a broader movement in the Bay Area, with ACCE and Rising Juntos spearheading campaigns for similar ballot initiatives in seven other California cities. Similar measures have already passed in the Contra Costa County cities of Antioch and Richmond.
Historically, San Pablo has been a majority-renter city, with the ordinance stating that 57% of households in San Pablo are occupied by residential tenants.
However, according to ACCE and Rising Juntos, considering national inflation hit a three-year high of 4.2% in May, California’s 10% rent caps have become too lenient. United States census data for San Pablo has found that at least 57% of San Pablo’s renters are rent burdened, meaning they are spending 30% or more of their income on rent.
If passed, the measure would be just the most recent action taken by the city of San Pablo to strengthen rent protection in the city.
Proposal follows recent housing reforms
Aware of renters’ struggles, San Pablo’s City Council commissioned a fiscal analysis in 2024 to evaluate policies increasing rent stabilization and tenant rights.
After gathering data, on March 2 of this year, the council adopted expanded just cause eviction and anti-harassment protections, which took effect on April 1. These policies limited landlords’ abilities to evict tenants, while explicitly prohibiting certain landlord behaviors.
At its Monday meeting, San Pablo gave its final approval to repeal its rent registry program, the system that has tracked rent data for the city government since 2024. The City Council is planning to adopt a rent review program, which would more actively examine city rent increases on a case-by-case basis, working alongside the proposed increase in rent protections.
However, opposition will come from local property owners, spearheaded by landlord associations like the East Bay Rental Housing Association.
“The question is whether the policy actually improves housing stability without reducing availability and the quality of housing,” said Derek Barnes, chief executive officer of the EBRHA. “The cost of running housing is increasing and putting caps on rent so that owners are not able to keep up with the economy of providing that service creates other issues.”
The measure will require a majority vote come November to be approved.
