As housing costs continue to rise across the Central Coast, San Luis Obispo city officials and community advocates are taking a closer look at rental protections, including the possibility of creating a citywide rental registry.
The San Luis Obispo chapter of the League of Women Voters hosted a public forum this week to explain how rental registries operate and why a growing number of California cities are adopting them.
The event brought together housing researchers and local government representatives to discuss how registries can improve transparency in rental pricing, track habitability issues and help cities enforce state and local regulations.
Claudia Aiken, director of new research partnerships at the NYU Furman Center, told attendees that reliable data on rental properties can help cities tailor their housing policies.
“Understanding rental ownership and rental property characteristics allows policy makers then to effectively target resources to implement policies, for example, that support small landlords, to deliver targeted rental assistance,” Aiken said.
Panelists also noted that some cities have raised concerns about potential drawbacks.
“Some cities definitely worry that landlords will pass on the registration and inspection fees to their tenants or that the fees will discourage the creation of rental housing. And so, these are important concerns,” Aiken said.
The discussion comes as the San Luis Obispo City Council weighs whether to establish a rental registry of its own. At a recent study session, the council directed staff to examine several tenant-protection options, including a safe-housing checklist, expanded education for renters and landlords, and new eviction-prevention tools.
City officials plan to revisit the issue in a follow-up session scheduled for February 2026.
