Landlord Atlas

Mountain View, California: Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act (Measure V)

Verified August 17, 2026 All California topics →

Mountain View caps rent increases at 2.7% for the year running September 1, 2025 through August 31, 2026, and at 2.5% for September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2027, for apartments and other rentals in buildings of three or more homes first occupied before February 1, 1995.

Cited to Mountain View City Charter Art. XVII (Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act), §§ 1700–1720 and 13 more sources · Verified August 17, 2026

The cap comes from Measure V, the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act that voters added to the city charter in 2016, which sets the yearly figure at 100% of San Francisco-area inflation with a floor of 2% and a ceiling of 5%, and lets a landlord save an unused increase for a later year so long as no 12-month increase tops 10%. Newer buildings, single-family homes, condominiums, accessory dwelling units, and buildings with fewer than three homes sit outside the city cap, though many of them fall under California's statewide limit of 5% plus inflation, capped at 10%, once they are more than 15 years old. Rentals in buildings of three or more homes may be ended only on nine listed grounds, with relocation payments for no-fault evictions, and owners must register each covered home every year by January 31 and pay $143 per unit for the year beginning July 1, 2026.

Current published figures

Figure Value Applies to Source
Annual General Adjustment (rent-capped units) 2.7% September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026 Official source
Annual General Adjustment (rent-capped units) 2.5% September 1, 2026 – August 31, 2027 Official source
Annual rental housing fee, per rental unit $143 July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027 Official source

These figures change on a published cycle; each row states the window it applies to and links the source that published it. Confirm the current figure at the source before acting on it.

What is in force

In force today. Mountain View voters approved Measure V, the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act, on November 8, 2016; it took effect December 23, 2016 as Article XVII of the Mountain View City Charter and is run by the Mountain View Rental Housing Committee with the city's Rent Stabilization Division. Voters have not amended the article since. In January 2026 the City Council replaced the city's separate relocation-payment ordinance with a new one, which now supplies the payments the charter requires after a no-fault eviction.

The rent increase limit

One rent increase is allowed per 12 months, on at least 30 days' written notice, for units under the rent cap. The Rental Housing Committee announces the allowed percentage, called the Annual General Adjustment, by June 30 each year, and it applies from September 1 through the following August 31. The charter sets the figure at 100% of the change in the San Francisco-area consumer price index over the preceding 12 months, rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, and it can never fall below 2% or rise above 5%. An increase not taken in its window is not lost: the landlord may save it and add it to a later year's increase, though the total increase in any 12 months may not exceed 10%, the saved amount does not pass to a new owner, and a tenant facing hardship may ask the committee for relief. Rents are measured from a base rent — the rent in effect on October 19, 2015, or the starting rent of a later tenancy — plus increases lawfully taken since. A larger increase requires a fair-return petition to the committee, and no increase takes effect while the landlord is out of compliance with the article or has not made ordered repairs.

What housing is covered

The rent cap reaches apartments and other rentals in buildings of three or more homes first occupied before February 1, 1995 — a line state law fixes in place. Buildings first occupied between February 1, 1995 and December 23, 2016 keep the eviction protections but sit outside the rent cap, as do units in the city's affordable housing program. Buildings first occupied after December 23, 2016 fall outside the article entirely. Also entirely outside it are single-family homes, condominiums, accessory dwelling units, and any building with fewer than three homes, such as a duplex. Further exclusions cover hotel and rooming-house stays under 30 days, hospitals, convents and monasteries, extended-care facilities, asylums, nonprofit homes for the aged, college dormitories, nonprofit tax-credit housing, and government-owned, government-run or government-subsidized housing that state or federal law exempts from local rent limits.

What happens on vacancy

When a tenancy ends, state law lets the landlord set the starting rent for the next tenant at market rate. Once that starting rent is set the cap applies again, and the landlord may not add on saved increases, cost increases, capital improvement costs, or anything else that arose before the new tenancy began. A tenant displaced by substantial repairs, an owner move-in, a withdrawal of the property from the rental market, or a demolition has a first right to return at the rent they were paying when the notice was given, and may recover the home outright if the stated reason is not acted on within two months or was made in bad faith.

Eviction and termination rules

In a covered rental a landlord may end a tenancy only on one of nine grounds: nonpayment of rent; a continuing substantial lease violation; nuisance; criminal or disorderly conduct; refusing reasonable access; substantial repairs that leave the home unlivable for at least 30 days; an owner or close-relative move-in; withdrawal of the property from the rental market; and demolition. Four of them — a lease violation, nuisance, criminal or disorderly conduct, and refusing access — require a written notice to cease first, giving the tenant a chance to fix the problem. An owner move-in requires a person owning at least half the property, occupancy within 60 days for at least 36 months, and cannot displace a tenant of 5 or more years who is 62 or older or disabled, or a tenant certified as terminally ill. Withdrawal from the market requires at least 120 days' notice, or a year for senior and disabled tenants. The last four grounds require relocation assistance for households earning no more than 120% of the Santa Clara County median. Every termination notice must state its reason specifically, and a copy must be filed with the Rental Housing Committee within 3 days of service; a landlord who does not follow these rules gives the tenant a complete defense in an eviction case. Single-family homes, condominiums, accessory dwelling units, and buildings with fewer than three homes are outside these protections, and California's statewide eviction rules may apply to them instead.

Registration and filings

Owners must register every covered rental with the Rental Housing Committee each year by January 31, update the listing within 30 days of a tenancy starting or ending — including the new rent — and within 30 days of any change in ownership, management, or contact details, and pay an annual per-unit rental housing fee. The fee is $143 per rental unit for the year running July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. A landlord may not apply the yearly increase while the property is unregistered or the fee is unpaid, and failing to register counts as substantial non-compliance with the law.

Other requirements

Security deposits may not be increased during a tenancy. Utility charges paid to the landlord, directly or through a billing service, count as rent and are held to the same yearly percentage and the same once-a-year limit. A landlord who offers a tenant money to move out must first give the committee's disclosure form, put the agreement in writing with a required warning in large type, file it with the committee within 15 days, and honor a 10-day window in which either side may cancel; the disclosure and the agreement must be translated if the lease was negotiated in another language. Separate committee rules bar landlord harassment and retaliation. Every new tenancy and every rent-increase notice must come with the committee's information sheet. Tenants and landlords can also use the city's free, confidential mediation program, run for the city by the nonprofit Project Sentinel.

Notes and caveats

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Mountain View, California: Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act (Measure V) (verified August 17, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/california/mountain-view/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified).

Citations

This page records local law. Statewide rules — deposits, notice periods, late fees, entry, evictions — live on the California hub, and the state-level position on local rent regulation appears there with its own citations and verification date.