Category: Rent Control Page 1 of 3

The City Council has recently voted to expire the Rent Stabilization, as of September 1, 2014. In order to reflect the change in the City Code, I asked to have a future worksession discussing the disbanding of the Rent Stabilization Board.

This expiration of rent stabilization law has made various sections of the City Code unnecessary. They include (1) Chapter 127 of the City Code containing the Rent Stabilization law (2) Chapter 15 including the establishment of the Rent Stabilization Board (3) Chapter 110 containing fees and penalties related to the Rent Stabilization law.

At tonight’s Council meeting, the Council will vote on an ordinance deleting each of these portions of the City Code reflecting the sunset of the Rent Stabilization law.

At tomorrow’s Council meeting, the Council will consider 2 actions on City’s rent control law. The first will be about a vote on whether to sunset the law as of September 1, 2014. If the motion fails, there will be an introduction of ordinance to extend the law (without enforcement) for one more year.

I personally thank everyone who wrote to me about the law and I think time has come to sunset the ordinance for a number of reasons:

(1) The property owners are now working with the residents, students and other stakeholders as part of the neighborhood stabilization and the quality of life group to address the rental issues that caused the introduction of the law in 2005. It’s important that we treat all our stakeholders equally with respect, instead of using the rent control law as “a tool in the toolbox”

(2) The law has caused more conflict and frictions among various stakeholders than building a healthy relationship, costing City’s taxpayers thousands of dollars in litigation fees

(3) City needs investments in the housing sectors as the number of home sales in College Park has decreased by 67% since 2011 ( http://www.city-data.com/city/College-Park-Maryland.html ) . Many more houses in the city are now staying vacant for a longer period of time, causing more vacancy related code enforcement issues

(4) The law is against City’s goal to have students conveniently living at the growing number of student housing close to the campus (instead of residential neighborhood). Only a free market rental rate will ensure the higher occupancies in the existing and new student housing.

Please let me know how the Council should be voting at tomorrow’s meeting on this issue.

UPDATE June 18, 2014: The Council voted 5-3 to sunset the rent control ordinance. Council members Mitchell, Hew, Day, Dennis and Kabir voted YES and Council members Stullich, Brennan and Wojahn voted NO. I want to thank those who wrote to me or came to last night’s meeting and testified before the Council.

About a year ago, in July 2012, the Mayor and Council established the Neighborhood Stabilization and Quality of Life Work Group to develop and explore new strategies for addressing issues related to the increasing use of single-family houses as group rental houses over the past several decades.

The initiative came after the Council suspended the enforcement of rent control ordinances for a year and try out other ways to address the root cause of the law – improve the quality of life and stabilize the neighborhood.

There had been a long-term trend of increasing numbers of single-family houses being converted to group rental houses over the past several decades. The Council expressed a desire to ensure availability and maintenance of affordable housing in the City, protect the standard of living of all City residents, and strengthen and stabilize the City’s neighborhoods.

The full Work Group and the individual task forces held numerous committee meetings from November 2012 through June 2013 to identify and discuss potential strategies for addressing the above issues. Additionally, they also held two public forums during this period, on January 29 and April 30, to provide an opportunity for members of the broader community to express their concerns and comments about neighborhood stabilization and quality of life issues.

The group decided to create four task forces to work on the following issues:

• Issue Reduction: Strategies for reducing problems that have negatively impacted the quality of life for people who live in the community, including loud parties, noise, excessive alcohol consumption, public urination, trash, and vandalism.
• Homeownership: Strategies for reversing the trend of conversions of owner-occupied properties to rental properties and attracting more University faculty and staff and other owner-occupants to purchase homes in College Park.
• Community Building: Strategies for building positive relations between students and long-term residents and creating a stronger sense of community.
• Housing Diversity: Strategies for expanding housing options available to students, with a particular emphasis on affordable housing.

I will make a series of posts to go over the details about the group’s findings and strategies to implement them.

