SBRSO

Sources

Every number, quote, and document reference published on this site traces to a source on this page. Citations are grouped by the page or chart they support; where a dataset was compiled by this project's sponsor from licensed or proprietary records, that compilation is identified in the Data compiled by Radius section below. If you believe a citation is wrong or incomplete, please tell us — corrections are handled under our corrections policy. Last compiled July 7, 2026.

The Squeeze — cost series

The cost basket on The Squeeze is a weighted composite of eight operating-cost series for a typical pre-1995 Santa Barbara multifamily property. Each component's source is cited below. The basket weights, and the modeling conventions for the two lines with no dedicated series (management, indexed to construction labor costs; "other," indexed to CPI), are published as part of the SBRSO methodology — see the About page and the project repository ("Cost-basket weights and modeling conventions," approved July 5, 2026).

California CPI (the inflation line, and the cap's own index)

Used for the CPI reference line, the annual general adjustment (AGA) backtest, and the "other" component of the cost basket.

  • California Department of Industrial Relations, Office of the Director — Research Unit, "California Consumer Price Index" — California CPI-U, All Urban Consumers, All Items (1982-84 = 100), published bi-monthly (Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct/Dec plus annual average); accessed June 25, 2026. This is the exact index named by the draft SBMC Chapter 26.90 for the annual general adjustment. Source PDFs on file: "Consumer Price Index, California" full historical table (1955–2026) and the DIR's current percentage-change release.

Insurance premiums

Used for the insurance component of the cost basket (national per-unit premium series, 2010–2024; held flat 2025–2026 as a conservative convention).

  • National Apartment Association, "Premium Pulse: National Multifamily Insurance Cost Acceleration" (per-unit insurance cost series drawing on Income/Expense IQ and Federal Reserve data), source date March 18, 2026.
  • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Hughes & Molloy, "Rising Property Insurance Costs and Pass-Through to Rents for Apartment Buildings," FEDS Note, September 19, 2025. (National benchmark: $468/unit/yr in 2019 → $816/unit/yr in 2024, real 2023 dollars.)
  • Marcus & Millichap research (Q2 2023), California metro insurance-renewal vs. rent-growth comparison, via Propmodo, "The Impact of Rising Multifamily Insurance Rates on Rent."
  • CalMatters, "California's Insurance Crisis Hits Renters," August 2024.
  • National Apartment Association / NDP Analytics, "Impacts of Rental Housing Insurance Premium Increases" (provider survey).
  • California Department of Insurance, rate-filing approval/closed lists, 2016–2026 (one list per year; 2026 partial through May 31) — the raw regulatory record of requested vs. approved rate changes, on file in the project repository.
  • Radius Commercial Real Estate, "Insurance Premiums — Central Coast Local Actuals" (sample of actual bound premiums, paid invoices, and quotes from 432 multifamily and hospitality transaction documents; anonymized), compiled June 30, 2026. A sample, not a market census; used to validate the national trend locally. See Data compiled by Radius.

Property tax

Used for the property-tax component of the cost basket (modeled at the Proposition 13 baseline of +2% per year for a continuing owner) and for the effective-rate check (≈1.057% of assessed value).

  • California Constitution, Article XIII A (Proposition 13, 1978) — 2% maximum annual increase in assessed value absent a change in ownership; the modeling default for a continuing owner.
  • County of Santa Barbara Treasurer-Tax-Collector, "Property Tax Search" (mytaxes.sbtaxes.org) — billed tax, assessed values, and situs records for a 51-parcel sample of Santa Barbara 5+ unit multifamily properties sold since January 1, 2023; accessed June 25, 2026. Each parcel's record carries its direct portal URL in the downloadable dataset. Parcel list derived from a CoStar multifamily transaction export (see Data compiled by Radius).

Water & sewer rates

Used for the water/sewer component of the cost basket (City of Santa Barbara adopted multifamily rates, FY21–FY28; held flat before FY21 as a conservative convention).

