SAN MATEO — A day after a contentious hearing on the city’s housing affordability crisis, San Mateo leaders scolded landlords who jeered Deputy Mayor David Lim as he played a voicemail that a distraught renter left on his phone.

The outburst came after the City Council, for the second time this month, failed to reach consensus Monday night on an emergency ordinance to protect tenants from eviction or drastic rent increases amid the Bay Area’s searing housing market.

Though he had opposed the ordinance, Lim told the crowd he wanted to illustrate the gravity of the crisis, which is forcing longtime residents to flee the city in search of affordable housing. As he played the message from a sobbing registered nurse who fears she will have to leave the Bay Area, more than a dozen members of a large contingent of landlords heckled Lim and walked out of the room.

Lim said Tuesday he was shocked by the lack of respect.

“It makes me wonder if the renters are right when they say some of these landlords have no heart,” said Lim, adding that other landlords approached him after the meeting to apologize for the behavior of their fellow property owners.

The San Mateo County Association of Realtors, or SAMCAR, and the California Apartment Association have mobilized property owners to attend recent hearings on the housing crunch in San Mateo.

A spokeswoman for SAMCAR did not immediately respond to a call Tuesday seeking comment. The Peninsula chapter of the apartment association issued a statement noting, “Our entire community is dealing with a very difficult situation.”

“We advise our members to engage in a respectful dialogue that upholds CAA’s values of ethics and professionalism,” the statement read in part.

City Hall was packed Monday with landlords and their supporters, who argue the only solution for easing housing prices is increasing the supply of units.

Tenant advocates, disappointed that the council opted last week not to pursue temporary or permanent rent control measures, decided not to attend the hearing. Faith in Action Bay Area, a community nonprofit, plans to put a rent-stabilization initiative on the San Mateo ballot in November.

Mayor Joe Goethals said a minority of landlords has built up hostility toward Lim, who has become increasingly outspoken in support of tenants. By some measures, rents in San Mateo have increased by more than 40 percent over the past four years.

“Certain landlords prefer intimidation and insults rather than dialogue,” said Goethals. “The vast majority of the landlords who came last night were professional and expressed constructive feedback.”

The outburst came even as the council’s effort to provide emergency safeguards for tenants collapsed. On April 4, the council rejected two temporary measures: a 90-day rent freeze and a relocation assistance program that would require landlords to pay the equivalent of six months rent if they evicted tenants without just cause or raised the rent by more than 9 percent.

The council rejected the relocation fee a second time Monday, with a majority finding the emergency measure to be overly broad and aggressive.

Goethals, who proposed the ordinance, said he was disappointed the rest of the council didn’t seem interested in fixing the flaws in the measure.

Still, the city is pursuing various initiatives to boost the city’s housing stock, including fees on developers to fund affordable housing projects.

“Despite the failure to enact tenant protections,” Goethals said, “we’re moving ahead with measures to increase housing supply at all income levels.”

Contact Aaron Kinney at 650-348-4357. Follow him at Twitter.com/kinneytimes.