The California Apartment Association and its allies today derailed AB 1506, a bill to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and bring radical rent control back to California.

This morning, following lead testimony from the California Apartment Association, FPI Management and the California Association of REALTORS, AB 1506 failed passage in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee, all but closing the door on the bill for the balance of the legislative session.

Over 400 rental property owners came to the microphone and indicated their opposition to the measure, outnumbering the tenant advocates, who totaled nearly 300.

Following hours of testimony, AB 1506 lacked the needed votes to be passed out of the committee. The failure of the committee to vote the bill out today likely stops the bill from advancing to the Senate by the Jan. 30 legislative deadline.

Stopping AB 1506 — and protecting Costa-Hawkins — was a top priority for CAA. For more than 20 years, the Costa-Hawkins Act has prohibited local governments from applying rent control to units built after 1995, as well as single-family homes, individually owned condominiums and townhouses. Costa-Hawkins also requires all rent control ordinances to allow a rental property owner to set the rent at market rate once a tenant moves out and a new tenant moves in, a policy known as vacancy decontrol.

CAA has argued that repealing Costa-Hawkins would discourage investment in the existing rental housing stock and create a significant disincentive for the construction of new rental housing, worsening the state’s ongoing housing crisis.

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