  • City of Santa Barbara Public Works (Water Resources), "FY22, 23, 24 Water Rate Notice and Supplement" (Proposition 218 notice; multifamily tiered volumetric rates and service charges, FY21–FY24).
  • City of Santa Barbara Public Works (Water Resources), "Water Rate Study FY25–FY28" (adopted FY25–FY28 water rates).
  • City of Santa Barbara Public Works (Water Resources), "FY23 Wastewater Rate Notice and Supplement" (multifamily wastewater base and volumetric charges, FY22–FY24).
  • City of Santa Barbara Public Works (Water Resources), "Wastewater Rate Study FY25–FY28" (adopted FY25–FY28 wastewater rates).
  • Corroborating City documents on file in the project repository: 2021 Water Rate Study (Draft Final Report, Table 5-2); FY23 Water Rate and Fee Schedule; FY23 Sewer Rate and Fee Schedule; Schedule of City Penalties, Fees and Service Charges, FY2026; Water/Wastewater Capacity Fees memo, FY2018–FY2022. All published by the City of Santa Barbara.

Electricity rates

Used for the electricity component of the cost basket (SCE Schedule D all-in baseline energy charge — Delivery + Generation + DWR Energy Credit — in $/kWh, effective January 1 of each year, 2016–2025; 2026 held flat pending SCE's posting).

  • Southern California Edison, Schedule D (Domestic Service) tariff sheets, as filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, per-year tariff archives ("SCE Historical Books"), 2016–2025; retrieved June 25, 2026. Each year's figure is traceable to its filed sheet — the dataset records the Cal. P.U.C. Sheet No. and Advice Letter for every row (e.g., 2016: Sheet No. 58237-E, Advice Letter 3319-E; effective January 1, 2016).

Natural gas rates

Used for the gas component of the cost basket (SoCalGas Schedule GM, Multi-Family Service — Total Baseline Charge in $/therm, effective January 1 of each year, 2016–2026; identical at baseline to residential Schedule GR).

  • Southern California Gas Company, "Historical Tariff Book — Gas Schedules" — Schedules GR (Residential Service) and GM (Multi-Family Service) tariff sheets as filed with the CPUC, 2016–2026; retrieved June 25, 2026. Each year's figure records its Cal. P.U.C. Sheet No. (e.g., GR 2016: Sheet No. 52192-G).

Maintenance labor

Used for the maintenance-labor component of the cost basket, and (per the published modeling convention) as the index for the management component.

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Cost Index, "Total compensation, private industry, Construction (NAICS 23), U.S." — series CIU2012300000000I, quarterly, not seasonally adjusted, Dec 2005 = 100; retrieved via the BLS public API, compiled June 25, 2026 (data through Q1 2026).
  • Companion BLS ECI series in the downloadable dataset: construction wages & salaries (CIU2022300000000I); West Census Region all-industry total compensation (CIU2010000000240I) and wages (CIU2020000000240I); national all-industry benchmarks (CIU2010000000000I, CIU2020000000000I). Note: BLS does not publish an industry-by-region ECI cross-tabulation (e.g., construction × Pacific), so the national construction series and the West Region all-industry series are the finest published cuts.

Maintenance materials

Used for the maintenance-materials component of the cost basket.

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index, "Commodity: Special Indexes — Construction Materials" — series WPUSI012011, monthly, not seasonally adjusted, 1982 = 100; retrieved via the BLS public API, compiled June 25, 2026 (data through May 2026).
  • Companion BLS PPI series in the downloadable dataset: inputs to construction industries (WPUIP230000); net inputs to residential construction, goods (WPUIP2311001); net inputs to nonresidential construction, goods (WPUIP2321001).

