Has rent control ever worked in Florida? Miami Beach tried it in the 1970s

Back when $250 a month bought luxury living in Florida, tenants had enough political pull in Miami Beach that the city imposed rent controls on residential buildings. The protections didn’t last long.

In 1974, the city council passed a law freezing rents. A Rent Control Officer was recruited from New York to oversee the new restrictions on landlords. At the time, apartment-building owners mostly depended on fixed-income seniors who retired to the beach for an affordable place to live.

“It was very popular,’” said Bob Goodman, a council member in the early 1970s. “There weren’t a lot of high-rises. Condos didn’t exist then. But the renters of the apartments were in favor of it.”

Miami Beach’s brief experiment with rent control led Florida to pass legislation in 1977 restricting the pricing rules local governments can impose on landlords. That state law is now the focus of an effort by a Miami-Dade County commissioner to impose rent controls countywide.

Forty-eight years ago, the early days of rent control in Miami Beach caused a buzz with renters and litigation from landlords.

Stanley Kaufman, the city’s official Rent Control Officer, fielded calls from his Lincoln Road office after city commissioners passed the ordinance on Dec. 11, 1974, freezing rents on nearly 50,000 apartments.

“Pay the same rent you paid on Oct. 16,” Kaufman told callers, according to a Miami Herald story published Christmas Day that year under the headline: “Beach Rent Rules Deciphered.”

The law gave Kaufman the authority to approve rent increases up to 6% based on city criteria. Landlords had prior city rent-control ordinances overturned, but the 1974 rules endured until Florida lawmakers intervened.

In 1977, the Florida Legislature passed a law that restricted how counties and cities could regulate rents. Those rules include a 12-month limit on rent controls, and a provision making it easier for landlords to sue to block the rent caps entirely.

The Florida law also exempted “luxury apartment buildings” from rent control. The law defined luxury as a unit renting for more than $250 a month on Jan. 1, 1977. A year after it passed, the state Supreme Court ruled the Florida legislation voided Miami Beach’s rent-control rules.

“I think this bill will go a long way to restoring political sanity in Miami Beach,” Eugene Weiss, president of Miami Beach Apartment Association, said at the time, “and to restore the free market.”

This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 6:00 AM.