On July 8, the City of Takoma Park issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a consultant to conduct a policy review of our vital Rent Stabilization Law.
Before this staff-written RFP was released, Community Vision for Takoma sent the Council and staff a critique with recommendations [see a copy below] on an earlier draft staff wrote, proposing what the goals and scope of the review should be. The final version of the RFP was issued without a full Council deliberation or vote on those critical points, despite support from at least two Council members for such a public decision-making process.
This issue affects us all, whether renters, landlords, homeowners, or businesses. Please read the RFP, and CVT’s suggestions, and consider for yourself the importance of the issues that CVT raises. Have they been adequately addressed?
We invite you to work with us in the coming months focusing on such critical issues as: 1) protecting current residents and small landlords from displacement, 2) preserving Takoma Park’s rare stock of affordable housing, and 3) the urgency of reviewing all past and proposed policies with a racial-equity lens.
Comments and Suggestions on Rent Stabilization RFP
Community Vision for Takoma
July 1, 2025
As presented at the June 11th Council meeting, the goals for the RFP do not accurately reflect the City’s current Housing and Economic Development Strategic Plan, approved in 2019.
The Plan’s three main objectives were clearly articulated as:
- PRESERVE existing businesses and affordable housing in Takoma Park, including in revitalizing areas.
- PRODUCE more housing and opportunities for businesses to start and grow across the income spectrum and in neighborhoods across the City to meet the diverse housing and economic needs.
- PROTECT renters, homeowners and local businesses from discrimination and displacement, and protect our environment from destruction.
The Strategic Plan’s only mention of a review of rent stabilization is to serve the first objective – to preserve existing affordable housing – not to question its impact on the pace of development in the City. The Plan also, under each of those three main objectives, includes this specific strategy: “Consider all advocacy and action through a race equity lens.” Given that 83% of householders who rent in our City are households of color, the third goal – protection from displacement – as well as the first goal, which is closely related (preserving existing affordable housing) should be at the core of any evaluation of both existing policy and potential changes to ensure that racial equity concerns are prioritized.
In contrast, the draft RFP calls for a consultant to recommend revisions to our rent stabilization law based on analyzing the impacts of the existing law and any proposed changes on housing “affordability, quality, and choice.” By themselves, those three words are not clearly aligned with the three officially designated goals of the City’s Strategic Plan, and are nowhere actually defined. None of the three terms specifically addresses protection from displacement or preserving the City’s unusual stock of deeply affordable housing. Nor do those words, or anything else in the RFP, indicate to the potential consultants that their entire project should evaluate existing policy and make recommendations “through a race equity lens.”
In fact, the Council’s June 11th Agenda Item suggested that the study should focus on “balancing tenant protection, incentivizing high-quality housing, addressing affordability, and creating housing choice” – as if those goals may be in conflict with each other, or that each is as important as the other. That does not seem to take Takoma Park’s community values into account. Is increasing “choice” in housing – which apparently means developing new housing for current or future residents who can afford more expensive options — really as much of a priority as protecting tenants, especially the City’s many very low and extremely low-income residents?
Choice and more options for whom are key questions for Council to clarify, especially given limited developable land, tight City budgets and uncertain economic trends. Robust data is needed to prioritize and target housing efforts to serve the most vulnerable residents.
In light of the above, we advise the following changes to the draft document. These are needed to realign the entire RFP with Takoma Park’s unique identity, based on a set of core, shared values that do not yet shine through the RFP document:
- Clearly emphasize throughout the document that the promotion of racial equity and socio-economic and racial diversity are core community-wide values and are to be top priorities in reviewing the law and proposing revisions. It is important that there be a thorough review of the impact on equity and diversity of our rentstabilization policies over time. Any proposed change should also be carefully evaluated as to its potential for positive and/or negative impacts on improving measures of equity and diversity.
The City has not yet developed its own process for conducting a racial-equity analysis, to use in such an evaluation. However, the RFP could direct the consultant to commit to conducting its review through a racial equity lens, with an option to either adapt the OLO RESJ Project Methodology Tool, used by the Montgomery County Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight, or, if approved by staff after consultation with the Council, an alternative expert tool proposed by the consultant.
2. Revise the language of the RFP to specify that Protection from Displacement is to be a major focus of the review and a major goal of any recommendations for changes in the law or other City policies. That would include protecting tenants potentially priced out of affordable housing options or who could lose their homes if their buildings are torn down to make room for new construction, as well as protecting local businesses, especially small landlords in the City who are struggling financially to maintain older buildings.
The consultant should attempt to identify revisions that would increase such protection, as well as examining how potential changes might increase the threat of displacement. The study should include a close look at measures of housing stability through the years and how any potential changes could affect the likelihood of tenants being able to stay in their homes. Evaluating impacts on stability should include a fine-grained look at historic trends in tenant tenure, eviction rates, and how the law has impacted those, as well as analysis of how proposed changes might affect that important marker of community well-being.
Preserving the City’s unique stock of deeply affordable housing should also be clearly addressed as key to protecting current residents from displacement. This would require a building-by-building inventory of code violations and needed repairs or upgrades. In that context, the RFP should call for the consultant to review not only this law but other City policies, to evaluate what changes would be helpful to encourage and support landlords whose older buildings are most urgently in need of repairs and renovation, including energy-efficiency upgrades.
It’s also essential for the consultant to clearly evaluate both historical and potential impacts on the supply of rental units affordable at particular income levels — not just to make general statements about “affordability,” without defining that term. For example, City staff report that, as of 2022, 93% of our rent-stabilized units are affordable for very low income households (with incomes of no more than 50% of area median income(AMI)), and about 14% are affordable for extremely low income households (no more than 30% AMI). The analysis must focus on this degree of detail, to capture what proposed changes might mean for our most affordable housing.
3. Strengthen Community-Wide Engagement requirements, to ensure the
results are authentic and really provide robust, meaningful opportunities for the consultant, City Staff, and the Council to interact deeply and effectively with the full range of stakeholders.
Strong representation of tenants is urgent, as are the voices of landlords, especially small landlords who are also residents. But representatives of the broader resident community – including homeowners – is also appropriate, given the impact that progress toward racial equity and socio-economic and racial diversity has on the stability and well-being of our entire community. Consider directing the consultant to work throughout its project with a Council-appointed taskforce that represents the full range of stakeholders.
