If Proposition 33 passes, there would be big changes to rent control in these Bay Area cities

More than 30 cities in California already set certain limits on rent increases, with caps on covered units ranging from 3% to 10% per year and some tied to inflation.

At the state level, California caps rent increases for apartments and condos older than 15 years at 10% per year — a rate that can still place a significant burden on renters, according to tenant advocates.

Some of these local ordinances used to be much stricter. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, concerns about rising housing costs led some cities to limit rent increases even when a new tenant moved in – known as vacancy control. However, the 1995 law intended to repeal Proposition 33, known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, ended it, as well as any rent control on single-family homes or those built after 1995.

It's the ban on rent control on single-family homes that most bothers Melvin Willis, a city council member in Richmond, one of the few remaining all-working-class towns in the Bay Area. Many families in his district rent out their houses, and some complain to him about steep rent increases.

“It's a difficult conversation to have with someone who says, 'My rent has gone up, but we have rent control,'” he said. Willis recalled explaining to a family whose rent had doubled that the city's 3 percent cap on rent increases did not apply to single-family homes. “I’ve had this conversation several times and it doesn’t feel good,” he said.

Richmond's rent ordinance omits any apartments that are “exempt from rent control under the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.” Willis and other affordable housing advocates understand that if Costa-Hawkins goes away, single-family homes and other housing that state law excludes would automatically fall under rent control.

Nicolas Traylor, the executive director of Richmond's rental program, was more cautious. The ordinance could apply to units that are actually exempt under Costa-Hawkins, he said, or just the types of units, such as single-family homes, that Costa-Hawkins exempted. If Proposition 33 passes, the rental program's legal counsel would have to make recommendations on how to proceed, he said.

In San Francisco, city supervisors avoided that ambiguity by unanimously passing legislation that would take effect if Proposition 33 passes, bringing rent control to an estimated 16,000 additional units. Mayor London Breed has said she will sign it if the proposal passes, the San Francisco Standard reported.

San Francisco is among a group of cities — along with Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles and the Southern California cities of West Hollywood and Santa Monica — with long-standing rent controls that are particularly limited by current state law. This is because Costa-Hawkins has adopted all exemptions for additional newly built units. In San Francisco, apartments built after 1979 are considered “new buildings” and are exempt from rent control. It's 1978 in Los Angeles.