San Francisco tenants living under rent control can be hit with years of accumulated rent increases all at once. A new proposal at City Hall would cap how much of that banked increase a landlord can impose in a single year at 10%, aiming to soften the blow without eliminating it entirely.
Supervisor Danny Sauter developed the proposal alongside Mayor Daniel Lurie, according to Axios. The legislation would cap annual increases from banked rent and certain capital-improvement costs at 10% for rent-controlled tenants through 2029, and it would apply to banked increases issued on or after September 15. It would not touch San Francisco’s regular annual allowable rent increase, which currently stands at 1.6%.
Under existing rules, rent-controlled landlords can raise rents by a small percentage each year, and if they skip that increase, they can save it and impose it later. There is currently no overall cap on how much banked rent a landlord can apply at once, though rent generally can only go up once every 12 months. Property owners may reach for those banked increases after skipping annual hikes or holding off during softer rental markets, and tenant advocates say the increases often surface after a building changes ownership or a tenant requests repairs.
A 65.8% Increase for One Senior Couple
Aleida García Aguirre, a counselor with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, is currently working with a senior couple facing a 65.8% banked rent increase. The couple has lived in their apartment since 1990. García Aguirre said the new cap would slow the increase down but would not stop their rent from rising, and she argued the proposal does not address the underlying problem because landlords could still apply accumulated increases over several years…