The D.C. Council unanimously passed an emergency bill Tuesday capping many new rent increases at 6% starting July 1, bookmarking lawmakers’ frantic volley this spring to legislate around historic increases in rent prices.

The rate cap applies to rent-stabilized apartments – most multifamily buildings constructed before 1976 – and includes a provision that also prevents property owners from raising prices by more than 12% over two years. Seniors will see more aggressive protections, with new rent increases capped at 4% this year and 8% total over the next two years. While D.C. does not have an accurate count of the number of rent-stabilized apartments in the city, the figure could be as high as 70,000-80,000. 

Spearheaded by At-Large Councilmember Robert White with significant input by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin, the cap is meant to blunt the impact of a sharp spike in allowable rent increases authorized this year under the city’s rent stabilization law. 

“Since I took office in January, my team has responded to calls nearly every day from residents who are desperate. We’ve talked to seniors on fixed incomes. We’ve talked to parents who don’t know how or where they’re going to secure housing for their children. We’ve talked to individuals facing eviction,” Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker said Tuesday. “And the humbling question we answer when we talk to constituents is, how can we help them in profoundly challenging circumstances?”

“I ask my colleagues to consider that if we allow rent increases to continue at the existing high rates over the next two years, residents will face evictions and homelessness, and the District will end up paying more in the long run,” White said during a May 30 legislative session. 

D.C.’s existing rent stabilization law generally prohibits property owners from increasing rents by more than the rate of inflation plus 2%, with a maximum rate increase of 10%. (Seniors are subject to more stringent increases.) In January, the Rental Housing Commission – the city board that calculates inflation – approved an 8.9% rate increase, which went into effect May 1. It’s the highest allowable rent increase in the program’s 40-plus year history. 

During budget negotiations earlier this spring, both White and Parker tried to move legislation that would have capped new rent increases at 6.9 and 5 percent, respectively. But in an eyebrow-raising showdown with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s staff at the Department of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the Rental Housing Commission, lawmakers were forced to withdraw their bills when agency staff claimed it could not absorb the cost of their proposals. 

“The rationale advanced to support that claim was exceedingly questionable and delayed action by the Council for two months,” Parker said Tuesday. “The bottom line is that the executive was unwilling to spend $100,000 … to save District residents from obscene 8.9% increases in their rent.” White worked alongside D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson to add money to next year’s budget, allowing the council to move forward with new proposals.

But by the time councilmembers resolved the bureaucratic issues that prevented them from taking action, they squabbled over the particulars of the plan: during a May 30 vote on White’s proposed 6.9% cap, chaos derailed the session, as Mendelson permitted lawmakers to rewrite an amendment from Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto while seated on the dais. Mendelson ultimately punted the vote to early June. 

A cohort of councilmembers, including George, Parker, and Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau consistently lobbied this spring for a 5% cap – the figure favored by tenant organizers and advocates in the affordable housing community. “I believe we can do better [than 6.9%],” George said in May. 

But White touted his 6.9% proposal as a compromise, one that left both progressives and those in the apartment lobby with a sour taste. 

“How can we expect rent-controlled properties to comply with [energy goals], refinance in a high-interest rate environment, continue to conduct maintenance and major capital improvements, and maintain affordability when the council routinely mandates revenue reductions?” Alex Rossello, a communications director for the metro D.C. Apartment and Office Building Association, said in an emailed statement to DCist/WAMU in May. 

Calling the cap “extremely damaging,” Rossello argued that the Rental Housing Commission’s current formula for calculating rent increases accounts for rising operating costs and “forestall[s] reactionary decision-making while maintaining affordability.”

Yet renters have told DCist/WAMU that an increase of 8.9% could be the difference between being able to stay in their homes for another year or having to move – and the increases come as emergency rental assistance bottoms out and homelessness rises sharply across the region.

“The council should not have been put in a position to make these changes, and that is precisely why we have a rental [housing] commission, to ensure fair and effective rental adjustments that protect tenants,” George said Tuesday. “But in the absence of their leadership in these unusual inflationary times, I am proud of us for stepping up and stepping in.”

The D.C. Council’s vote comes on the heels of similar measures passing in surrounding jurisdictions, including in Prince George’s County and Mount Rainier. Montgomery County lawmakers are weighing two rent stabilization bills, too, and will meet in mid-June to discuss them.