Four Stories, 3% Hikes and a Mansion-Tax Fight That Fizzled: City Hall's Housing Summer

The council's Low-Rise Ordinance buys L.A. four years on a state density law — while the first rent-control rewrite since 1985 quietly starts saving tenants money.

The most consequential housing vote at City Hall this summer was less about building up than buying time. On June 23, the City Council adopted its Low-Rise Ordinance, legalizing apartment buildings up to four stories in 57 transit-adjacent neighborhoods — a maneuver that lets Los Angeles postpone the full force of state law SB 79, which would otherwise allow five-to-nine-story buildings near rail and rapid-bus stops, until 2030, per LAist. Every member present voted for the delay (Traci Park was absent), and the package headed to Mayor Karen Bass for signature.

For tenants, the quieter story is the one hitting their mailboxes. The council's overhaul of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance — the first rewrite of the formula since 1985, approved 12-3 last November — replaced a system that permitted hikes as high as 10% with a 1% floor and 4% ceiling pegged to 90% of regional inflation, and scrapped the old utility surcharges, per LAist and KTLA. The new math took effect July 1: allowable increases for rent-stabilized units — home to roughly 42% of the city's households, per LAist — are capped at 3% through June 2027, per the city's Housing Department. Pair that with the council's 12-1 vote this spring to approve a nearly $107 million eviction-defense contract with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles over the city attorney's objections, per LAist, and the tenant side of the ledger has had a notable run.

Then there's the fight that didn't happen. On July 1 — the deadline to place measures on the November ballot — the council voted 14-0 to shelve a proposal that would have exempted new apartment buildings from Measure ULA for their first decade, per LAist. The “mansion tax” has generated more than $1.2 billion for affordable housing and tenant assistance since 2023, and Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who co-authored the shelved exemption, warned colleagues that “the pressure behind ULA reform is not going to go away.” At City Hall, even the housing fights that get tabled tell you where the leverage sits.