Prince George’s County Council passed a temporary bill on Tuesday requiring landlords across the county to limit rent increases for the next year to no more than 3% from the last stated rental price. The law would apply to all new leases executed after the bill’s implementation.

Public buildings, as well as new properties built within the last five years, are exempt from the bill. This rent stabilization effort comes after an onslaught of reports from renters that their landlords were hiking rent by $400 or more a month.

“I am taking away your opportunity to take advantage of people, and I’m not going to apologize for that,” Krystal Oriadha, the District 7 Councilmember who spearheaded the bill, told industry representatives at Tuesday’s hearing. “I do not apologize that you are not going to have the opportunity to take advantage of the market.”

The vote followed three hours of often emotional testimony from renters in the county. Many tearfully recounted receiving notices in recent months that their rent would increase by several hundred dollars — in some cases by as much as $800. Even District 6 Councilmember Wala Blegay chimed in to say that, at one point in her life, her father’s rent doubled overnight; she voted in favor of the bill.

The public hearing preceding Tuesday’s vote was front-loaded with real estate executives who lobbied against all forms of rent control. However, multiple elected officials from various jurisdictions across Prince George’s County testified on Tuesday in its favor. Mount Rainier Mayor Celina Benitez, whose city passed its own rent stabilization bill just last week, urged Prince George’s officials to do so across the county. “We’re not selfish, we believe this is a county issue and a state issue,” Benitez said.

Hyattsville Councilmember Danny Schaible, noting that his city is majority-renter, asked that county officials think of those who “are one misstep away from eviction or homelessness.” Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, too, has publicly endorsed the council’s rent stabilization bill.

Detractors included At-Large Councilmember Mel Franklin, who has co-introduced a competing bill that would instead limit rent increases to 20%, to combat only the most egregious price-gouging. Precipitating a terse exchange with Oriadha, Franklin used D.C.’s rent stabilization bill to justify his lack of support for the policy: “Why do you think the District of Columbia doesn’t apply rent control to anything built after 1975?” he asked. “It’s a policy long since abandoned in the past.”

Oriadha fired back: “I know I can sleep at night with the bill I put forward.”

First time violations will rack up a $500 fine, with subsequent infractions seeing a $1,000 fine.