ADVOCATE

THE RENT REGISTRATION ORDINANCE

No Experience Needed: An Examination of the Rent Registration Ordinance

By Derek Barnes

Last June the Oakland City Council voted to approve a rent registry in Oakland. The law requires property owners of rental units subject to the Rent Adjustment Program Fee to provide property and renter information for each covered unit on an annual basis. In an effort to close the city’s information and enforcement gap, property owners must complete the form and register their units’ rents with Rental Assistance Program (RAP) for the first time by July 1, 2023. Owners who don’t meet the requirement will not be able to file a petition for rent increases or request hearings.

The presumption is that this seemingly basic information is readily available by owners and can be easily added to the rent registry with little impact to property owners. The City didn’t do its due diligence or take the time to understand the time and effort required to gather the information, if available, and register units. We’ve seen this before with other ordinances such as the Health Emergency Mandate (Eviction Moratorium) or arbitrarily imposing a 3% rent cap where no impact studies or analysis got done. The biggest complaint being lack of communication and stakeholder input.

Many rental property owners, along with EBRHA, criticized the City for not doing enough to send out communication to interested parties about the registration program before City Council voted to approve the registry. The exclusion of stakeholders to properly vet a proposed plan made it possible to vote without having a design of the rent registry first, before City Council’s approval. Documentation and communications from a recent FOIA request revealed that only a few people were involved in the final input process. These correspondences didn’t reveal

“It’s time for City Council to come out of their “Zoom towers” (members still meeting remotely) and engage with their constituents as empathetic public servants working on behalf of all citizens of Oakland.”

any meaningful process that involved the public. After Councilmembers approved the ordinance, meager attempts at owner outreach resulted in a few “tweaks” to the language in the document for Chapter 8.223 Article 1 (Rent Adjustment) in which the registration is included seemed to be the extent of the input provided.

A preliminary design of the registry got completed without impact analysis done or recognition of a specific problem the registry solved. The registry simply got presented to the City Council. It’s unclear who provided the specific guidance for what information to request in the online registration form itself or the fields of information to include. Without information that suggested expert input was provided to effectively design the systems and forms that captured data, the affected parties, property owners, had no say into the feasibility of gathering the answers.

EBRHA and its members monitor the Rent Board agenda and noted no proactive communication to key stakeholders about the registry. Property owners weren’t offered a seat at the table nor were they asked for input prior to City Council’s vote and approval of the ordinance to create a registry.

The City didn’t consider how these requirements would impact property owners and if renters would even consent to sharing rental information. The City’s website doesn’t include any background information that demonstrates the City followed any of its standard practices for developing new programs and legislation, including the failure to conduct an impact study on property owners and other stakeholders.

It’s time for City Council to come out of their “Zoom towers” (members still meeting remotely) and engage with their constituents as empathetic public servants working on behalf of all citizens of Oakland. City Council and staff didn’t have to figure out how to gather the information they’re demanding from property owners. And since they didn’t do an impact study, how would they understand the difficulties involved in collecting and furnishing the information? They wouldn’t know because there was no real discovery or analysis to fully understand stakeholder needs. We must hold our elected officials and municipal staff accountable to ensure they do the work to serve all constituents.

Only one Oakland Councilmember owns rental property, and few have actually run businesses. It’s easy to assume or prescribe something you’ve never had any experience doing, which is why impact studies and analysis are important. Often, our city officials don’t know the demands of property ownership. They don’t seek the advice and counsel from knowledgeable industry resources and can assume a lot of things. When untested assumptions form regulations and legislation, that’s never good for developing good policy. Our elected officials were not voted into office to be disengaged from their voting constituents or ignore their own rules for proper governance and oversight. Higher standards and greater accountability are required from our city leaders.

We elect our leaders to work for us. We must demand that Oakland’s new mayor and our City Councilmembers follow the municipal processes that have been set up to protect us. When leaders fail to follow their own rules and then demand we follow their uniformed and unvetted prescriptions, it creates injustice.

Derek Barnes is the CEO of EBRHA.