San Diego City and County Leaders Are Targeting Rental Fees

San Diego City and County Leaders are Again Targeting Rental Housing Providers!

Please Take Action today to Protect Your Livelihood and Renters! Use the provided customizable letter to share your voice with city leaders. SCRHA will follow up with another alert specifically for the County proposal in the coming days.

City Council Member Sean Elo-Rivera and County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe are advancing the Residential Rental Price Gouging, Fee Exploitation, and Cost Transparency Ordinance, a sweeping proposal that would limit what housing providers can charge for essential services — from parking and pets to late payments to holding deposits. 

These measures ignore the reality of the costs imposed on housing providers, reduce your ability to provide added amenities, and make it harder than ever to operate rental housing in the region. City leaders are branding ordinary operating costs as exploitation and claim that landlords want to "extract excessive profit from applicants and tenants." 

The proposal will be introduced twice in the coming days: 

· On Thursday, Oct. 30, Council Member Elo-Rivera will present it to the City Council’s Select Committee on Addressing Cost of Living at 9:00 AM.

· On Tuesday, Nov. 4, Supervisor Montgomery Steppe and co-author Chair Pro Tem Aguirre will bring the measure before the County Board of Supervisors. 

What's being proposed:

• Cap all fees — whether mandatory or voluntary — at 5% of monthly rent, regardless of actual cost.
• Limit late fees to 2% of rent and only allow for late fees once rent is SEVEN (7) days late.
• Ban fees for essential services such as pest control, valet trash, and more, labeling these necessary services as “exploitative.” 
• Eliminate monthly pet fees altogether, despite the added costs associated with tenants keeping pets and the additional limits on security deposits.
• Restrict holding deposits to 5% of rent and require refunds in most situations. 
• Limit processing fees so they only cover the actual cost of payment processing. 
• Force landlords to accept tenant-provided screening reports, undermining property owners’ ability to vet applicants safely and prevent fraud.
• And more!

Not one of these restrictions would create a single new unit of housing or provide rental assistance to families in need. And despite recent data that clearly shows that additional regulation increases rents, decision makers still think the best path forward is overregulating your ability to put roofs over heads.