image credit: Santa Cruz Sentinel
Measure M will be just as extreme, if not more extreme, than the rent control ordinances in cities like Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley.
It will impose an incredibly low ceiling for rent increases, making it harder for landlords to turn a profit. Landlords’ legal liability will increase greatly. Evicting tenants will become unreasonably expensive, tedious and more difficult. And the newly created, very costly rent control board will have far-reaching powers that allow them to unilaterally govern the Santa Cruz rental property industry.
Of course, we certainly need solutions to the Santa Cruz housing crisis, and we need them immediately. Tenants and landlords both have a set of wants and needs that should be equally respected. There are a considerable number of win-win solutions we can implement that do not require rent control, such as lifting regulations that currently limit market-rate and affordable housing development.
In any case, it is quite apparent that Measure M is far too extreme and far too expensive.
