Tenant Protections & Jurisdictions’ Responses

As housing costs in Marin continue to soar despite national trends, tenant protections have become a hot topic. Fairfax, Larkspur, and unincorporated Marin County have implemented or are discussing tenant protections. Though many of the Marin Housing Elements contain provisions promising to implement protections, these provisions remain controversial. Anti-displacement policy has evolved dramatically in the last 40 years, upending old tropes that rent control causes a diminishment of quality or quantity of affordable housing. MEHC believes Marin can and should do more to protect its renters. See our Resources, below, if you want to learn more. 

This Housing Element cycle requires Marin to do more than plan for more housing.  The 6th cycle of the housing element places a new emphasis on enacting policies and programs that will preserve naturally occurring affordable housing. Low-income tenants, much of Marin’s workforce, are under threat of displacement as housing costs inexorably rise. Long-term tenants, when forced out of their homes — most often through no fault of their own— face a drastically changed rental market, with rents 2 to 3 times higher than what they had previously paid and very little inventory. Most displaced renters are forced to move out of the community, out of Marin, and some even into their cars or into homeless encampments. Unreasonable rent increases hurt our ability to meet low-income housing mandates and cause displacement of long-time residents who are disproportionately represented by people of color and other protected classes.

This is both a humanitarian issue and a climate issue. The life of every displaced person is disrupted in very profound ways, impacting schooling, employment options, transportation, health and housing. Every displaced worker forced to commute adds to our traffic and emissions challenges.

Marin County’s past housing policies have made our county famous for all the wrong reasons. Redlining, community opposition, and exclusionary zoning have been elements of Marin’s housing “policies” for decades, and have resulted in Marin having among the highest levels of racial disparities in the state. Our exclusionary policies and attitudes have caused Marin to have the lowest rate of housing production in the Bay Area. It will be years before we can build our way out of our housing shortage, even with the best of efforts. In the meantime, displacement is escalating as low-income tenants suffer under ever-increasing housing costs.

Similarly, most jurisdictions’ 2015-23 housing elements contain excellent ideas for improving tenant protections, yet very few of these policies have been implemented at the local level. The State legislature passed The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482), which gave long-term tenants some just-cause protections from arbitrary evictions. However, AB 1482 does not go far enough. Many types of tenancies and housing are excluded from protections and there are lots of loopholes. AB 1482 also sets a cap on rent increases at 5% + CPI, not to exceed a total of 10%. It is hard to justify landlords’ ability under AB 1482 to increase rents up to 5% ABOVE any increase in the cost of living. In any case, these protections are unsustainable for low-income tenants still recuperating from the pandemic. For example, a family renting a two-bedroom apartment for $3,200 (HUD Fair Market Rent) in 2022 faces almost a 50% increase in housing costs in just 5 years, or an additional $1,500+ per month.

We applaud Fairfax for taking the first step in increasing tenant protections, and Larkspur for taking action by directing staff to begin drafting proposed ordinances. We encourage the remaining Marin jurisdictions to follow suit. We need to stop displacement and the loss of affordable housing now.

A recent article in San Francisco’s real estate news outlet, The Real Deal, argues that Marin’s lack of tenant protections and rent stabilization is attracting corporate investors, noting that three large Marin residential complexes have been bought since May of 2022, totaling 265 units. Substantial rent increases, along with extremely low vacancy rates, make Marin more attractive to investors than other Bay Area counties with strong tenant protections. We need to preserve existing affordable housing stock through anti-displacement policies.

Change the narrative

We need to hold ourselves accountable for the plans and programs that were never acted upon and recognize that Marin will continue to lose valuable community members unless we address the market forces that contribute to their displacement. Planning for our housing future must also include ensuring that our current affordable housing stock is preserved.

Some Marin cities and towns included anti-displacement ideas in their housing elements but few made hard commitments to implement meaningful changes. Belvedere, Corte Madera, Ross, and San Anselmo made no commitments at all. We need to push all Marin jurisdictions that failed to make hard commitments in this regard to act with urgency by conducting the studies they agreed to and implementing policies and programs that stop the displacement occurring now. The jurisdictions that ignored the issue entirely must also be held accountable. We can still take powerful steps to protect the most vulnerable Marinites. Not because the State requires it – but because our values as Marinites demand it.