Orlando Metro Puts Rent Control Measure on Ballot

Orange County, FL, which includes the Orlando Metro, approved an ordinance this week that puts a rent-control measure on the November ballot that will let voters decide whether to prevent owners of existing apartments from raising rents at a rate higher than the inflation rate for the region.

If the ordinance were effective today, it would put the brakes on still red-hot rent growth in Orlando, which is far outpacing the inflation rate.

According to CoStar data, the Orlando area’s rent growth in July was 16.2%, the highest of any metro in the country; the rent growth rate for Orlando at the end of June was 18.7%.

The US Labor Department’s July consumer price index for the South—the metric that Orange County’s rent-control ordinance will use if approved in November—showed a 9.4% inflation rate in the region.

The Orange County rent-control ordinance calls the current rental market in the Orlando Metro a “grave housing emergency.” According to the ordinance, the county has a shortage of 26,500 units and more than 80% of households who earn the county’s average median income of $80K are spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

The ordinance said the county has received more federal rental assistance than any other county in the state, noting that there have been 6,970 evictions filed in Orange County in the first half of 2022, a 70% increase from H1 2021.

At the meeting where the ordinance was adopted, county officials said that nearly half of the 230,000 existing rental units in the county could be affected if the ordinance passes—but they also conceded that the number of units affected could be less than 5,000, if rent growth decelerates in Orlando.

CoStar is projecting that rent growth in Orlando will subside to 10% by Q4 2022.

Opponents and proponents of the rent-control ordinance said they expect the measure to be challenged in court by apartment owners if it is approved by voters in November.

The declaration of a housing emergency by Orange County was required by state law in Florida, which has a preemptive law on the books that prevents rent control laws from taking effect unless a municipality declares an emergency.

Miami-Dade County also declared a housing emergency when it enacted a tenants bill of rights earlier this year, requiring landlords to give 60-day notice if they raise rents more than 5%.