The Squeeze — the cap formula

The allowable-rent ("cap") line is computed exactly as the draft ordinance specifies, from these two sources:

  • City of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Municipal Code Chapter 26.90, "Residential Rent Stabilization" (public review draft, June 10, 2026; program operative January 1, 2027 if adopted on schedule) — §26.90.040 (annual general adjustment: 60% of the April-to-April change in California CPI, rounded to the nearest 0.25%, capped at 3%, floored at 0%; no banking of unused increases) and §26.90.020 (definitions, including the CPI series and rounding rule). Full text on file in the project repository.
  • California Department of Industrial Relations, "California Consumer Price Index" (CPI-U, All Items) — the April readings that drive the AGA. From the April 2026 reading (+3.60% April-to-April), the formula yields an adjustment of approximately 2.1% (2.25% under an alternate reading of the draft's rounding clause — see The Ordinance page) scheduled for January 1, 2027.
  • City of Santa Barbara, Ordinance No. 2026-6206, "Temporary Rent Increase Moratorium" (adopted January 27, 2026; effective February 26, 2026; base rent set at the rent in effect December 16, 2025) — the reason the allowable-rent line is 0% during the moratorium period.

Historical cap values shown before 2026 are a backtest — the same formula applied to the DIR April readings of prior years ("had this cap governed the last decade"). The full AGA-by-year table is in the downloadable CPI dataset.

Market response — cap rates & sales

The cap-rate trend and the sales scatter on The Squeeze draw on two sources:

  • Radius Commercial Real Estate, "Santa Barbara Multifamily Sale Comparables, 2023–2026 YTD" — 57 Santa Barbara 5+ unit multifamily sale transactions, compiled June 25, 2026 from a CoStar Group export (all transactions since January 1, 2023) and Radius transaction records; days-on-market from CoStar Market Time (reported for 26 of 57 sales). Quarterly average and median cap rates are computed from this dataset. See Data compiled by Radius.
  • Hayes Commercial Group, "2022 Q4 Market Report" — South Coast Apartment Sales table: annual average cap rates on Santa Barbara South Coast apartment sales, 2018–2022 (the pre-2023 history on the trend chart). Later Hayes year-end reports do not repeat this table; Hayes's 2025 Q4 report notes the all-property-type average cap rate rose from 5.1% (2021) to 5.6% (2025).
  • CoStar Group — multifamily property and transaction data underlying the Radius compilation, used under license.

How the cap compares — regimes

The regime-comparison chart evaluates each jurisdiction's formula at the same inflation reading: the April 2026 California CPI change (+3.60%), as published by the CA Department of Industrial Relations — the measurement Santa Barbara's draft ordinance itself uses.

  • California (statewide), "AB 1482 — Tenant Protection Act of 2019" (sunsets 2030) — rent increases capped at "5 percent plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 10 percent, whichever is lower."
  • Oregon (statewide), "SB 608 (2019)" — the first statewide rent cap in the U.S.; limits the maximum annual rent increase to seven percent above the annual change in the consumer price index.
  • City of Saint Paul, MN, "Residential Rent Stabilization Ordinance" — voter-approved November 2021 (3% cap, effective May 2022); amended 2022 (exceptions, effective January 2023) and May 2025 (new-construction exemption and vacancy decontrol at CPI+8%, effective June 2025).
  • City of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Municipal Code Chapter 26.90, "Residential Rent Stabilization" (public review draft, June 10, 2026) — 60% of CPI, maximum 3%, minimum 0%; no banking; utility pass-throughs banned. Full text on file in the project repository.

The Council Record

Every quote on the Council Record is transcribed verbatim from the official City of Santa Barbara City Council meeting video, with speaker, role, meeting date, timestamp, and a deep link to the exact moment in the recording. The full quote dataset (76 quotes across the 11 meetings below) was built June 25, 2026 and fully audited June 26, 2026: every quote's speaker attribution, timestamp, and verbatim text was re-verified against the speaker-attributed transcripts of the official video; the three corrections that audit produced are recorded in the dataset itself with audit notes. Official approved minutes, where published, were used to confirm vote tallies.

