Owners Propose Rent-Control Alternative

GLENDALE, CA-Apartment owners here are formulating an unusual proposal that could help them fend-off efforts to impose a citywide rent-control ordinance but at the same make it easier for tenants to know how much their rent may go up in the future.

The plan is being floated by the recently formed Glendale Apartment Association. One key component would allow owners to raise a tenant’s rent only once a year, and another would require contracts signed by owners and tenants to specify the maximum amount that rent could be raised the following year.

Such provisions are common in office and industrial leases. But they have never before been incorporated into residential rental contracts, says Herbert Molano, the apartment association’s president.

Molano, an apartment owner himself, helped to create the association earlier this year. He says the plan would provide a new layer of protection for tenants by preventing new owners from immediately raising rents when a property is first acquired, and would also help tenants by letting them know how much their rent could rise over as many as 24 months.

Molano hopes to have details of the proposal finished soon. It would then be mailed to the city’s 4,000 rental-property owners for a vote, and eventually be presented to local officials as an alternative to a more traditional rent-control plan.