roposition 33 tried—making this the third attempt in CA—to undo Costa-Hawkins’ rent control limitations (which housing providers cite as keeping them profitable). Below, housing policy expert Christian Britschgi says No on 33’s pivot from “landlord rights” to “housing affordability” messaging is what resonated with SCC voters (60.5% voting “no” this Nov. to expansive rent control). From Reason’s Rent Free newsletter.
The biggest housing issue on the California ballot was rent control. Proposition 33 would have repealed all state-level limits on local rent control policies, thus giving cities and counties a free hand to regulate rents however they pleased.
The measure went down in flames on Election Day, with roughly 60 percent of voters casting a “no” ballot.
That result is good news for the availability of rental housing in California, given rent control’s well-documented history of reducing rental housing supply and quality.Sign up to receive updates on Opp Now articles. Click HERE.
It is nevertheless a somewhat surprising result. California has a much higher proportion of renters than most other states and polls consistently find that rent control is supported by a wide majority of respondents. Dozens of cities already have rent control policies on the books.
The delta between generic support for rent control and support for Prop. 33 is particularly stark in some cities. One late October poll of Los Angeles County voters found that 79 percent of them back rent control. But on Election Day, only 44 percent of L.A. voters supported Prop. 33.
Russell Lowery, the executive director of the California Rental Housing Association (one of the many property owner groups opposed to Prop. 33), credits the measure’s resounding defeat to well-targeted messaging that downplayed the typical free market arguments against rent control.
“The property rights argument that property owners wanted to have is a losing one. If it’s property rights versus rent control, we lose,” he tells Reason.
Instead, Lowery says the ‘No’ campaign spent a lot of time and resources targeting varied groups with messages about how rent control would make California’s universally acknowledged housing crisis worse for them or their families.
Senior homeowners heard that rent control would dry up rental housing opportunities for their children. Current renters heard that it would reduce new construction, and lock them into their current unit.