The Redwood City rent and eviction control ballot measure now has a powerful opponent after the City Council voted 6-0, with one abstention, to oppose the sweeping rent and eviction control initiative headed to the Nov. 3 ballot.

In a separate vote, the council appointed Mayor Elmer Martinez Saballos and Councilmember Isabella Chu to draft an argument against the measure for the voter information guide and organize the remaining signatories. That motion passed 5-0, with two abstentions.

The votes followed advocacy by the California Apartment Association, local housing providers and community partners who urged the council to take a formal position and explain the measure’s consequences to voters. The city clerk counted 19 people in the public-comment queue. Most of those who addressed the council urged it to oppose the measure or raised concerns about the proposal.

“Remaining neutral will not help voters make an informed decision,” Rhovy Lyn Antonio, CAA senior vice president of local public affairs, told the council. “When the evidence points to significant risks, remaining silent is not neutrality. It is choosing not to act on the findings before you and withholding your informed judgment from the voters who elected you to exercise it.”

The initiative would impose local rent control on covered housing built before Feb. 1, 1995. It also would add eviction restrictions, relocation-payment requirements, right-to-return provisions, enforcement powers and a new city-run regulatory program. Some of those provisions would apply more broadly than the rent cap, including to categories of rental housing exempt from local rent control under current state law.

The city’s supplemental economic and fiscal analysis estimated that the program could cost between $5 million and $11.1 million annually to administer. Under the consultant’s highest-enforcement scenario, program costs could approach $756 per unit during the first two years — far above the initiative’s stated initial fees of $84 to $120 per unit.

Mayor Martinez Saballos said those costs could affect more than the city’s housing programs.

“I think it would leave the city in a position of fiscal instability, and I think it would risk our ability to render the services that our residents expect of the city,” he said.

Council members also focused on the measure’s potential effects on housing supply and affordable housing providers.

Councilmember Chu warned that reducing the number of available rental homes could undermine tenants’ ability to choose among competing housing providers.

“We want landlords competing on price and quality,” Chu said. “We don’t want tenants competing for a handful of available units.”

Councilmember Diane Howard cited concerns raised by nonprofit affordable housing providers that limits on their ability to recover repair and maintenance costs could disrupt their operating models.

“That will ruin our formula completely because we’re already artificially low, and if we can’t even recover our costs for repairs and maintenance, then how can we stay in business?” Councilmember Howard said, recounting testimony from the St. Francis Center. “That’s a real problem.”

Councilmember Marcella Padilla reached a similar conclusion after reviewing the city’s reports.

“I will also be formally opposing this measure because I think it hurts the very communities it claims to want to help,” Councilmember Padilla said.

CAA mobilized rental housing providers before the meeting, asking them to attend, submit comments and urge council members to oppose the initiative and authorize a ballot argument. The council’s action gives voters a formal city position alongside the arguments they will receive before the election.

The initiative remains on the Nov. 3 ballot, and Redwood City voters will make the final decision.