Santa Ana’s rental housing providers got a small reminder this summer of how rent control really works.
On August 1, the fee landlords must pay for every unit they register with the city’s Rental Registry went from $100 to $104.
Four dollars. A rounding error, some might say. But that rounding error is a 4% increase, and it says everything about the double standard at the heart of Santa Ana’s rent control ordinance.
The Rental Registry is part of the city’s Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance. Every landlord in Santa Ana must register every rental unit every year and pay the fee. The registry exists to administer and enforce rent control.
When the cost of running that program goes up, the city does what any rational business would do: it raises its price. In this case, by 4%.
Now consider the people paying that fee.
Under the ordinance, Santa Ana housing providers may raise rents by no more than 3% a year or 80% of the annual change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. For Sept. 1, 2026, through Aug. 31, 2027, that cap is 2.87%. The year before, it was 2.42%.
The progressive and leftists who backed this ordinance don’t care how fast a landlord’s costs are rising. Property insurance premiums have exploded across California. Utility bills keep climbing. Plumbers, roofers, electricians and the materials they use all cost more than they did a year ago. If those costs rise faster than 2.87%, too bad. The landlord eats the difference.
The city, on the other hand, gets to raise its own fees by whatever it decides it needs.
Defenders of the rent control ordinance respond that a landlord who can’t earn a “fair and reasonable return” can file a petition, try and prove their case and obtain permission to charge more from a Rental Housing Board that has been stacked with rent control advocates who believe rents are already too high.
Think about what that means. The city sets its fee and raises it as it sees fit. A housing provider who wants to cover rising costs has to run a gauntlet of bureaucracy and red tape: fill out paperwork, open the books and argue the case in front of a city bureau.
Assuming they can even obtain a decision: in 2025 and 2026, the Rental Housing Board has met only 7 times while cancelling 14 meetings. What’s that saying?: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
One set of rules for City Hall. Another for everyone else.
Rent control advocates like to cast landlords as greedy. But the registry fee shows that rising costs are real, and that the city knows it. Santa Ana raised its fee because running the registry costs more than it used to. Owning, maintaining and insuring an apartment building does too.
The difference is that the city gave itself permission to keep up and denied that same permission to the people who actually provide Santa Ana’s rental housing.
Over time, that gap compounds. Revenue capped below inflation, while costs rise with it or faster, means deferred maintenance, fewer upgrades and less reason for anyone to build or keep rental housing in Santa Ana. That doesn’t help tenants. It just transfers the bill to them later, in the form of aging buildings and a shrinking supply of rental homes.
Four dollars isn’t going to bankrupt anyone. But if a 4% increase is reasonable for the city, it’s hard to argue that 2.87% is a fair ceiling for everyone else.
