SAN
City of San Mateo
City Council Meeting
CALIFORNIA
POST PACKET
PUBLIC COMMENT
Alby Calles
From: Robert Whitehair
Sent: Monday, September 7, 2026 10:14 AM
To: City Council (San Mateo)
Cc: Clerk
Subject: CONCERN ABOUT HOUSING DATA - URGENT NEED FOR RENTAL REGISTRY Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council,
Item 17 on the Council Agenda for Tuesday, September 8, 2026, is: Housing Fund, Informational Update. Please use this opportunity to keep the conversation going on Rental Registry.
I am one of many housing advocates deeply concerned about lack of progress in developing rental data for San Mateo. Even though the issue of gathering housing occupancy data, and the creation of a rental registry has been discussed by Council during two City Council meetings in the last 18 months (April, 2025; November 2025) and will be raised again by the public again at the September 8' meeting, it appears to me that little progress has been made I do thank staff and Council for continuously looking at ways to gather more information and data about rental rates, vacancies, and evictions. But I am concerned that we are yet to see actual results.
In a previous Council meeting, staff reviewed results of a Stanford Study that provided after the fact useful information about why tenants were evicted. However, Council asked for more information - and offered three possibilities for gathering additional information, in lieu of a Rental Registry - the preferred method of housing advocates. The methods proposed were:
1. Using the City Business License application for voluntary collection of rental data;
2. Having City staff compare county property owner information with census data to determine how many rental properties there are in San Mateo, including vacancies and rental rates; and
3. Asking the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to work with the consulting group 21 Elements to provide meaningful data that would be useful in setting policy, and useful to tenants.
When I along with a group of housing advocates met with City staff in July, we were made aware of little real progress:
1. Business license application. We learned that the business license application can be modified to add 3 voluntary questions of landlords when they apply for their yearly business license. However, no timeline or progress has been made known to us. We are not aware of the actual progress in creating voluntary questions for the Business License Application, and we are not aware of the actual deadlines for preparing those questions.
We know that staff is working on this issue, but we respectfully ask for a progress update.
2. Comparing County and census data. In our July meeting, City staff told us that the effort to use census data and county data - which property is owner occupied, how many units each property contained, etc. proved to be difficult. There seems to be a lack of information about 1 the number of owner-occupied housing units and how many are rented. How can this logjam be unblocked?
3. Work with 21 Elements and ABAG to gather information. We are not aware of progress and the status of this issue.
Without adequate data and useful information, the City does not know how many landlords there are in San Mateo, what rental rates are, what the vacancy rate is.
Council asked for this information in lieu of creating a rental registry.
I respectfully request the Council to direct staff to provide this information to the public.
Thank you
Robert (he, him)
Acknowledgement: I reside on the unceded lands of our indigenous ancestors the Ramaytush Ohlone, while benefiting from racial privilege. We begin making reparations by accepting only a kinship view of our place on the planet: All life is interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated To TEXT Me