Amid skyrocketing rents and a housing crisis, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Friday signed and praised a new law that aims to strengthen enforcement of the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
The law will require landlords who demolish rent-controlled units under the Ellis Act to either replace them one-for-one with affordable units or make 20 percent of new units affordable, depending on which is higher.
In October 2015, Scherrie and Langston Donaldson received a cryptic notice from their landlord, labeled “preferential rent credit removal.” At first glance, they weren’t sure what to make of it.
“As you know, we have been billing you at a preferential rent for your 2013-2015 lease,” it read. “Unfortunately, at this time we are no longer able to extend this courtesy to you.”
Implementation of rent control victories…
Last year, the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission selected Bryan Valenzuela as one of two locals to create public art for the new Kings arena. Today, you can witness his sculpture—blown-glass spheres suspended midair—inside the Golden 1 Center. During arena-christening festivities, politicians thanked him and other creative-class denizens for giving Sacramento its artistic soul.
And then, at the end of 2016, his landlord thanked him—with an eviction notice.
Under pressure from the California Apartment Association and other real estate interests, Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, has put on hold a bill that seeks to increase renter protections amid California’s widening housing crisis.
Bloom wants to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a state law passed in 1995 that curtails the type of housing covered under local rental control laws and prevents cities from strengthening tenant protections for renters.
Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a Los Angeles tenant advocacy group, said that despite the delay, the bill’s introduction in itself has created the possibility of changes once considered far-fetched. Before AB 1506, the only repeal bill submitted was one in 2000 that never came up for a vote, according to Bloom’s office.
“It’s the beginning of a groundswell,” Gross said.
Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom’s bill that would allow for the return of extreme rental housing price control eliminated two decades ago has received a mixed reaction statewide.
But his bill has the full support of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board. The board voted unanimously Thursday to endorse Bloom’s proposal (AB 1506).
The board also endorsed another of Bloom's bills, AB 982, that would require landlords to provide a one-year notice to tenants before evicting them under the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to get out of the rental business.
Corona officials could pursue voluntary rent control for trailer parks in an effort to help elderly and impoverished residents facing 30 percent rent hikes over two years. The City Council is expected to have an April 26 study session after individual members tried for a year to find a compromise between those living at Corona La Linda Mobile Home Park, where most residents are low-income Latinos, and Kort & Scott Financial Group in Anaheim, which bought the trailer park in June 2015.
The June referendum vote on Santa Rosa’s rent control ordinance is shaping up to be an expensive — and likely lopsided — brawl. Landlords and groups representing them, mostly from outside Santa Rosa, have donated at least $390,000 to date for a political committee opposing the city’s law. That’s compared to about $68,000 raised by supporters of the city’s rent control law, which seeks to cap rent increases on older apartments at 3 percent annually and protect renters against unfair evictions.
Amid California’s housing crisis, several state lawmakers want to give cities the ability to dramatically expand rent control, including imposing the kind of strict limits that once existed in Santa Monica and West Hollywood but have been barred since the 1990s. A bill that would do so, introduced last month, marks the most significant move yet in a growing movement to cap skyrocketing rents as California’s economy booms and housing production lags. Protests over the high cost of housing and aggressive landlord tactics have erupted in Los Angeles and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.