Against a backdrop of increasing housing insecurity, St. Paul voters went to the polls Tuesday to approve a ballot measure that will cap residential rents at 3 percent annually, across the board and without exception for small landlords or new housing construction.
Early returns and interviews outside polling locations showed the “rent stabilization” ballot initiative had drawn sizable support across the renter-majority city. With all 95 precincts reporting, supporters prevailed with 53 percent to 47 percent of the vote.
“We think families deserve stability, and to be able to put down roots,” said Dayton’s Bluff resident Sarah Degner Riveros, a Spanish professor who voted “yes” alongside her 18-year-old daughter Anna Fields, a first-time voter.
Others said they would vote “yes” despite reservations, and expressed concern about fundraising against the initiative by the real estate development community.
“I wish there was a bigger and longer-term discussion with the people that live in the city, with constituents,” said Alisha Nehring, after voting at the Martin Luther King Community Recreation Center in Ward 1. “I feel like it’s thrown on the ballot. There’s big business behind the ‘Vote No’ initiative. … I have concerns about amendments that can be made before the city council and what that process would look like. So maybe I don’t agree with specific terms but I don’t want the issue to disappear.”
The prospect of seemingly voting with real estate developers over tenants seemed to turn some voters off, even those with questions about how rent control would work. On social media, a voter calling himself @MinnesotaSpicy said he “made a game-day ‘yes’ vote mostly based on who was supporting no.”
Proponents such as TakeAction Minnesota, the Alliance, the West Side Community Organization, and the Frogtown Neighborhood Association said the cap would prevent excessive rent spikes on low-income tenants when rental properties change hands. Landlords have traditionally raised rents by less than 3 percent annually, they said, and the city would have to create a process to allow special exemptions when necessary.
Critics expressed concern that a rent cap in St. Paul, which already lags Minneapolis in new housing construction, would complicate financing and scare away investors. Officials with the Ryan Cos. noted that in special tax districts, a slowdown in market-rate construction at sites such as Highland Bridge, the former Ford Motor Co. campus in Highland Park, could have a ripple effect that removes a vital funding source for new affordable housing.
In Seattle, some studies have shown that a rent-control initiative led small landlords to sell off modest properties to national chains, convert units into condos or move into them, reducing the supply of locally owned affordable units.
In St. Paul, the opposition was led by the “Sensible Housing Ballot Committee,” which had raised $4 million by mid-October through a coalition of multi-family building owners, real estate developers, Realtors and builders, including the state’s two largest housing construction-related labor unions. Their concerns about unintended consequences were echoed by four of the seven members of the St. Paul City Council, and to some degree by Mayor Melvin Carter, who said last month he would vote “yes” for rent control while seeking changes.
I voted in Saint Paul in person, slight line for cheery younger election workers. Ranked the two candidates I knew about and made a game day yes vote mostly based on who was supporting no.
— Brian (@MinnesotaSpicy) November 2, 2021
Whether changes are possible is still a question. In the week leading into the election, the city council learned from the city attorney’s office that amending a voter-approved ballot measure could be tricky, and it would open the city to litigation if amendments appear to veer from the voters’ intent. Under the city charter, however, the ballot measure could be repealed in its entirety after a year.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Minneapolis voters — 53 percent to 47 percent — authorized their city council to craft a rent-control measure.
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Cap rents at 3 percent annually? St. Paul rent control advocates, critics went to the polls - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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