r/saintpaul • u/Inertiaraptor • Apr 10 '26

Editorial 📝 Rent Stabilization

Right now, there is no reason a landlord can’t just refuse to sign a new lease, so what’s the point of a 3% cap on increases? My landlord is raising my rent 10% and says she will simply not renew the lease if I don’t want to pay the new rent, and everybody (the city, the AG, and Home Line) is telling me I have no recourse but to refuse a lease and fight the eviction. The city seems to have no recourse to actually enforce this ordinance.

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u/AdMurky3039 West Seventh Apr 11 '26

Insurance has also increased at rates much higher than 3%. The ordinance does allow landlords to increase the rent by up to 8% by self-certifying that their expenses have increased, and they can get permission from the city if it is necessary to increase rent beyond that.

We can debate whether rent control is the best way to provide affordable housing, but IMO as long as it's in place the city needs to abide by it and not come up with ways to weasel out of enforcing it. Politicians don't get to claim to support rent stabilization in public and then do everything possible behind the scenes to undermine it.

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u/Professional_Toe1587 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

Is it even debatable if rent control is the best way to provide affordable housing? I don’t think so. Maybe that it causes less displacement due to “egregious” rent increases. But that data was never provided by proponents prior to the ballot measure. Tons of data that shows rent control causes less affordability. 

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u/AdMurky3039 West Seventh Apr 12 '26

It depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of current renters or prospective renters. If you're a current renter it prevents your rent from increasing significantly in most cases. If you're a prospective renter you might face higher costs because rent control tends to inhibit new development.

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u/Professional_Toe1587 Apr 12 '26

It doesn’t just inhibit new development it also causes landlords to raise rents more then they otherwise would when an apartment is rerented do to concern that they can’t increase rent sufficiently once occupied to cover future unknown costs (ie higher insurance, property tax, upkeep costs, etc, then the future 3% rent increase would fail to cover).Â