Redwood City’s Tenant Protection Ordinance took effect in January 2026, and it layers city-specific requirements on top of state law that landlords in most of California don’t have to deal with: a mandatory one-year lease offer at the start of every new tenancy, and relocation assistance tied to Fair Market Rent figures rather than the flat one-month amount the statewide just cause law uses.

Meanwhile, a separate ballot measure asking voters to go further with a 5% rent cap, Measure E, was trailing badly as of the city’s most recent November 2026 vote count.

Here’s what’s actually law right now, what was still being decided, and what a landlord selling a tenant-occupied property in Redwood City needs to confirm first.

Table of Contents

Where Measure E Stood as the Votes Were Counted

Measure E asked Redwood City voters to adopt stricter rent control, capping annual increases at 5% and expanding tenant protections beyond what the Tenant Protection Ordinance already provides.

According to the San Mateo County Elections Office’s report filed the afternoon of Friday, November 6, 2026, the measure was trailing 43.89% yes (7,466 votes) to just over 56% no (9,544 votes), with roughly 7,000 of the nearly 24,000 ballots cast in Redwood City still left to count.

Supporters, including Faith in Action member Clara Jaeckel, said they would not concede until the final certified count, but a lead of that size this late in the count is a difficult one to close.

Anyone relying on Measure E passing should treat that as unresolved rather than assume the stricter cap is coming — and should check the county’s certified results directly before relying on any particular outcome.

What’s Already Law Regardless of Measure E: The Tenant Protection Ordinance

Separately from the ballot measure, Redwood City’s City Council passed a Tenant Protection Ordinance on October 13, 2025 in a 4-2 vote, and it officially took effect January 1, 2026.

Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos, Vice Mayor Kaia Eakin, and council members Diane Howard and Chris Sturken voted in favor; council members Jeff Gee and Isabella Chu voted against, with Gee specifically questioning how the ordinance’s “right to return” provision, discussed below, would work financially for landlords facing expensive code-mandated upgrades to older buildings.

Unlike Measure E, this ordinance is already in force today and applies regardless of how the ballot measure is ultimately decided.

The ordinance replaces the city’s 2018 Relocation Assistance Ordinance and Minimum Lease Term Ordinance, both of which had become largely unenforceable after the statewide Tenant Protection Act passed in 2019, and consolidates them into a single framework that layers on top of state law rather than replacing it.

The Right to Return: Closing the “Phantom Remodel” Loophole

The most contentious piece of the ordinance, and the one with no equivalent anywhere in state law, is the right to return.

A tenant displaced by a substantial remodel has the right to come back once the work is done, and the landlord must offer the unit at the same rent the tenant was paying when they moved out, plus whatever increases the statewide Tenant Protection Act would otherwise have allowed during the time they were gone — not a market-rate reset.

Supporters framed this as closing a “phantom substantial remodel” loophole, where a landlord cites an intended remodel to clear out a tenant and then simply re-rents the unit at a higher rate without ever completing comparable work.

Opponents, including a representative of the California Apartment Association, argued it effectively imposes a “double penalty” on landlords who are already paying relocation costs mandated by state law, and separately caps what they can charge the same unit’s next occupant.

Whichever side of that debate a landlord sympathizes with, the right to return is binding law in Redwood City today, and a landlord planning a substantial remodel needs to track down and re-offer the unit to the displaced tenant once work is complete, not simply re-list it on the open market.

The One-Year Lease Requirement California Law Doesn’t Have

This is the single biggest way Redwood City’s rules diverge from the state default. California law does not require a landlord to offer any particular lease length — a month-to-month tenancy is perfectly lawful statewide.

Redwood City’s ordinance changes that at the local level: landlords must offer a one-year lease at the initial lease-up of a unit. A tenant can still decline that offer, and the parties can agree to a shorter term instead, but the landlord has to make the one-year offer first.

A landlord who skips straight to a month-to-month agreement without ever offering the one-year term is not following the ordinance as written, even if the tenant would have been happy with month-to-month anyway.

The 12-Month and 24-Month Just-Cause Thresholds

Once a tenant has lived in a unit for at least 12 months — or one tenant has occupied it for 24 months where additional tenants were added later — Redwood City landlords may only terminate for a specific, recognized just cause, mirroring the structure of the statewide Civil Code 1946.2 framework rather than replacing it.

