Santa Barbara Council Hears Public Feedback on Rent-Stabilization Ordinance

Santa Barbara Council Hears Public Feedback on Rent-Stabilization Ordinance

The Santa Barbara City Council worked late into the night on Tuesday, hammering out the details of the city’s rent-stabilization ordinance. There were 127 policy items for the council to discuss after the city received more than 650 written public comments from the community about the ordinance.  “The community has been heard,” said Barbara Andersen, senior assistant to the city administrator. “We are not debating for or against rent stabilizati…

Rent stabilization ordinance in Santa Barbara stalls again over the details

The rent stabilization ordinance—the most polarizing issue to hit Santa Barbara City Hall in decades—inched forward Tuesday night over the course of a four-hour-plus-meeting, but the controversial measure hasn’t quite crossed the finish line. The City Council on Tuesday night pored over 127 policy details of the proposed ordinance, after it received more than 650 comments from members of the public over the past month. “The community has been he…

Santa Barbara Rent Control: What the Rent Freeze and the 2027 Ordinance Mean for Multifamily Owners

On July 28, the Santa Barbara City Council returned to its permanent rent stabilization ordinance — its first session on the subject since the public-comment window on the June 10 draft closed July 10. A temporary rent freeze has already been in force since February retroactive to December 16, 2025, and the permanent program is slated to begin in 2027. Together they will govern the income — and therefore the value — of roughly 13,000 multifamily…

Santa Monica scales back rent control proposal ahead of November election

The City Council and the Rent Control Board voted this week to pull back the most contested piece of a ballot measure headed for the November election, after city attorneys warned the proposal was untested in court and would likely invite a lawsuit.Meeting jointly in a special session, the two bodies voted to strip out language that would have let additional household members remain in a unit after the original tenant moved out for any reason, a…