In an unusual split between Oakland and prominent tenant advocacy groups, the city has filed a forceful rebuttal in the federal lawsuit seeking to expand local rent control protections to newer housing in the city.

The legal face-off between Oakland and tenant groups was spurred by the California Apartment Association’s own legal filing in the case in April — a friend-of-the-court brief in which the association urged the court to reject the attack on the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Tenant advocates sought to counter CAA’s arguments in their own last-minute friend-of-the-court filing in support of the plaintiffs in the case, igniting the conflict with the city in the process.

The dual filings from the tenant advocates and city mark the latest development in the high-stakes case challenging the interaction between federal disability law and California’s Costa-Hawkins. Costa-Hawkins generally limits local governments from applying rent control to newer rental housing, and the plaintiffs are asking the court to order changes that would bring more recently built properties under Oakland’s rent control program.

The plaintiffs argue that federal disability law requires Oakland’s rent control program to be equally accessible to disabled tenants, which they say would require extending the program to newer buildings, including overriding Costa-Hawkins’ new construction exemption.

The plaintiffs — disabled renters with mobility limitations — note that federal fair housing rules require most multifamily housing built since 1991 to include accessibility features, while Oakland’s rent control program covers only housing built before 1983. That mismatch, they argue, effectively shuts disabled tenants who need accessible housing out of rent control.

Oakland’s city attorney made clear that he did not welcome the dispute. The city said it “strongly supports tenants’ rights” and “regrets” being pulled into a broader policy debate requiring it to respond to tenant advocates. The city stressed that the case places the court in the middle of deeply contested housing policy debates involving rent control, housing production, and regional housing mandates.

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed by the Western Center on Law & Poverty and the National Housing Law Project, argued that modern economic research does not support the conclusion that rent control suppresses housing production and contended that concerns about reduced development are overstated.

The filing also sought to rebut arguments raised by the California Apartment Association in its own friend-of-the-court brief opposing the plaintiffs’ requested relief. Among other things, the tenant advocates criticized CAA’s economic analysis and challenged claims that weakening Costa-Hawkins’ protections for newer housing would discourage development.

Because CAA is participating in the matter as a friend of the court, it was not permitted to file a response to the new brief. The City of Oakland, however, was allowed to respond — and did so emphatically.

In its response, the city argued that plaintiffs are asking the court to undertake a sweeping rewrite of local housing policy without meaningful evidence about how the proposed changes would affect housing supply, new development, maintenance of rental housing, or the withdrawal of units from the rental market.

Oakland also criticized the tenant advocates’ presentation of economic literature and out-of-state examples, arguing that the cited authorities often omitted important context. According to the city, many of the jurisdictions referenced by the Western Center on Law & Poverty and National Housing Law Project brief maintain substantial exemptions for new construction — in some cases permanently or for decades — making them poor comparisons to the relief sought in the Oakland litigation.

The city further noted that several studies and authorities cited in the briefing recognize that expanding rent control can reduce housing supply, discourage development, or incentivize owners to remove units from the rental market.

Perhaps most notably, Oakland warned that plaintiffs are asking the court to turn the city into what amounts to a real-world policy experiment — one with potentially serious and unpredictable consequences for housing production and local housing policy.

“Housing policy is a Gordian knot,” the city wrote. “Plaintiffs invite the Court to cut through it in a single hack, without considering the consequences.”

The city also cautioned that courts rarely — and should rarely — attempt to rewrite complex legislative compromises, particularly where voters and lawmakers have repeatedly weighed in on the issue through statutes and ballot measures as is the case with Costa-Hawkins.

The plaintiffs’ claim is not that disabled tenants are entitled to rent control, but that if the city offers such a program, federal law requires it to be equally accessible — even if that means overriding Costa-Hawkins.

The competing filings underscore how dramatically the litigation has evolved beyond a conventional disability accommodation dispute. What began as a challenge brought by disabled tenants has increasingly become a broader effort to use federal disability law to override longstanding California rent control limitations established by Costa-Hawkins and reshape housing policy through the courts.

For CAA members, the case is an important test of whether federal disability law can be used to force major changes to California rent control policy through the courts.

The hearing on the parties’ competing motions for summary judgment — requests asking the judge to decide the case without a trial — was held Thursday, May 28, before U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar. CAA will continue monitoring the proceedings and will provide updates once the court issues a ruling.