Rent Board, 21 October 2026 — The Richmond Monitor

Rent Board — Wednesday, 21 October 2026

From the KCRT video of the meeting (about 1 hour 53 minutes), checked against the Rent Board agenda, Oct 21 and the agenda packet. Minutes have not been posted. Compiled from KCRT video; votes are unconfirmed unless minutes are posted. Where a mover, second, or tally could not be heard clearly, this digest says so. Names from speech-to-text are checked against the posted agenda where possible.

Attendance

Present: Chair Whitney Tipton, Vice Chair Sara Cantor, Board Member Jim Hite. Absent: Board Members Tomasa Espinoza and Melvin Willis. Staff: Executive Director Fred Tran and General Counsel Charles Oshinuga. Called to order about 5:13 p.m.

Public forum

About five speakers. Two Monterey Pines tenants said tenants were filing petitions for rent reductions over trash, parking, theft, vandalism, and building conditions; one asked the board to weigh the property’s history before granting any exception under Regulation 202. A regular attendee asked for a staffing update to be agendized. Another speaker said he believed his house had been wrongly taken and criticized corporate investors; the claim is the speaker’s own and was not addressed.

Consent calendar (F-1 to F-4)

F-1 minutes of September 16; F-2 community letters; F-3 the FY 2026–27 activity report through September; F-4 late-fee waivers for October under Regulation 425 (staff recommended approval, with one owner conditioned on registering all units and paying in full within 15 days).
Motion by Vice Chair Cantor (per captions); second not identified. Passed 3–0 on the roll call (Hite, Cantor, Tipton yes; two absent).

G-1 — Section 8 and LIHTC housing: Regulations 202 and 204 and Resolution 19-01

No speakers. Background in the packet: Regulation 202 exempts government-subsidized units from rent control; Resolution 19-01 holds LIHTC units to rent increases of no more than 5% a year to keep the exemption. In March the board asked staff for options, including rescinding Regulation 202. On August 19 the board voted to remove the Monterey Pines exemption under Regulation 204. Staff said the owner was sent an updated invoice for fully covered units on September 21 and said it would pay monthly.
A deputy executive director of the Housing Authority of Contra Costa County explained how Housing Choice (Section 8) rents work: a payment standard set at 90–110% of fair market rent; a family generally pays about 30% of income; a rent increase below the standard changes the subsidy, not the family’s share; above it the family pays dollar for dollar (his example: a rent of $3,200 against a $3,085 standard moved a family’s payment from $300 to $515). He said federal rules require approving market-reasonable rents, that regulating rents below the payment standard mainly reduces landlords’ subsidy and could discourage participation, and that housing-quality inspections are a federal process.
He described San Francisco’s approach of limiting increases once rents pass the payment standard, and said Concord rescinded a Section 8 rent-control ordinance within weeks.
Board members and counsel discussed what rescinding Regulation 202 would let the Rent Program do. Counsel said the board could order rent decreases on petitions but could not tell the Housing Authority what inspection findings to make, and suggested treating an inspection as presumptive evidence in petition hearings. “A lot of work” remains before regulating vouchers.
Staff and counsel then walked through LIHTC: rents capped by income-based tables (HUD limits effective May 1, 2026), property-based set-asides, and tax-credit financing and re-syndication. Counsel said Contra Costa shares an area median income with Alameda and San Francisco counties, which raised ceilings and led to 12–15% increase notices at affordable properties around 2018–19. Staff and counsel said they had been searching for months for the City department that holds the LIHTC regulatory agreements and had not found it.
Because of the hour (about 7 p.m.), the board continued the rest of the presentation. Motion to continue the item to the November meeting (mover and second not identified). Passed 3–0 on the roll call. No direction to staff was adopted; Regulations 202 and 204 and Resolution 19-01 are unchanged.

Adjournment and next meeting

Adjourned about 7:05 p.m. Next meeting: November 18, 2026, described as the board’s last regular meeting of the year; there is no December meeting unless one is called.

Not yet confirmed

Movers and seconds on both motions.
Which bedroom sizes the payment-standard figures on the slides apply to.
Who in City government holds the LIHTC regulatory agreements.
All votes pending minutes.

Sources

All meeting digests