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Mountain View rent-stabilization staff: 3,369 public inquiries, housing help centers assist 230 tenant households in FY24–25
Summary
Staff presented the Rent Stabilization Division's FY24'25 activity report showing 3,369 public inquiries, high registration and fee-payment rates for covered properties, extensive outreach and mediation work, and rising market rents. Committee members praised outreach and raised concerns about capital improvement petitions and vacancy trends.
Staff from the Rent Stabilization Division presented the committee with its fiscal year 2024'25 activity report on Aug. 28, reporting 3,369 inquiries from the public and detailed outreach, mediation and housing-help statistics.
The report, delivered by a Rent Stabilization Division staff member, said the division logged approximately 1,100 phone calls, 1,678 emails, 473 walk-in visitors and 117 scheduled appointments in the year. "You'll see here we responded to 3,369 inquiries from the public," the staff member said. About half of inquiries came from tenants and half from landlords; 12% of inquiries were in Spanish.
The nut graf: the report outlines the division's workload and service levels and shows high compliance on registration and fee payment for covered properties while also flagging market trends that could affect affordability.
In outreach and education, the division said it hosted 44 workshops with 318 participants (824 YouTube views), 50 virtual office-hour sessions with 99 participants, and took part in 109 outreach events reaching 3,639 people. The division maintains two housing help centers: a weekly landlord center (43 sessions, 68 landlords assisted) and a tenant help center held roughly twice monthly (22 sessions, 230 tenant households assisted). "48% of the people who attended the Housing Help Center required assistance in a language other than English," staff reported; 83% of tenant households assisted reported annual household incomes under $55,000.
On enforcement and notices, staff said the division recorded 1,075 termination notices and 1,026 failure-to-pay-rent notices during the year; 569 unique households received failure-to-pay notices. The division also tracked 21 eviction-withdrawn notices and two owner-move-in notices.
Registration and market metrics: staff reported 682 fully covered properties representing 12,753 units and 12 partially covered properties representing 1,686 units. "96% of our properties are registered compared to 95% last year, and 96% have paid their rental housing fees," the staff member said. The report put average market rent for fully covered units at about $2,894 and overall vacancy for fully covered units at 4% (partially covered units 3.2%; newly built units 14.6%).
Committee members commended parts of the report. Vice Chair Cox said the registration and fee-payment rates were improvements: "96% is the best that we've seen yet, I think." Member Balch cautioned that zero specified-capital-improvement petitions is a warning sign about long-term property maintenance: "that means that landlords are not seeing it worthwhile to really look after the long term condition of their property."
Staff also reported on mobile-home parks: Mountain View has six parks totaling 1,130 spaces; 100% of parks have registered and paid the rental-space fees. The division said it received 18 mobile-home inquiries in the year and no MHRSO petitions or no-fault evictions in FY24'25.
Ending: staff closed by inviting committee questions; members asked follow-up about specific notice categories and outreach steps. The committee moved on to regulatory amendment items later in the meeting.
