City of Monterey one step closer to rental registry program changes

MONTEREY, Calif. (KION-TV) - Some important changes could be coming to the City of Monterey’s rental registry program.

Monterey City Council approving a first reading Tuesday night with proposed changes to the program. Monterey housing activist Esther Malkin says she’s in favor of the expanding the registry and getting renters represented.

“Now we know where all the renters are and why they're having struggles, and just in general, we've got all this good data on our market so that we can understand the city's needs better,” Monterey Renters United founder Esther Malkin said.

City leaders point to gaps in data from exempt small property owners with three or fewer units. Under the proposed changes, they would now need to register. but not have to pay any registry fees.
Still, people during public comment also expressed their concerns with the move and overall registry.

“I'm still opposed to this, and the reason why being that we have an inventory problem, and we can't regulate our way out of an inventory problem, and data, just for the sake of data, that's not an ends," said one person during public comment.

The registry first into effect in January 2024 and the city says it accounts for about 51% of the housing inventory. Another proposed change would also eliminate the ability for property owners to pass along 50% of the fee, or $25 for a unit per year to be passed to the renters. Some city leaders were also divided on the impact of the registry.

“Having that level of transparency in regards to having a deeper understanding of what's going on with the market, I think is of incredible value for transparency and and and public knowledge of what's happening," Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson said.

“I don't think this is a policy we should have. Again, it's policy overreach. To be very clear, I think it's time to decommission it. We've got the data from this last year," Monterey City Councilmember Ed Smith said.

Councilmember Smith later motioned to try decommission the rental registry, which did not pass. Ultimately, city council did approve the first reading of the changes by a 3-2 vote.

That item is now set to be brought up again at a second reading at a future meeting where it could be finalized and adopted.