Revisiting LA’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance and “Allowable Rent Increases”

California’s worsening housing crisis has triggered an intense debate about rent control. Rent control has always been controversial: Seen by some as essential to protecting vulnerable households from increasing rent burden and displacement, and by others as a well-intentioned but flawed action that often makes housing affordability worse. The rent control debate has been taken statewide with citizen action, massive political expenditures, and a flurry of legislative activity, including Assembly Bill 1482 that will place a modest cap on rental housing over 15 years old, limiting rent increases to 5 percent plus inflation. In this brief, we examine Los Angeles’ rent-stabilization ordinance.

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