Rent Board says rent-control rules are working; recommends registration form and IT improvements

The Portland Rent Board presented its annual report to the City Council on June 2, reporting that the rent-control ordinance is functioning, applications and appeals are being processed in a timely manner, and courts have generally upheld board decisions in appeals.

Matthew Lacks, Rent Board chair, said the board is addressing administrative backlogs inherited from prior years and has worked to improve rules and procedures to speed up case handling. “The rent control ordinance seems to be working,” Lacks said, and noted the board had no major ordinance-change recommendations at this time. The board’s recommendations focus on awareness, ease of use and procedural improvements to make filing and calculations simpler for registrants.

Board member Matt Walker described recent staff efforts to investigate compliance issues and thanked the city manager and staff for quarterly reporting to the HEDC and the Rent Board. Walker and councilors discussed how registration currently asks registrants to supply base rent (June 2020) and year-to-year figures; the board said the current registration interface can lead to confusion about banked rent and the categories landlords use to report increases.

“We don’t really do registrations, but … when a registrant registers their units, they report the base rent,” Walker said, and recommended clearer registration questions and a more user-friendly interface. He suggested the system should calculate allowable rent increases and show how much banked rent remains, so both tenants and landlords can easily see allowable amounts.

Councilors thanked the Rent Board for its volunteer work and supported a workshop to explore enforcement and possible process-focused recommendations. The Rent Board’s report and the board’s recommended procedural and IT improvements were accepted as communications to council.