The City of Oakland is moving forward with a plan to create a “rent registry” to help tenants find out which landlords own buildings, how much rent they charge and how often they’ve raised it.
City Council approved the plan at a meeting Tuesday, the Bay Area News Group earlier reported.
The registry would apply to housing units covered by Oakland’s rent control ordinance, a group of properties that includes most rental units built before 1996. The city already has about $500,000 set aside for the plan and will next look for a contractor to set up the database, the Bay Area News Group reported. City staff are hoping to launch the program in early 2023.
“Having more data to inform policies is exactly what we need,” Councilmember Loren Taylor said, the paper reported.
Under the terms of the plan, landlords will be required to submit information about their units to the city annually; if they don’t, they could face penalties including prohibitions on future rent increases.
The program amounts to another tool to help local renters navigate a housing market that’s long ranked among the country’s most expensive: Last fall, thanks to research that found more than 80 percent Oakland properties were selling above asking price, the East Bay city ranked as the United States’ “most competitive housing market.” A Redfin report published last week put the median apartment rent in Oakland at about $3,750, the the sixth highest of any market in the country and the highest in California.
[Bay Area News Group] – Trevor Bach