Amid a surge of Maryland jurisdictions passing laws to limit rent increases, Montgomery County councilmembers are jumping into the fray with proposals of their own. Two separate rent stabilization bills – a more aggressive measure shepherded by At-Large Councilmember Will Jawando, and a middle-road offering by District 6 Councilmember Natali Fani-Gonzalez – will hit the Council floor Tuesday, likely kicking off months of frenzied lobbying over a debate that has raged in the county for decades.

The bills, which reflect competing ideologies about how much leeway property owners should have to hike rents, come after a temporary measure to cap rent increases in the county at 0.4% expired last May. The passage of either would reflect a sea change in the region’s housing policy, particularly after the D.C. Council failed to move in recent years on an update to its own outdated rent stabilization law.

“We’re so large, you know, 1.1 million people, with a third of the county renting, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of households. And while most of our landlords are doing the right thing and increasing rents at a reasonable rate, even if just five or 10% aren’t, that’s thousands of people that are dealing with this issue. So we need to have consistency and stability in housing,” Jawando told DCist/WAMU. Affordability has long been a challenge in the county, where about a quarter of renters spend at least half their income on housing costs.

Jawando’s bill would permanently cap most rent increases at 3%, a limit, he says, that is consistent with what data show is on the high end of what is already the average hike. The figure mimics similar policies passed last month by the council of Prince George’s County, as well as the city of Mount Rainier, Md. 

Beyond the signature rent stabilization provision, Jawando’s bill lays out a broad set of regulations governing how much property owners can charge tenants and when they may do so, including when apartments turn over, during a long period of vacancy, and when properties are in poor condition. 

Crucially, the bill’s rent stabilization measure would also apply to many newer buildings, with an exemption carved out only for apartments that are 10 years old or newer. That provision is more aggressive than many of those in place in jurisdictions with rent stabilization laws, like California and Oregon, which exempt buildings newer than 15 years old. The “anti-gouging” bill being proposed by Fani-Gonzalez, which caps new increases at 8% plus inflation and is modeled after Oregon’s policy, also has a 15-year carveout. (In D.C., rent stabilization doesn’t apply to any apartments built after 1975.)

The debate about whether to subject new development to rent stabilization has proven a keystone in the policy’s implementation and made all the more pertinent in light of the metropolitan Washington region’s goal to add 320,000 new units of housing by 2030. Property owners and developers argue that they have little incentive to create new housing if they’ll see limits on their profit during a building’s more lucrative initial years. But in the meantime, tenants say they’re enduring astronomical hikes, in some cases seeing their rent jump by several hundred dollars.

 “It’s about putting something in place that’s effective, and actually addresses the concerns of low income, moderate income renters,” Jawando says. “I’ve met families that, you know, just a $50 increase could force them to move. And I think that’s something we have to really remember, as we’re putting a policy in place.”

The bloc of councilmembers behind the competing rent control bill, led by Fani-Gonzalez, is proposing a different approach. Fani-Gonzalez’s rent stabilization bill limits new hikes to inflation plus 8% – a figure aimed at preventing property owners from price gouging renters rather than restricting increases more broadly. 

Fani-Gonzalez, who tells DCist/WAMU she is “a progressive, like, all the way to the left,” says the county can’t afford to “scare developers” with their rent stabilization plan, given the region’s housing shortage and affordability crisis, and that the proposal offered by Jawando and Mink is simply too low for widespread buy-in from industry leaders. 

“Developers yes, they’re part of the equation here,” she said. “I want to help people but I also cannot just put something forward that will be based on one person’s view. I’ve got to see the whole range of views of people who are involved in housing in Montgomery County.” (To that point, Jawando says, “we passed stabilization during the pandemic, for over a year, and the sky didn’t fall. There’s still housing being built, the market is still here, [and] this is a desirable place to live.”)

Fani-Gonzalez cites a letter submitted Friday to members of the Montgomery County Council by representatives from 14 area real estate companies, which urged the group to limit any rent stabilization measures to 15%, as evidence that a lower cap would deter new construction.

Her anti-gouging bill also comes alongside two other bills aimed at providing financial assistance to renters and prospective homeowners. One would increase Montgomery County’s Rental Assistance Program to $30 million, up from $12 million, while the other would allocate $4.5 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to support first-time homebuyers and homeowners at risk of foreclosure. 

While five other councilmembers are throwing their support behind Fani-Gonzalez’s slate of bills, dubbed the Tenant Assistance and Protection Package, County Executive Marc Elrich has endorsed Jawando and Mink’s bill. In a press release issued Monday, Elrich said that even increases of 10% are “not affordable,” and that the 3% cap is “absolutely the right thing to do.”

“We have people who just don’t want us to do anything at all, to keep the status quo. No, we cannot keep the status quo. The status quo is giving us 15%, 20% rate increases. So the only way for us to do something that is really meaningful is to put a package forward with an anti rent gouging bill targeting extreme cases, plus rental assistance, homeownership opportunities, creating [more] deeply affordable housing. That’s what I’m doing,” Fani-Gonzalez says. “Am I going to please everybody? No, it’s impossible.”