  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, December 16, 2025 (Item 12 — Policy Direction & Work Plan for Development of a Rent Stabilization Program), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=UyOUAB3PZUE.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, January 13, 2026 (Item 14 — Temporary Rent Increase Moratorium Ordinance & Just Cause "Ellis Act" Eviction Requirements), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=7OMw43rEPbc.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, January 27, 2026 (pulled Consent Item 2 — adoption, second reading, of Ordinance Nos. 2026-6206 and 2026-6207), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=O-dtRagm8cE.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, March 17, 2026 (Item 3 — Agreement with RSG, Inc. to Support Development of a Rent Stabilization Ordinance & Program), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=g1EHoy-T__A.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, April 7, 2026 (Item 14 — Update on Development of a Rent Stabilization Program & Final Policy Direction for Ordinance Draft; the 60%-of-CPI / 3% cap direction), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=33OWM8XMR2s.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, April 21, 2026 (FY2027 Budget Overview; rent stabilization referenced as a budget "unknown"), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=Ifyk0Gx_G8Q.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, April 28, 2026 (Item 5 — legal-services agreement amendment; $400,000 litigation-defense appropriation, continued), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=yOU99hvNGNw.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, May 5, 2026 (rent stabilization referenced during the in-lieu affordable-housing fee discussion), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=jkbqg_zmxZg.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, May 12, 2026 (Consent Item 6 — litigation-services agreement; Item 11 — FY2027 Mid-Cycle Budget), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=UKGI2DEnBl0.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, May 19, 2026 (Item 10 — Supplemental Research to Inform Development of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=6Tc4fEYHXmY.
  • City of Santa Barbara City Council, Regular Meeting, June 9, 2026 (Item 14 — Review of Draft Ordinance adding SBMC Chapter 26.90; 30-day public comment period opened), official video: youtube.com/watch?v=UqTaTlW6SRg.
  • City of Santa Barbara, Office of the City Clerk — official approved Council Regular Meeting minutes (PDF, on file in the project repository): December 16, 2025; January 13, 2026; January 27, 2026; March 17, 2026. Minutes for later meetings had not been published as of the quote audit; where minutes are unavailable, vote tallies are transcribed from the meeting audio and flagged as such in the dataset.

The Honest Case — research literature

The works cited in The Honest Case, in full.

Peer-reviewed and quasi-experimental studies

  • Diamond, Rebecca, Tim McQuade, and Franklin Qian. 2019. "The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco." American Economic Review 109(9): 3365–3394. Journal · Free working paper (Stanford) · NBER WP 24181.
  • Autor, David H., Christopher J. Palmer, and Parag A. Pathak. 2014. "Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from the End of Rent Control in Cambridge, Massachusetts." Journal of Political Economy 122(3): 661–717. Journal · NBER WP 18125.
  • Ahern, Kenneth R., and Marco Giacoletti. 2022. "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? The Redistribution of Wealth Caused by Rent Control." NBER Working Paper 30083.
  • Hahn, Anja M., Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Sofie R. Waltl, and Marco Fongoni. 2024. "Forward to the Past: Short-Term Effects of the Rent Freeze in Berlin." Management Science. Journal · SSRN · DIW Berlin Discussion Paper 1928.
  • Pollakowski, Henry O. 2003. "Rent Control and Housing Investment: Evidence from Deregulation in Cambridge, Massachusetts." Manhattan Institute, Civic Report 36. (Market-oriented publisher; empirical study by an MIT housing economist.)

Official and institutional analysis

Rent burden and supply

The Petition Pathway — ordinance provisions

The fair-return analysis on The Petition Pathway is drawn from the text of the ordinance and the City's own record.

