Move may get cities to try rent control
Apartment group halts suits in 2 local cities
Grassroots efforts to establish rent control in more California cities could get a boost from the California Apartment Association’s decision to abandon its lawsuits seeking to overturn voter-approved rent-control laws in Richmond and Mountain View.
The association, which represents landlords, posted on its website late Friday that it has “suspended its legal efforts” to overturn Measure V in Mountain View and Measure L in Richmond.
“I hope it emboldens other communities to not be chilled by threats of lawsuits,” said Juliet Brodie, a Stanford Law School professor who helped draft Measure V.
Judges in Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties had previously ruled against the association’s motions for preliminary injunctions seeking to halt implementation of the measures approved by each city’s voters in November. A full hearing on the merits of the case in Richmond had been scheduled for May 24; that is now canceled.
The association claimed, and still believes, that the laws constitute illegal takings under federal and state constitutions, but “made a business decision that we were going to focus our anti-rent-control efforts other places,” its chief executive, Tom Bannon, said.
That includes trying to nip other grassroots efforts in the bud and “monitoring to make sure that regulations” implementing the Richmond and Mountain View measures are legal, Bannon said.
Groups that helped draft the rent control measures said they knew they were legal.
“One of our issues with the lawsuits, we thought they were frivolous, meant to dial back our organizing,” said Aimee Inglis, associate director of Tenants Together, an umbrella organization for local campaigns to establish rent control in California.
“We are really glad the California Apartment Association has decided not to waste
time and government resources in pursuing a question that has already been resolved.” She said the courts decided years ago, in cases such as Birkenfeld vs. City of Berkeley, that rent control is not illegal.
Voters in San Mateo, Burlingame and Alameda turned down rent control measures in November, but other Bay Area cities are moving ahead with plans to implement or strengthen renter protections.
Pacifica’s City Council approved a temporary rent- and eviction-control ordinance that will take effect May 24. The council was to vote Monday night on whether to have the ordinance take effect immediately and put a permanent measure on the November ballot.
Santa Rosa residents will vote on a rent- and eviction-control measure June 6. San Jose’s City Council voted last month to adopt an ordinance that would limit tenant evictions to certain reasons allowed under state law. On Tuesday, it will vote whether to adopt an ordinance that would make the rules effective immediately, rather than having it come back to the City Council for two readings.
Inglis said rent-control campaigns are in the very early stages in San Diego, Glendale, Pasadena, Santa Barbara and unincorporated Los Angeles County.
“When cities are thinking of implementing new ordinances, they are going to take into account the cost of defending an ordinance from challenges,” said J. Leah Castella, an Oakland attorney who helped defend the city of Richmond against the association’s suit. The outcome of that case “changes the risk profile and the cost profile for enacting rent control. I don’t think that alone motivates cities to act, but that combined with a groundswell of constituent desire across the bay, I do think it’s likely more ordinances will be enacted.”
Although city councils do not need voter approval to enact rent control, putting it on the ballot “is a safer course of action,” Castella said.
Even if the association’s decision to drop its lawsuits lowers the legal barrier to rent control, there is still “the political question,” Brodie said. “Do city councils have the political will to go against the real estate industry influence in city hall?”
Looking back on its efforts to prevent rent control from spreading across the Bay Area, Bannon said, “we probably should have advocated even sooner the importance of pushing for more (housing) development as quickly as possible.”
Historically, the association “has primarily focused on helping our members manage their property. The shift we should have made sooner, that we have now made, is addressing the importance of significant housing development, whether it’s modification of (environmental laws), speeding up the development process or allowing builders to build smaller units,” Bannon said. “I don’t think people foresaw this sort of interest and this wave of concern, no matter how misguided.”