City Councils Punt on Rent Control

| Updated

2 minute read

Thanks to diligent advocacy efforts, two Florida localities have said no to rent control.

Rent control conversations have persisted in Florida’s Tampa Bay Area for several months. On February 9, the City Council of St. Petersburg voted 3-1 not to pursue the rent control after the city’s attorneys confirmed what the rental housing industry has known for years: rent control in Florida is illegal and, more importantly, works counter to housing affordability efforts.

In addition, the City Council of Tampa reached a similar conclusion at their meeting on February 24. Rather than moving toward rent control, the Council voted to instead approve more rental assistance, – which has proven to provide immediate financial relief to renters in need without exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing.

City council members had initially pointed to state law as the pathway for bringing the policy forward. However, Florida law clearly implies that rent control should be considered a temporary measure of last resort for a true emergency, not for standard corrections in the market.

"Thankfully, Florida statute sets a very high bar and creates a potentially costly legal path for local governments looking to establish rent control," said Amanda White, Government Affairs Director for the Florida Apartment Association. "More importantly, we were pleased to see that the discussions in both St. Pete and Tampa noted that rent control is shown to have a negative effect on housing supply and investment in existing properties. Rather than pursue a failed policy solution like rent control, local governments should focus on addressing Florida's housing supply shortage by removing barriers to apartment construction."

Progressive lawmakers across the country and at every level of government have heralded rent control as a solution to pandemic-related housing insecurity. This directly contrasts the vast majority of economic research which maintains that limits on rent will destabilize the rental housing industry, stall development of new apartments and increase the cost of housing across the market. NAA research highlights these deleterious effects in four major U.S. cities.

While Florida’s law lays out necessary hurdles to enacting rent control, several states allow the policy to be implemented indefinitely by a simple vote of a local government. See NAA’s Rent Control Report for a state-by-state summary of relevant laws.

For more information about rent regulations, please contact Ben Harrold, Manager of Public Policy.