Ohio REALTORS successfully lead effort to stop rent control from coming to the state
By Beth Wanless, Ohio REALTORS Director of Government Affairs
Yesterday, both the Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate passed Substitute House Bill 430, a measure containing a key Ohio REALTOR-backed provision that prohibits local governments across the state from capping or setting residential rental rates.
Ohio REALTORS led a coalition that successfully pursued passage of an amendment in Sub. H.B. 430, citing the negative impact rent control measures have on the marketplace. The amendment clarifies and expands upon a current statute to expressly preempt rent control and rent stabilization measures across the state.
“Conceptually, capping the amount a landlord can charge in rent seems like a good idea. However, the results of rent control have proven to be devastating to the housing market,” said Buffie Patterson, a Columbus REALTOR who testified on behalf of the more than 36,000 REALTORS throughout Ohio. “Multiple studies and reports have shown that rent control policies decrease housing supply, increase housing prices and, most notably, hurt the people the policy is supposed to help.”
Rent control advocates are currently gathering signatures to place a wide-ranging, restrictive rent control initiative on the ballot in Columbus.
“We only have to look at the most recent example of rent control enacted by a ballot initiative in St. Paul, Minn. to see the immediate devastating effects of rent control,” Patterson told legislators during testimony before the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee on May 31. “In November 2021, (the ballot initiative) was passed. Immediately after the initiative was approved, multiple apartment developers placed calls to the city’s director of planning and economic development saying they were placing apartment projects on hold. Within three months after passage of rent control, data shows that multifamily building permits filed in St. Paul were down 80 percent from the previous year.”
Patterson added that a March 2022 study by the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that owner-occupied homes and rental properties in St. Paul lost upwards of 7% of their value, equally a $1.6 billion aggregate loss.
John J. Kulewicz, a partner of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, LLP in Columbus, testified on behalf of Ohio REALTORS in affirming the constitutionality of the measure.
“In conformance with home rule, (Sub. HB 430) would reinforce the statewide character of the Ohio Landlords and Tenants Law by adding a specific preemption of local rent control measures to the existing general preemption of local ordinances relating to rental agreements,” Kulewicz said. “In addition, it would adopt legislative findings as to the statewide priority of maintaining adequate housing and recite obstacles that local rent control measures pose to achievement of that objective.
Passage of the rent control preemption makes Ohio a more attractive and stable place to attract housing.
“(Ohio) already has record low housing inventory, including single family homes, condos, apartments and affordable housing units. We need more housing,” Patterson said. “Rent control policies, while well-intentioned, destroy any hopes for new housing development and exacerbate the housing affordability crisis.”
Other groups joining Ohio REALTORS in supporting passage of the measure included the Ohio Apartment Association, Columbus Partnership, Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association and Ohio Manufactured Homes Association, among others.
Substitute House Bill 430 will be sent to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.