At-fault grounds include nonpayment of rent, lease violations, nuisance behavior, criminal activity, denying the landlord lawful access to the unit, and failing to vacate after the lease ends; the end of certain employment or licenses tied to occupying the unit also counts.

This threshold structure tracks state law closely, which is useful context: a landlord already complying with the statewide just-cause rules is most of the way to complying with Redwood City’s local version, but should not assume the two are identical in every detail, particularly on relocation amounts, discussed next.

No-Fault Grounds: What Still Lets a Landlord Terminate a Tenancy

Redwood City’s ordinance also recognizes no-fault just causes: removing the unit from the rental market, complying with a government order, demolishing the unit, performing a substantial remodel, or an owner or close relative moving into the unit. “Substantial remodel” is defined narrowly — work that requires a permit and makes the unit unlivable during construction, such as major structural, electrical, or plumbing upgrades.

Purely cosmetic improvements, like paint or flooring, do not qualify as a substantial remodel under the ordinance, which matters because only a qualifying substantial remodel triggers the relocation-assistance obligation described below.

Relocation Assistance: Fair Market Rent, Not a Flat Month’s Rent

This is the second major way Redwood City departs from the statewide default. Civil Code 1946.2 requires a flat one month’s rent (or a rent waiver) for a no-fault termination anywhere in California where it applies.

Redwood City instead ties relocation assistance to federal Fair Market Rent figures, and the amount depends on the household’s income and composition.

A low-income household — earning below 80% of the Area Median Income — that’s forced to move for a no-fault reason receives relocation assistance equal to three months of Fair Market Rent for their unit size.

A household that includes a senior, a person with a disability, a family with children, or a tenant who has lived in the unit for at least five years qualifies for four months of Fair Market Rent instead of three.

Using the federal figures the city itself cited, Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom unit is $2,977 and for a four-bedroom unit is $4,772 — meaning three months of relocation assistance for a qualifying one-bedroom household comes to roughly $8,931, and four months for a qualifying four-bedroom household comes to roughly $19,088.

These numbers dwarf the flat one-month state minimum for a comparable unit, which is exactly the kind of local variation a landlord has to catch before serving a termination notice.

A tenant who doesn’t fall into the low-income or special-circumstance categories described above still receives the statewide one-month relocation amount under Civil Code 1946.2 — the local ordinance adds two higher tiers on top of the state floor for qualifying households, rather than replacing the state minimum for everyone.

Who Actually Qualifies for the Higher Relocation Tier

The income test matters as much as the no-fault ground itself.

A household above 80% of Area Median Income displaced for a no-fault reason does not automatically qualify for either relocation tier under the local ordinance, which means a landlord has to actually verify household income and composition before assuming a given relocation amount applies — or before assuming no local relocation obligation applies at all.

This income-based structure is meaningfully different from the statewide just-cause law, where the one-month relocation amount applies “regardless of the tenant’s income.” A landlord who defaults to the statewide flat-rent approach without checking Redwood City’s income and household-composition tiers risks paying the wrong amount in either direction.

Documenting the qualifying facts matters just as much as calculating the number correctly.

A landlord relying on the lower, three-month tier should keep written evidence of how household income was verified — a signed certification, pay stubs, or another income documentation method consistent with how the city expects landlords to confirm eligibility — rather than relying on an assumption about the tenant’s circumstances.

For the four-month tier, the landlord should document which special circumstance applies: the tenant’s age or disability status, the presence of minor children in the household, or the length of tenancy itself, which is usually easy to confirm from the lease’s own start date.

A seller who inherits this obligation mid-transaction, or who is trying to deliver vacant possession before closing, should request this documentation from current management rather than assume the prior owner tracked it consistently, since a dispute over which tier applies can delay a termination notice the same way a miscalculated dollar amount can.

A Worked Example: Substantial Remodel, Relocation, and the Right to Return Together

Say a landlord owns a two-bedroom unit in an older Redwood City building and wants to replace the electrical and plumbing systems, work that requires permits and makes the unit unlivable during construction — a qualifying substantial remodel, not a cosmetic refresh.

The current tenant, a senior who has lived there for eight years, qualifies for the special-circumstance relocation tier: four months of Fair Market Rent.

Using a figure between the city’s cited one-bedroom and four-bedroom numbers, a two-bedroom Fair Market Rent in the $3,800 range would put relocation assistance at roughly $15,200, due before the tenant has to vacate.

