Why Is Rent Stabilization Being Reviewed?
Rent stabilization has sometimes been cited as one reason Takoma Park has seen little new multifamily rental construction in recent decades. However, housing development depends on numerous factors, including land availability, construction costs, financing, zoning, and market conditions.
In 2025, the City initiated a comprehensive review of its rent stabilization program, hiring the consulting firm RSG to evaluate existing policies and recommend possible changes.
The review is intended to consider tenant protections, property maintenance, housing investment, administrative procedures, and opportunities for new housing development.
The City is now examining six major policy areas, each with three options. These include retaining the existing rules or making changes that could affect how much tenants pay, how landlords recover expenses, and which properties remain subject to rent stabilization.
None of the proposed changes has been adopted.
What Happens Next?
The City's review is ongoing, with additional community outreach planned for October and November 2026. A draft report is expected in January or February 2027, followed by a final report in March 2027.
These proposals raise important questions about housing affordability, maintenance responsibilities, financial pressures on property owners, and protections for existing tenants.
Some changes could increase the rent or other housing expenses that tenants pay. Others could alter the number of properties covered by rent stabilization or create additional incentives for housing investment.
The critical question is how these changes would work together and what their combined effects would mean for residents.
The following slides examine the major proposals individually, explain how they might work in practice, and identify questions that deserve further consideration before any changes are adopted.
Sources and Additional Information
City of Takoma Park: Rent Stabilization Policy Review
The City's project page includes the policy explanations, background research, Council presentations, community engagement summaries, and information about participating in the ongoing review.
Six Policy Areas Under Review
Takoma Park is reviewing six areas of its rent stabilization ordinance. Each area has three options under consideration, including maintaining the current policy.
The table below summarizes all 18 options. Select the document icon in the final column to read the City's original explanation of each policy area.
| Policy Area | Option 1 Current System |
Option 2 | Option 3 | City Documents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Capital Improvements | Landlords may request increases above the annual CPI limit (currently 3%) to cover qualifying expenses, including major repairs. The Commission on Landlord-Tenant Affairs (COLTA) reviews and decides petitions. There is no fixed maximum increase, but increases exceeding 15% may be phased in over several years. Approved increases are permanent and become part of the base rent. | Create a separate capital improvement petition. Owners could recover eligible costs through a temporary surcharge spread over the useful life of the improvement, generally 15 to 20 years. No percentage cap is specified. | Create the same temporary capital improvement surcharge, but limit the increase attributable to the improvement to 10% of the tenant's existing rent. | Read Document |
| 2. Utility Transfers | Require 24 months of actual utility bills and individual metering before transferring utility costs from landlords to tenants. Rent must be reduced accordingly. | Reduce documentation to 12 months of utility bills while retaining City review and individual metering. | Replace historical utility bills and individual metering requirements with standardized utility allowances based on utility type and apartment bedroom count. | Read Document |
| 3. Annual Rent Increases | Annual allowable rent increases equal 100% of the regional Consumer Price Index (CPI), with no minimum or maximum CPI-based adjustment. | Allow CPI plus 1 percentage point, with a maximum annual increase of 5%. | Allow 100% of CPI, but establish a minimum annual allowance of 2% and a maximum of 5%. | Read Document |
| 4. Small-Property Exemptions | Owner-occupied duplexes are exempt. Other covered rental properties generally remain subject to rent stabilization. | Expand the exemption to owner-occupied properties containing up to four units. | Allow an additional 1 percentage point in the annual rent adjustment for properties with six or fewer units when the property is the owner's only rental property in Takoma Park. | Read Document |
| 5. Affordable Housing Exemptions | Exempt an entire property from rent stabilization when at least 50% of its units are covered by qualifying affordability restrictions. | Apply rent stabilization to deed-restricted affordable housing properties, creating additional rent protections alongside existing affordability requirements. | Apply rent stabilization during a tenancy, but permit rent resets when units become vacant, subject to applicable deed-restricted rent limits. | Read Document |
| 6. New Construction Exemptions | Newly constructed rental units are exempt from rent stabilization for five years, regardless of the previous use of the site. | Extend the exemption to 10 years for new rental construction, with a proposed capital-reserve extension provision. | Provide a 15-year exemption when the site had no occupied residential units during the previous five years. Retain a five-year exemption when new construction replaces existing housing. | Read Document |
Source:
City of Takoma Park, Rent Stabilization Policy Review,
policy explanations published September 30
through October 9, 2026.
Visit the City's Rent Stabilization Policy Review page