Ordinance and municipal-code text (City of Santa Barbara; full text on file in the project repository)

  • Santa Barbara Municipal Code Chapter 26.90, "Residential Rent Stabilization" (public review draft, June 10, 2026) — §§26.90.010–.020 (coverage, definitions, base rent, base year), 26.90.040 (annual general adjustment), 26.90.050 (fair-return petition / MNOI standard), 26.90.060 (capital improvements), 26.90.080 (petition procedures), 26.90.100 (rental registry).
  • City of Santa Barbara, "Rent Stabilization Ordinance — Public Review Draft" (draft Chapter 26.90 text released for the 30-day public comment period opened June 10, 2026, per the June 9, 2026 council meeting).
  • Ordinance No. 2026-6206, "Temporary Rent Increase Moratorium" (adopted January 27, 2026; effective February 26, 2026; base rent date December 16, 2025).
  • Ordinance No. 2026-6207 / Santa Barbara Municipal Code §26.50.100 — Just Cause "Ellis Act" eviction requirements (adopted January 27, 2026), and SBMC Chapter 26.50, "Just Cause for Residential Evictions" (codified text).

City staff reports, memos, and releases (City of Santa Barbara; via santabarbaraca.gov and the docs.santabarbaraca.gov OnBaseAgendaOnline agenda archive; on file in the project repository)

  • Councilmembers Santamaria and Sneddon, City Council memorandum, "Rent Stabilization," September 29, 2025 (with the attached RDN 2025 Rent Survey for the South Coast).
  • Council staff presentation, "Policy Direction & Work Plan for Development of a Rent Stabilization Program" (Item 12), December 16, 2025.
  • Council staff report, "Update on Development of a Rent Stabilization Program" (Item 14), April 7, 2026.
  • Council staff report, "Additional Research on Rent Stabilization" (Item 10), May 19, 2026 — includes the RSG, Inc. program-cost estimate (~$2M/yr for ~13,000 covered units, ~$154/unit).
  • Council staff report, "Review of Draft Ordinance" (Item 14), June 9, 2026.
  • City of Santa Barbara press release, "Preliminary Policy Discussions Begin on Rent Stabilization," December 18, 2025.
  • City of Santa Barbara, Executed Contract No. 30017 — Authorization to Amend the Legal Services Agreement with Colantuono, Highsmith & Whatley, PC (May 12, 2026 amendment).

Case law and consultant record

  • Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129.
  • Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd. (1997) 16 Cal.4th 761.
  • RSG, Inc., consultant presentation to the Santa Barbara City Council, April 7, 2026 (fair-return / MNOI discussion) — quoted and timestamped in The Council Record.

Data compiled by Radius

In the interest of transparency, these are the datasets on this site that were compiled by Radius Commercial Real Estate — the project's sponsor — from licensed data and its own records, rather than taken directly from a public series. The provenance of each is disclosed wherever it appears.

  • Santa Barbara multifamily sale comparables (2023–2026 YTD). 57 Santa Barbara 5+ unit multifamily sale transactions, compiled June 25, 2026 from a CoStar Group export (all transactions since January 1, 2023) and Radius transaction records; days-on-market from CoStar Market Time. The quarterly cap-rate trend series is derived from this dataset. CoStar data is used under license.
  • Property-tax sample (51 parcels). Billed taxes and assessed values pulled from the County of Santa Barbara Treasurer-Tax-Collector public portal (mytaxes.sbtaxes.org), accessed June 25, 2026, for the multifamily parcels in the comparables set; addresses confirmed against county situs records.
  • Insurance premiums — Central Coast local actuals. A sample of actual bound premiums, paid invoices, and quotes drawn from 432 documents in Radius's own multifamily and hospitality transaction files, compiled June 30, 2026 and published in anonymized form. It is a sample, not a market census, and is used to validate the national per-unit trend locally.
  • The Council Record dataset. 76 verbatim quotes and the 11-meeting record, transcribed from the official City of Santa Barbara council videos listed above; built June 25, 2026; independently re-audited June 26, 2026 (speaker, timestamp, and verbatim text verified against the official video, with corrections recorded in the dataset).
  • The Squeeze composite. Computed by SBRSO from the public series cited above, using the published basket weights and modeling conventions (SBRSO methodology, approved July 5, 2026; see the About page and project repository).

SBRSO — Santa Barbara Rent Stabilization Observatory, sbrso.com. Independent research, powered by Radius Commercial Real Estate (see About for full disclosure). To report a sourcing error, see the corrections policy.