rcb-database

A registry of every Santa Monica unit with an established Maximum Allowable Rent (MAR), scraped monthly from the City's public lookup tool. The total runs above the Rent Control Board's official "controlled units" count by definition; see docs/reconciliation-2025.md.

History before the first 2026 scrape is backfilled from the Rent Control Board's document portal (OCR'd annual MAR reports back to 2012) and the City's one-time 2023 open-data export; parcel geometry comes from City GIS.

The data is committed, so each monthly git diff is a per-unit change history. Browse it on the interactive map and charts (source in site/).

Usage

The registry is already committed under data/; the scraper exists to re-collect it. The scrape commands hit the City's servers, so mind the rate limits in CLAUDE.md.

npm install
npm run scraper -- sweep-streets     # Phase A: street → parcel index
npm run scraper -- drill-properties  # Phase B: per-parcel units + MAR

License

This repository is dual-licensed:

• Code (scraper, tooling, site) — MIT.
• Data (data/) — CC0 1.0, public domain. The underlying MARs and APNs are factual public records from the City's MAR tool, document portal, open-data export, and GIS.