'Reasonable' Rent Control Measure Actually Isn't, Some Mountain View Renters Say

Ahead of California’s Super Tuesday election on March 3, the residents of Mountain View are debating over a popular topic in the Bay Area: rent control. Proponents of Measure D say it will protect renters, but not all renters agree.

Measure D’s Rent Cap

For now, rent hikes in Mountain View are directly tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), also known as the rate of inflation. It typically fluctuates between 2 to 5%, but for now, it's at 3.5%. One of Measure D’s main features is that it would cap annual rent increases at 4%. Mountain View Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga supports this.

“There’s more predictability on both sides, frankly — from the landlords’ side and the tenants’ side,” Abe-Koga said.

She called it “reasonable rent control." She argues that, even if landlords increase rents by 0.5% to 4%, a Google employee making over $100,000 a year should be able to afford that compromise.

Former Mountain View Mayor Lenny Siegel doesn’t agree. As an outspoken advocate for affordable housing, Siegel said a 0.5% increase to the rent cap could price out people already living paycheck to paycheck.

“We have a lot of software engineers who moved here to work for Google and other places. Well, they have cafeteria workers to feed them. If there’s no place for the cafeteria workers [to live], who’s going to feed the Google employees?" Siegel said. “If teachers can’t afford to live here, how’re the kids of the more affluent residents — how’re they going to be taught?”

The Price of Upgrading an Apartment

You can be an affluent renter and still feel that high rents can make living in Mountain View tenuous. Sabah Munawar moved to Mountain View about three years ago when her husband got a job at Nokia. They landed in a cozy, sunlit one bedroom apartment downtown they pay about $3,100 each month for.

Munawar’s apartment is across from City Hall, downtown and the public library, which was a big selling point for her.

“All of my apartments or my parents’ house has been walking distance from the library. That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Munawar said.

Munawar has been politically active since high school, but for the first time, she’s been knocking on doors campaigning against Measure D. The rent cap isn’t her main concern — she is more nervous about another part of the measure which allows landlords to pass along the cost of improving a unit up to a 10% hike on the annual rent.

“We would be displaced,” Munawar said. “We’d have to actually think about either moving or looking for other jobs.”

Despite historically high rents in Silicon Valley, many landlords have dragged their feet upgrading the properties they own. For example, hundreds of soft-story apartment buildings remain seismically unfit to withstand an earthquake.

“We’ve heard from tenants who want upgrades who have been told ‘no’ because property owners don’t have a guarantee of cost recovery,” Mayor Abe-Koga said. She believes this provision in Measure D might encourage landlords to make these adjustments if they know they can pass along some of the cost to the renter.

Mobile Home Protections, or Lack Thereof

Then there’s one group that is caught in the middle of this battle: mobile home renters. Right now, rent hikes for mobile homes aren’t covered under rent control and remain unregulated.

Bee Hanson moved to Santiago Villa, a large mobile home community near Google’s campus, more than 20 years ago.

“A lot of people in this park are seniors or disabled people that came in years and years ago in the '60s when it was just a really low-cost place to live,” Hanson said. “And they’re kind of stuck now because they’re on fixed incomes and once they get a raise on rent, Social Security is not keeping up.”

Measure D specifically excludes mobile home renters from the rent cap. Abe-Koga plans to create a separate ordinance that would regulate rent hikes on mobile homes, but Alex Brown, another renter in Santiago Villa, is nervous that the eventual ordinance will offer weak protections against mobile home park owners. Brown wants mobile home parks to be included in the rent cap Measure D provides.

“It would close off an opportunity to get the protections offered to apartment residents in units built before 1995 in all of Mountain View,” Brown said. “And that’s tough because we have no other protections that are guaranteed or that look likely yet.”

Campaign Spending: A David vs. Goliath Fight

The optics on who supports Measure D versus who doesn’t might look skewed as many local tenants rights groups have come out against the measure, compared to the California Apartment Association (CAA) and other landlord-backed organizations that support it. The CAA has raised $193,000 since the start of the year to back to “Yes On Measure D” campaign, while the opposition had been largely funded by Mountain View residents, totaling about $7,500.

That was until Feb. 20 when the “No on Measure D” campaign got a $94,000 contribution. John Vidovich, owner of Santiago Villa, where Bee Hanson and Alex Brown live, is listed as a partner in VG Investments and VO Limited Partners, the two companies from which the contribution came.

Alex Brown is still suspicious of the mobile home park owner, despite the contribution. He has many theories but believes that, if Measure D passes and the city council creates a separate ordinance regulating mobile home rents, Vidovich and other mobile home park owners won’t be able to charge whatever they want in rent.