Across California, New Jersey, Maine, and Minnesota, residents voted to cap rent increases and tighten rules governing landlords.
Nationwide, ballots approved measures that cap rent increases and curb landlords’ discretion in choosing tenants.
The standout case was Elizabeth, New Jersey, where 68 percent of voters backed restoring a cap on annual rent increases of $20 per month that the city council had scrapped in 2023.
The 2023 changes allowed landlords to impose annual rent hikes of up to 3 percent. The newly approved measure caps increases at the smaller of 3 percent or $20.
This year’s measure was placed on the ballot by activists aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America-linked Freelizabeth campaign.
Property owners sought to strike the cap from the ballot via a lawsuit, arguing that the $20 cap amounted to an uncompensated taking of their property in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
A Union County judge dismissed that suit in July.
The The New York Post reports that the $20 cap is a provisional measure. The city’s rent-regulation framework is set to expire in 2027, and the city council will again need to decide whether to sustain the cap.
In California, Redwood City and San Pablo considered comparable proposals that would cap annual rent hikes at the lower of 60 percent of inflation or 5 percent, and would require landlords to provide tenants up to $12,000 in relocation assistance for no-fault evictions.
Under California law, these caps would not apply to single-family homes or to buildings erected after 1995.
Redwood City’s Measure E would also broaden the city’s “just eviction” protections, which generally prevent landlords from not renewing leases unless they can cite a city-approved reason such as non-payment or a landlord’s intention to occupy the unit themselves.
Because it’s California, counts are still coming in. But Redwood City’s Measure E appears likely to fail, with 55 percent of voters casting their ballots against it.
That seems to be the sole defeat for rent control at the ballot box this year.
San Pablo’s Measure S is on track to pass, with close to 60 percent of voters supporting it thus far.
Meanwhile, in Salinas, California, a measure that would have repealed the city’s rent-stabilization rules was decisively defeated.
Ballotpedia notes a handful of other local ballot initiatives that tighten rent regulation in California, Maine, and Minnesota also passing.
Voters in Augusta, Maine, approved a 3 percent cap on mobile-home rents. In Saint Paul, Minnesota, residents approved a measure allowing renters to deduct their repair costs from their rent.
Proponents of rent control have a straightforward narrative for voters. Rents are rising, and city halls can address it by simply capping increases. While landlords argue that rent control reduces housing quality and new housing supply, those claims often require more nuanced explanations from self-interested parties.
When property owners devote substantial resources to opposing rent-control measures, they can win decisively. Three statewide rent-control ballot initiatives in California have now been defeated by large margins.
In smaller, local contests, however, pro-rent-control measures continue to prevail.
