Oregon lawmakers approved a bill Saturday to cap the amount landlords can increase rent on existing tenants to no more than 10% a year, sending it to Gov. Tina Kotek for final approval.
Senate Bill 611 limits annual rent increases to either 7% plus inflation or 10%, whichever is lower. It passed the Senate on a 17-8 vote Tuesday, then received 32-18 approval in the House Saturday following a heated discussion. Many of the lawmakers who spoke about the bill Saturday said they themselves are landlords.
Ten House members were excused and did not vote on the bill.
Andrea Valderrama, an east Portland Democrat, said the measure will help people stay in their homes, including children in low-income families who will be able to stay in the same elementary schools as they learn to read.
“If kids are continually priced out of their neighborhood schools, we may be the ones with a failing grade,” Valderrama said.
Landlords can raise rents as much as they wish between tenants, she noted.
But Kevin Mannix, a Salem Democrat, said the state is undermining its aspirations to increase its anemic housing supply. Restricting landlords’ ability to charge market rate rents will dampen the number of people willing to create rental housing and prompt some landlords to exit the market, he said.
“We’re going to put the screws to” landlords, Mannix said. “That will make it harder for us to get more housing.”
Oregon’s existing rent control law, passed in 2019 as the nation’s first statewide rent control measure, is similarly tied to inflation but does not have an upper limit. It was billed as “rent stabilization,” a middle ground that prevented massive rent increases intended as de facto evictions.
With last year’s runaway inflation, though, the rent cap permitted landlords to raise rents by as much as 14.6%. Rents across the state on average have increased only about 3.6%, though some landlords opted to increase rent by the full amount permitted.
Like the existing rule, the updated rent cap policy wouldn’t apply to buildings built less than 15 years ago.
Betsy Hammond of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this article.
— Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; 503-221-8228; @jamiebgoldberg
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