Despite Controversy, a Rent Cap Compromise Is Coming Together for Rent

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Update, 6/6

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The Council voted unanimously Tuesday to accept the amendment setting the 12 percent on rent increases at rent-controlled units. However, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, who originally backed a different proposal, faulted "the mayor's Rental Housing Commission" for creating this situation and said she continued to prefer a 10 percent cap instead. Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker added that "delivering relief to renters did not need to take this long or come up this short," but Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen suggested that the 12 percent cap will still be meaningful for renters and lawmakers could revisit it next year.

Original post follows

Against all odds, D.C. councilmembers are moving toward a compromise on the divisive issue of capping rent increases at rent-controlled apartments. That means Loose Lips and other lovers of drama on the dais can't count on a repeat of last week's craziness.

Three lawmakers who each submitted competing rent cap proposals last Tuesday—Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, and At-Large Councilmember Robert White—have teamed up on a solution that looks set to pass tomorrow. The new legislative language would impose a 12 percent cap on rent hikes over the next two years starting July 1 (with maximum allowable increases of 6 percent each year), according to a proposal circulated to the full Council Monday and forwarded to LL. For seniors and people with disabilities, those caps would be lower: 8 percent total and 4 percent each year.

The new bill closely matches the language up for consideration at the Council's last meeting, when Pinto advanced a surprise amendment to White's bill and then agreed to changes proposed by Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin. Those changes then prompted all the harried redrafting of the legislation on the fly that so rankled Lewis George and other councilmembers who backed a lower, 10 percent cap over the next two years. It appears that the benefit of a few days to work out all the specifics has turned the temperature down considerably.

Of course, this compromise position probably also stems from a little vote counting on the part of the left-leaning lawmakers backing the 10 percent cap. Six councilmembers were solidly in favor of that figure (Lewis George, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, and At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson), but finding a seventh vote to win the majority proved challenging. Activists lobbied Frumin and Robert White particularly hard, but that push appears over as the next Council meeting nears. Some around the Wilson Building expect that the updated amendment could pass unanimously.

"Things got out of hand last week," Council Chair Phil Mendelson told reporters Monday. "But I’m hopeful that things have been worked out."

Indeed, there was more bluster (fueled, in part, by progressives’ long-standing frustration with Mendelson's methods) than there were substantial policy differences on this question. As the weeks went by, it became increasingly clear that no lawmaker was willing to accept the 8.9 percent rent increases at rent-controlled units that the city's Rental Housing Commission recently allowed landlords to seek. Even Robert White's original proposal, which would have capped rent hikes at 6.9 percent for the next two years for a cumulative cap of 13.8 percent, quickly fell out of favor.

That meant all the shouting was really over a difference of two percentage points. Advocates note that such a difference could be potentially quite meaningful for renters, particularly because tenants in rent-controlled apartments are generally of more modest means. But it became increasingly challenging for progressives to make that case when more consensus-minded lawmakers were eager to strike a compromise with property owners who have lobbied hard against the caps while claiming they need to be able to raise rents to keep pace with rising expenses.

"I strongly support this compromise amendment to cap this year's unprecedented increase for rent-stabilized tenants, which I anticipate the Council will approve tomorrow," Frumin wrote in a statement to LL. "Our city is stronger when we have stable and affordable housing for all residents, and I’m pleased to be able to vote in support of this consensus proposal to provide immediate rent relief for tenants, especially seniors, across the District."

It remains to be seen, however, how activists on the left will respond to the decision to de-escalate on this fight after many reacted with outrage to Pinto's 11th-hour amendment (and Mendelson's decision to consider her amendment before he turned to the proposal from Lewis George, Nadeau, and Parker). The influential Jews United for Justice Campaign Fund wrote on Twitter that it would include this debate over the 10 percent cap as it assessed lawmakers for its annual Council scorecard; the Sunrise Movement's local chapter similarly urged its supporters to call councilmembers in support of the lower figure as late as Monday afternoon. The D.C. Tenants’ Advocacy Coalition did the same, suggesting lawmakers take the additional step of allowing for a lower cap if inflation rises at a slower rate than that 10 percent figure.

Of course, there's no denying that the advocates working on this issue and their Council allies have forced a pretty major shift here, even if they don't get exactly what they wanted. Consider that all this started back in April with a major loss, as Mayor Muriel Bowser used some budgetary games to block Robert White's first proposal entirely, which left the original 8.9 percent figure in place.

Back then, White and Parker were the only lawmakers talking seriously about introducing legislation on the subject; now, just about every councilmember has engaged on it to some extent. It may not be the sort of unequivocal win activists envisioned when Frumin and Parker won their elections, but it is still a clear sign of how the Council is changing.

Another dynamic LL will be watching: whether all this fighting meaningfully frays relationships on the Council moving forward. Mendelson said Monday that he felt "people are trying to read more into" all of last week's bickering than they should, but there's no denying that things got ugly. Lewis George's accusation that Mendelson was disrespecting Black councilmembers by moving to Pinto's amendment before hers certainly set tongues wagging around the Wilson Building. It's not the first time he's faced such complaints, to be sure; he has been similarly accused of treating his female colleagues disrespectfully when he disagrees with them, and this dustup fed into that narrative.

"It's what happens when we don't have an independent parliamentarian for the Council to call the balls and strikes without bias," Henderson said during an appearance on WAMU 88.5's The Politics Hour Friday, doing her best to be diplomatic. "Hopefully we will not be rewriting amendments on the dais as we were on Tuesday."

Mendelson continued to insist Monday that he felt he’d done nothing wrong, as he decided to take up Pinto's amendment first because he saw her ask for recognition first. "I’ve been around long enough to notice that whether somebody comes first or second, it doesn't make that much difference," he said.

Still, he said he planned to call Lewis George sometime Monday to discuss the whole matter. LL would kill to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

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