Once the remodel is finished, the landlord cannot simply list the unit at the new market rate; the right to return requires offering it first to that same tenant, at the rent they were paying when they left, adjusted only by whatever increases the statewide Tenant Protection Act would have otherwise allowed during the construction period.

Only if the tenant declines to return does the landlord get to rent the unit to someone else at whatever rate the market will bear. Skipping the right-to-return offer entirely, not just getting the relocation amount wrong, is itself a separate violation of the ordinance.

What Measure E Would Have Added on Top

Even if Measure E had passed, it would not have replaced the Tenant Protection Ordinance described above — the two are separate local measures covering different ground.

Measure E was specifically about capping annual rent increases at 5%, a form of rent control Redwood City does not currently have outside of state law’s own AB 1482 cap, and about expanding tenant protections further than the ordinance already does.

The Tenant Protection Ordinance’s lease-term, just-cause, and relocation provisions would have remained in place either way.

A landlord tracking Redwood City compliance going forward should watch the county’s certification of Measure E separately from the already-binding ordinance, since a late reversal in the vote count would add a rent cap on top of the existing rules, not replace them.

Where to Confirm the Current Rules Directly

The city maintains a dedicated Tenant Protection Ordinance resource at RedwoodCity.org/TPO, and Redwood City Housing Staff can be reached directly at 650-780-7303 for case-specific questions.

Project Sentinel, the city’s housing assistance partner, separately offers free tenant and landlord counseling, mediation, and dispute resolution at 650-399-2149 or through its office on Hudson Street.

A landlord working through a termination or a sale involving a tenant should use these resources to confirm the current Fair Market Rent figures for the specific unit size involved, since federal Fair Market Rent numbers are updated periodically and the figures cited here reflect the data available as the ordinance took effect.

How the City Is Rolling This Out

After the council vote, the city committed to informing residents of the new rules through online outreach, mailers, community meetings, and partnerships with local organizations — an acknowledgment that an ordinance this different from the statewide default needs active publicity to actually change behavior on the ground, rather than just sitting in the municipal code.

Council member Sturken said he believes the ordinance, properly enforced, could meaningfully deter the “phantom substantial remodel” pattern the right-to-return provision targets, where a landlord claims an intended remodel mainly to clear out a long-term tenant.

The ordinance itself grew out of years of research by the city’s Housing and Human Concerns Committee, the advisory body that studies affordable-housing policy for the council, so a landlord who wants the underlying policy rationale rather than just the compliance checklist can look to that committee’s record for the reasoning behind each provision.

How This Interacts With a Sale

A sale itself is not a just cause to end a Redwood City tenancy any more than it is under state law — a buyer takes the property subject to the existing lease and the existing tenant protections unless a specific just cause independently applies.

A seller who wants to deliver a property vacant has to pick a ground that genuinely fits, follow the ordinance’s notice requirements, and pay the correct relocation amount under the local Fair Market Rent formula rather than the flat statewide figure, or risk the same kind of void-notice problem that a defective statewide 1946.2 notice creates.

Given how much larger the local relocation amounts can run compared to the state minimum, miscalculating this is a more expensive mistake in Redwood City than in a city that simply follows the state default.

Before You Serve a Notice or List a Tenant-Occupied Property

Confirm the current certified status of Measure E with the San Mateo County Elections Office rather than assuming either outcome.
Confirm whether the one-year lease offer was actually made and documented at the start of the current tenancy.
Check whether the tenant has crossed the 12- or 24-month just-cause threshold under the local ordinance.
For a no-fault termination, verify household income against the 80% Area Median Income threshold and household composition before calculating the relocation amount.
Pull the current Fair Market Rent figure for the specific unit size from HUD’s published data before finalizing any relocation payment.

If you own a tenant-occupied property in Redwood City and would rather not navigate the local relocation formula and notice requirements before a sale, Cash Home Buyers CA buys rental property with tenants already in place.

We either buy directly or bring in a vetted cash buyer, and when you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title.

Our page on sell a tenant-occupied house in Redwood City covers the transactional side of that process in more detail.

You can find Cash Home Buyers CA on our Google Business Profile, linked right here.

Redwood City’s Tenant Protection Ordinance: Leases, Evictions, Relocation