Tri County Apartment Ass'n v. City of Mountain View

—In this case of first impression, we must decide whether a municipal ordinance restricting the effective date of proposed rental increases is a valid rent control measure or a prohibited trespass into landlord-tenant areas preempted by state law. Our task is to affix a label, with appropriate judicial consequences, to a Mountain View enactment formally identified as a “notification process for rental increases.” Should the measure be classified as permissible control of residential rent increases (the position advocated by the city) or as an usurpation of the notification provisions set forth in Civil Code section 827 (the position advocated by a landowners’ association)?

With full awareness that California cities are free to adopt various forms of rent control under broad constitutional tolerance (see Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129, 142 [ 130 Cal.Rptr. 465 , 550 P.2d 1001 ]; Carson Mobilehome Park Owners’ Ass'n v. City of Carson (1983) 35 Cal.3d 184, 191 [ 197 Cal.Rptr. 284 , 672 P.2d 1297 ]; Fisher v. City of Berkeley (1984) 37 Cal.3d 644, 681 [ 209 Cal.Rptr. 682 , 693 P.2d 261 ], affd. Fisher v. Berkeley (1986) 475 U.S. 260 [ 89 L.Ed.2d 206,…