Top image: Courthouse Square in downtown Redwood City. Photo: BrokenSphere / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Redwood City voters have been asked about many things in recent years, from downtown office towers to transit taxes. On Nov. 3 they will decide something more personal to the city’s renters: whether the city should adopt its own rent control program. Measure E, a citizen initiative, would repeal the chapter of the municipal code that governs rental housing and replace it with one that rolls rents back, caps future increases and builds a new city office to administer it all.
With ballots already arriving, the Chronicle read the official election materials the city and San Mateo County have published: the council’s resolution placing the measure on the ballot, City Attorney Veronica Ramirez’s impartial analysis, and the arguments and rebuttals filed by each side. What follows is drawn from those documents.
How it got here
According to City Council Resolution No. 16425, three residents filed a notice of intent on Oct. 29, 2025, to circulate the “Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance.” Petitions were turned in on April 23, 2026, and the county elections office verified 4,751 valid signatures on May 13, enough for the city clerk to certify the measure on May 19. On June 8 the council requested a supplemental report under Elections Code section 9212, the provision that lets a city study an initiative’s fiscal and planning effects before acting.
On July 7, the council voted 7-0 to place the measure on the November ballot, the routine step when an initiative qualifies. The ballot question summarizes it as repealing and replacing Municipal Code Chapter 42, limiting rent increases on multifamily housing built before Feb. 1, 1995, expanding “just cause” eviction protections to most rental units, including single-family homes, accessory dwelling units and affordable housing, increasing relocation assistance, and establishing new administration estimated at $5 million to $11 million a year, funded by fees on landlords. It passes with a simple majority.
What the measure would do
The city attorney’s impartial analysis is the most neutral description voters will get, and it is precise about the changes.
Today, the analysis notes, current law caps annual rent increases at between 5% and 10%, depending on local inflation, for specified units 15 years old or older, and exempts single-family homes, condominiums and housing built after Feb. 1, 1995, from local rent control.
Measure E would impose local rent control on specified units built before that 1995 date. It would set each unit’s base rent at the amount paid on Oct. 29, 2025, for tenants living there that day, the date the initiative’s notice of intent was filed, or at the initial rent for tenancies that began later. Annual increases would then be capped at 60% of the change in local inflation and no more than 5%. Both landlords and tenants could petition the city for adjustments in specified circumstances.
On evictions, the measure would extend just-cause requirements to single-family homes, ADUs, deed-restricted affordable housing and mobile homes. It would add protections against eviction for elderly and disabled tenants and for households with children or educators during the school year, and it would give tenants a right to return after any no-fault eviction. Relocation payments for no-fault evictions would rise to four times the HUD fair-market rent or $12,000, whichever is greater, plus an additional $6,000 for elderly or disabled tenants.
The measure also requires landlords to provide tenant safety plans before major renovations, regulates buyout agreements, prohibits specified bad-faith conduct and creates civil remedies, including treble damages in some cases. To run it, the city would have to set annual allowable increases, hear petitions, write regulations and collect an annual fee from landlords.
The case for
The argument in favor is signed by Amelia Garibay of Faith in Action Bay Area, Edith Salvatore of the Sequoia District Teachers Association, Felipe Donaire of AFSCME Local 829, Paul Bocanegra, who describes himself as a small landlord, and a homeowner. It frames the measure as a response to market concentration, asserting that corporate landlords and real estate investment trusts bought 87% of the city’s multifamily housing, and to rent increases it describes as reaching $350 a month.
Supporters point out that more than 30 California cities have rent control, including Mountain View and East Palo Alto, and stress that increases would be held to 60% of inflation or 5%, whichever is lower. They say the program would be paid for by a small fee on landlords, not the city’s general fund, and that more than 7,000 voters signed the petitions.
In their rebuttal, signed by Jill Ohline, identified as a small landlord, and four residents, supporters say the measure would keep more than 6,300 apartments affordable and stabilize housing for 40,000 neighbors at no taxpayer cost. They argue that small landlords who rent single-family homes are exempt from rent control under state law, that post-1995 units are exempt, and that nonprofits could petition for relief.
The case against
The argument against carries notable signatures: Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos, Councilmember Isabella Chu, Amy Buckmaster, chief executive of the Chamber San Mateo County, and Michael Pierce, board president of the St. Francis Center, a Redwood City nonprofit housing provider, among others. It states that the City Council voted 6-0 to oppose the measure.
Opponents argue that Measure E would repeal the tenant protections the city already has rather than build on them. They cite a city-commissioned analysis that found the program could cost up to $11 million a year and require up to 18 new full-time staff, and they note the measure bars use of general-fund money, which they say could force cuts elsewhere or new taxes if fees fall short. They contend it would burden nonprofit affordable housing providers, owners of single-family homes and in-law units, and that any future fix would require another citywide election.
Their rebuttal sharpens the cost point, saying “two independent financial analyses” reached the $11 million and 18-staff figures, and calling that “not a small fee.” It says the measure does not exempt nonprofits such as St. Francis Center, that relocation payments of $12,000 to $25,000 could be owed when owners move back in or renovate, and that budget pressure could put police and fire services at risk.
Where the documents actually disagree
Read side by side, the two campaigns agree on more facts than their rhetoric suggests. Both accept that the program would cost several million dollars a year; the council’s own ballot language puts it at $5 million to $11 million. Both accept that the money is meant to come from landlord fees. The disagreement is over who ultimately bears that cost, how high the fee per unit would be, and whether a program funded entirely by fees is stable.
The second real dispute is coverage. Supporters emphasize that state law already exempts single-family homes and newer buildings from rent caps, so Measure E’s rent limits would fall mainly on older apartment buildings. Opponents focus on the just-cause and relocation provisions, which, according to the impartial analysis, would reach single-family homes, ADUs and deed-restricted affordable housing. Both statements can be true at once: the rent caps are narrow; the eviction rules are broad.
The third is the rollback. Setting base rents at their Oct. 29, 2025, level means some tenants who have received increases since then would see rents reduced. Neither side’s argument dwells on how many units that affects.
The campaign on the ground
The San Mateo County Association of Realtors has been recruiting volunteers for the No on E campaign. The Chronicle has not independently verified spending totals for either side and will report on campaign finance filings as they post.
Turnout will matter. As of 5 p.m. Oct. 22, the San Mateo County elections office reported 449,000 registered voters countywide and 60,898 vote-by-mail ballots already returned, plus 590 cast at vote centers. Redwood City-specific returns were not broken out in that report.
The long view
Measure E is a test of a question the Peninsula has argued about for a decade: whether the region’s housing shortage is best answered by protecting existing tenants or by encouraging the construction of new units, and whether those goals conflict. Mountain View and East Palo Alto, the two neighbors supporters cite, chose rent stabilization years ago. Redwood City is now weighing whether its older apartment stock should be governed by rules its newer buildings would not face.
Whatever the outcome, the documents point to one durable consequence. Because it is an initiative, Measure E, if approved, could be changed substantially only by another vote of the people. That makes the drafting, the rollback date, the fee structure and the definitions as consequential as the headline cap, and it is why both campaigns are urging voters to read past the slogans.
Sources
- Redwood City Council Resolution No. 16425 (July 7, 2026), with ballot question
- City Attorney’s Impartial Analysis of Measure E
- Argument in favor of Measure E
- Argument against Measure E
- Rebuttal to argument in favor
- Rebuttal to argument against
- San Mateo County Elections: Nov. 3, 2026 Statewide General Election
- SAMCAR: No on Measure E team
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