House for rent

At tonight’s meeting, the Council will introduce a resolution to postpone the sunset of the program for another year, until September 1, 2014. The Council will also be considering continuing suspension of the implementation and enforcement of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance for another year, to allow the Council and other stakeholders to work on the proposals and ideas being put forward by the Workgroup.

The City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance was due to expire on September 1, 2012. The Mayor and Council determined that the objectives of the law had not been met at that time for various reasons, and voted last summer to.adopt Ordinance 12-0-06, which extended the law until September 1, 2013, at which time it would sunset if not extended again.

The extension of the law for one year was enacted in conjunction with two other initiatives. The first was to create the Neighborhood Stabilization and Quality of Life Workgroup (“the Workgroup”) and to invite stakeholders, including the Prince George’s Property Owners Association and landlords, the University of Maryland, students and the Student Government Association, and City residents, to explore avenues to ensure availability and maintenance of affordable housing in the City, protect the standard of living of all City residents, and strengthen and stabilize the City’s neighborhoods.

The second was to suspend enforcement of the rent stabilization ordinance and suspend implementation of the rent stabilization program to September 1, 2013. At this point, the Workgroup has met frequently and has been developing measures to resolve the identified problems.

Additional time is required to bring this work forward and implement various strategies. It is hoped that these strategies will eventually make Chapter 127 unnecessary. To this end, the Council will consider an ordinance extending the rent stabilization ordinance by one more year.

House for Rent

In last night’s Council meeting, the rent Control was extended for 1 year period. The original ordinance had the language to extend rent control for 5 years. an amendment was passed to make that duration from 5 to 1 year with 6-2 votes. Council members Stullich and Afzali voted against the amendment. Council member Catlin opposed the amended motion.

The Council also voted to suspend the enforcement of the rent control ordinance for one year. An amendment requiring the Council to revisit the program before 1 year expiration period failed (2-6).

Because the 1 year extension and 1 year suspension will happen concurrently, there will effectively be no rent control in the next 12 months period starting September 1st, 2012.

In the coming year, the City hope to work with all the stake holders (long time residents, students, the UMd, property owners and the Council) to address the core issue that mainly prompted rent control ordinance 7 years ago – improve the quality of life in the residential neighborhood. We hope to form a working group and come up with a set of best practices and goals to work on. We will keep you posted as progress is made.

College Park City Hall

After much discussion and debate on the rent control ordinance, the Council will finally take up the subject for a vote at tomorrow’s regular Council meeting.

The Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which caps rents in single-family homes around the City. The Rent Stabilization law was passed in 2005 and extended in 2009 for a number of purposes, including reducing the incentive for landlords to purchase previously owner-occupied homes as investments and turn them into rental properties.

The ordinance was the subject of litigation for a number of years before it was upheld by the Maryland Court of Appeals, and the City only began enforcement of the ordinance last year. There has been a great deal of discussion of the rent stabilization ordinance over the past couple of months, and different groups and individual Councilmembers have been meeting with the Prince George’s Property Owners Association to discuss alternatives to rent stabilization.

The Council will be considering, in addition to a ordinance extending rent stabilization for another five years, a resolution to suspend enforcement of the ordinance for one year. The idea in passing a moratorium on enforcement is that this would give the City, the Property Owners’ Association, and other stakeholders, such as the University, students and residents, the opportunity to discuss some of the proposals that have been brought up and try some of them out over the next year. At the end of the year, if a majority of the Council feels that these have been successful or feels otherwise that rent stabilization should be discontinued, the Council can vote to do so or could vote to extend the moratorium on enforcement.

There will be a PUBLIC HEARING tonight, at 7:00 pm at City Hall to hear public input on two things: 1) the Rent Stabilization Ordinance itself, and 2) the resolution for a year-long moratorium on enforcement. Thanks to those of you who came out to the public forum last week on rent stabilization, it was a good discussion and we appreciate those of you who took the time to come out and discuss the ordinance with us. Please let us know if you have any questions.