Milpitas approves just-cause eviction protections and rent review board

MILPITAS » Facing criticism over its slow response to aid renters in the city, the Milpitas City Council on Tuesday adopted several policy changes that protect tenants from steep rent increases and wrongful evictions and offer financial assistance to some residents so they can stay in their homes or find other housing.

But for some tenants and advocates, the moves are “too little, too late” to offer effective help to renters amid a worsening affordable housing crisis.

“I’m honestly happy that at least the ball was moved forward in the right direction, but I think it’s indicative of the fact that there’s just a long way to go,” Chris Rios, a renter in Milpitas, said Tuesday after the votes, adding that expanding renter protections in the city and region is “a huge uphill battle.”

Acknowledging the urgency of its decision, the five-member council approved just- cause eviction and rent review program ordinances that became effective immediately.

The council also approved a one-year pilot “rent relief” program that would set aside $100,000 to help homeless families with students in the Milpitas Unified School District find housing. The nonprofit Silicon Valley Independent Living Center will run the pro

gram for the city at an estimated service cost of $1,290 per referral, according to staff reports.

The just- cause eviction rule— which requires landlords who want to evict a tenant to list a qualified reason for doing so, such as substantially damaging the property — is intended to prevent any unjust evictions before the coming state rent cap law, AB1482, takes effect in January.

Like the state law, the city’s stopgap measure applies only to tenants who have been in their home for at least one year, but it expands those protections to renters in subsidized rentals, including renters using Section 8 vouchers. The ordinance will expire Jan. 1, when the state law kicks in.

The rent review program allows any tenant who is facing an annual rent increase of 5% or more to request a review by the city, either on the phone, in person or both, to try to resolve the situation between him and his landlord.

If neither option is successful, the renter can request a hearing in front of a five-member rent review board, made up of two landlord representatives who own rental property in the city, two tenant representatives who live in Milpitas and one neutral third party who is neither a landlord nor tenant but lives in the city.

The program is modeled after a Fremont policy, and the decisions of the Milpitas review board would be nonbinding, which critics say makes it a dubious and ineffectual route for tenants who are facing steep rent increases.

Under the ordinance, landlords are prohibited from discriminating against a potential renter based on his source of income, such as a low- income renter with a Section 8 voucher, and from retaliating against a tenant that requests a review.

The council initially had moved toward approving a similar rent review ordinance with a 7% annual increase threshold in midSeptember, but it later decided to revise it to its current version.

It would cost $100,000 to run fromNov. 1 of this year until Dec. 31 of 2021, staffreports said, andwouldbe administered by Santa Clarabased Project Sentinel, a contractor that already has a $50,000 annual contract to serve as the city’s fair housing provider.

“It’s really not going to help,” Sandy Perry, director of the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County, said Tuesday in an interview of the Milpitas rent review program.

Perry, along with several renters and other regional advocates, also asked the City Council to make the just- cause ordinance permanent, and to expand it to cover as many types of renters as possible, such as those in single-family home rentals and newer apartment buildings.

Many people at themeeting also said the protections should apply to renters as soon as they begin living in a rental and not require a year of tenancy, which the state law does.

Vice Mayor Karina Dominguez at one point made a motion to try to pass a version of the ordinance that included some of those broader protections but found no support on the council.

It’s possible the council will discuss strengthening the just cause eviction ordinance in the coming months.

Echoing the sentiments of landlords and homeowners who spoke at themeeting, oneman saidhe doesn’t “see the necessity forMilpitas to be the front-runners in this issue because overall Milpitas has a good situation in terms of the housing crisis.”

The policy changes come after months of clamoring by advocates and tenants seeking strong renter protections, and finding frustration in the council’s inaction.

“InMay, we askedfor rent control and just cause, and we didn’t get it. And these measures that they’re proposing are just not strong enough,” Perry said. “It’s short of what’s needed.”

“I know that persons think that we have taken along time ,” City CouncilmanBobNuñez said during the meeting.

“I think things take as long as they take.”