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<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />March 3, 2026 <br /> <br />Mayor Amezcua and Members of the Council <br />City of Santa Ana <br />20 Civic Center Plaza <br />Santa Ana, CA 92701 <br />Re: Item 19 – Second Reading and Adoption of an Ordinance Prohibiting Anti-Competitive <br />Automated Rent Price-Fixing <br />Dear Mayor Amezcua and Members of the Santa Ana City Council, <br />On behalf of Chispa, I write to express our strong support for the adoption of the ordinance <br />prohibiting anti-competitive automated rent price-fixing in the City of Santa Ana (City). We <br />appreciate the Council’s leadership—particularly Councilmember Lopez for introducing this <br />item—and for advancing this important policy during its first reading. We respectfully urge the <br />Council to approve the ordinance on second reading. <br />Santa Ana is a renter-majority city where housing affordability remains one of the most pressing <br />challenges facing our residents. According to the American Community Survey, more than 55 <br />percent of Santa Ana households are renters, and over half of those renters are <br />cost-burdened—spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The increasing use <br />of algorithmic pricing tools in the rental market threatens to further worsen these conditions by <br />enabling landlords to rely on shared nonpublic data to maximize rents and artificially inflate <br />prices. <br />These tools transform competition into coordinated price-setting by recommending rental rates <br />based on aggregated market data rather than genuine market competition. National estimates <br />indicate that pricing algorithms have already added billions of dollars in additional rent costs for <br />tenants. For working-class families in Santa Ana, many of whom are already struggling with <br />rising housing costs, these practices only deepen housing instability and displacement pressures. <br />The ordinance before you takes an important step to address this issue by prohibiting the sale, <br />licensing, and use of algorithmic devices that rely on nonpublic competitor data to set rental rates <br />or occupancy levels. By doing so, the City will protect renters from anti-competitive practices <br />that distort the housing market and undermine affordability. <br />Santa Ana would also join a growing number of cities across the country taking action to protect <br />renters from algorithmic rent collusion. Local leadership is critical as federal and state responses