FILE: Downtown Santa Barbara.

A little more than a month after its city council voted in favor of a precedent-setting rent freeze, representatives and residents of Santa Barbara remain divided over how to continue to tackle the wealthy city’s most pressing issue: housing.

On the one hand, both sides acknowledge that some kind of sweeping reform is necessary to address the housing and affordability crisis here. Both sides are also acutely aware that decisions made here could have implications statewide, and beyond. 

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However, that may be all that those for and against the rent freeze can agree on. The rent freeze remains contentious even as the city council works out a permanent ordinance.

Earlier this month, a group of Santa Barbara property owners and the Santa Barbara Rental Property Association, an organization that represents local property owners, filed a lawsuit against the city, calling the rental freeze ordinance unconstitutional. 

The Paseo Nuevo mall in Santa Barbara, Calif., is mostly empty on Oct. 17, 2025. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on April 3, alleges that the four city council members who voted in favor of the ordinance “abused [the council’s] discretion in introducing and adopting the Ordinances and failed to comply with its own charter.”

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The lawsuit further alleges that city council members “recklessly hastened the legislative process,” arguing that Councilmembers Wendy Santamaria and Kristen Sneddon introduced “a novel rent ordinance without public notice.” 

The lawsuit also alleges that the city of Santa Barbara and the council members disregarded public comment from property owners, saying that “some of the councilmembers laughed, shook their heads, or rolled their eyes at the concerns of distressed commenters, demonstrating an impenetrable bias.”

Barry Cappello, the attorney representing the property owners, told SFGATE last week that the rental freeze is in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, which asserts that private property cannot “be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

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Pedestrians walks in the Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.

However, the rental freeze doesn’t involve the city of Santa Barbara taking property away from its landlords. Cappello, who was Santa Barbara’s city attorney for seven years in the 1970s, said to look at the rent freeze in a context similar to a zoning law that restricts how someone can operate their property without getting back some type of compensation. 

“I think of rent control sort of like a zoning ordinance. So zoning, of course, you can zone because it’s in the public welfare to zone. But what you can’t do is zone something to prevent someone’s fair return in their property,” he told SFGATE. Property owners, he noted “can petition to show where they’re not getting a fair return after the government agency has made a decision.”

The attorney maintains that overstepping in this manner is exactly what the city has done with its current rental freeze. 

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Capello also appeared at the April 7 city council meeting, where a steady stream of members of the public commented on the rental freeze ordinance, as well as the bigger affordable housing ordinance that the majority on the city council are trying to push through.

Pedestrians walk under the bridge near the Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.

During his comments, Cappello said the lawsuit would be dropped immediately if the city rolls back the rental freeze: “This lawsuit that we filed, we’re happy to dismiss it,” he said. “We’re happy not to take your money. We’re happy not to take the citizens’ money, and it’ll be significant, believe me. Take the time. Put your rent freeze ordinance aside.”

He doubled down on that sentiment when he spoke with SFGATE on Thursday. He said that as a former city attorney, his advice to the city council would be to stop and do it right, “make sure this rent stabilization ordinance is going to pass, and make sure it’s going to be valid,” he continued. “And they should be able to do that because there’s rent control in other cities.”

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But right now, he said, the freeze is a mistake, one that could lead to others as a permanent ordinance takes shape. “In the end, I’m looking for the mistakes they’re going to make in the next ordinance,” he told SFGATE. 

SFGATE reached out to Santa Barbara spokesperson Bryan Latchford for comments on the lawsuit, but he did not respond in time for publication. “The temporary rent freeze remains in effect while the legal challenge proceeds,” Latchford told Noozhawk last week. “The City Attorney’s Office will be actively defending the lawsuit while also continuing to support the city as we move forward with the drafting of a permanent ordinance for review and approval.”

In the meantime, the city council voted to move forward on a series of amendments to the permanent ordinance last week. The throngs that joined to comment prior to the votes included landlords, housing advocates and long-term residents. 

A brewery in the Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.

“Rental housing is the cheapest housing in Santa Barbara. And because of this stuff, a lot of landlords are saying, ‘I’m out. I’m selling.’ And a lot of investors are not coming in,” property owner Rick Lang told the city council. “So my suggestion to the renters is get together and start buying up this rental property to live in it. ...

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“You really think it’s cheaper to own than it is to rent? Then by all means, you know, then, buy this stuff up. Because nobody’s going to provide housing to anyone who’s dissatisfied, disgruntled. You know, why bother at that point?” 

“Let’s clear up some disinformation,” Santa Barbara real estate agent Don Katich told the city council. “Rent stabilization is a chosen narrative to frame what is in truth the taking of property rights. And despite the label, there is nothing stabilizing about this policy.”

But Lang and Katich were part of a minority of speakers. Most who spoke were strongly in favor of both the rental freeze and the upcoming ordinances, encouraging the city council to stick to their guns. 

“Don’t undercut your legacies by undermining the rent stabilization ordinance through providing additional exemptions or by giving landlords loopholes through which to displace tenants,” Santa Barbara resident Matt Larkins told the city council. “Stay strong and stay focused. We need you.”

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“Our community can neither afford inaction nor a watered-down policy that fails to meaningfully protect renters from further exploitation and displacement,” longtime Santa Barbara resident Cressida Silvers told the city council. “Rent stabilization is community stabilization. We are all impacted without it. Our family owns our home and we feel it every day. The constant churn of neighbors being forced to relocate erodes the fabric of our city.”

Graffiti in the Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2026.

After hearing lengthy public testimony, Mayor Randy Rowse, who voted against the temporary rent freeze, acknowledged the division among the town as well as within the ranks of the city council.

“We’re a divided council. We’ve made that obvious a number of times,” he said. “And that’s unfortunate. And we probably need to take these major issues to the public to get the right answer.”

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But others, like Councilmember Sneddon, disagreed with Rowse’s notion. Earlier in the meeting, she suggested that the issue needn’t be stretched out further or make its way onto a ballot. “Having talked about this for nine years, at least nine years, every time we bring it up, it creates turmoil, it creates stress and that’s from all groups impacted, and it’s time for us to move forward,” she said. 

For the second time this year, the majority of the city council decided to do just that. Those who voted for the temporary rent freeze remained in favor of going forward with the rent stabilization ordinance. Last Tuesday, they voted to continue to work with city staff on the ordinance, including supporting rent limits and creating a rental registry in town. As an acknowledgment to landlords’ concerns, they also directed staff to research further exemptions for landlords. 

Rowse was once again joined by Councilmembers Mike Jordan and Eric Friedman in either abstaining from voting or voting “no” on the majority of the new rules for the potential ordinance, ostensibly as protest votes against the council majority’s effort to push this through without taking the vote to the public.

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“To put this on a ballot is already too late,” Councilmember Wendy Santamaria said. “... With a compressed timeline, what you’re really seeing is this would be a battle over money. I mean it’s painfully obvious that that’s what it would be. In most rent stabilization campaigns that have been a ballot initiative, I mean, we typically see the landlord lobbies outspend tenants three to one because, of course, they have the money. We need to be very careful about punting this responsibility to be decided by the most money. And we were democratically elected. It is our responsibility to represent what we were elected to do.”

With four “yes” votes to proceed comprising the majority, city staff are scheduled to return to the city council for a draft ordinance to consider in June. 

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