Rent stabilization passes




California’s housing crisis has been dragging on for years with no end in sight. The state is trapped in a tight housing market that continues to squeeze the middle class.

When buying a home becomes financially unfeasible, many residents make due by renting. But even the state’s rents are some of the highest in the country.

A new bill in California hopes to at least keep rent increases in check. Assembly Bill 1482, which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month, limits rent increases across the state to 5% annually, plus inflation. The bill goes into effect in January 2020.

Newsom said the bill will give California the “nation’s strongest statewide renter protections.”

The bill was written by Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco), who said the desire to keep renters in their homes comes as a response to the growing homeless population in the state. An estimated 60,000 homeless people live in Los Angeles County alone.

“In the midst of the most intense housing crisis in California history, we must take decisive action to stem the tide of displacement and homelessness,” Chiu said.

Anya Lawler, a policy advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a law firm that represents low-income Californians in court, was one of two lobbyists that advocated for the bill and helped draft its wording.

Lawler said despite how it appears, the bill isn’t about rent control.

“It’s an anti-gouging measure that targets high rent increases we tend to call ‘economic evictions,’ where it’s not only a rent increase, it’s really an increase that’s designed to induce a tenant to leave because there’s no way most people can handle that level of rent increase,” Lawler said. “The other very important piece of this bill is ‘just cause’ evictions.”

A just cause eviction requires a landlord to have a justifiable reason for evicting a tenant.

With certain restrictions, California allows local municipalities to legislate rent control within their borders. Lawler said just cause evictions and rent control ordinances typically go hand-in-hand— if a landlord can’t price someone out of their apartment, they also can’t kick them out and raise the rent for the next tenant.

The just cause component was initially its own bill, but Lawler said it was important that a statewide anti-gouging law couldn’t be subverted by baseless evictions, so the two were combined.

Lawler called the bill’s passage a “significant shift in state-level politics.”

“There seems to be a growing recognition in the Capitol that in addition to addressing our major housing supply (shortage) in California, we also need to ensure in the meantime that people are not experiencing housing instability as a result of that shortage,” she said.

Calabasas resident Arnold Placencio has seen both sides of the struggle. In his life he’s been a renter and a landlord. He said capping rent increases is a good idea but that it might only delay rent-induced eviction, not prevent it.

“Sure, it’s 5% this year, but next year it’s another 5% and the year after it’s 5% more,” Placencio said. “People aren’t getting yearly raises like they used to, so eventually they won’t be able to pay that.”

Placencio said the best solution is developing more low-income housing for working-class people such as teachers and nurses.

He said the proposed expansion of the Avalon apartments in Calabasas is one solution to help meet the local housing demand. The project would add 160 new units to the apartment complex at Lost Hills Road and Meadow Creek Lane.

When the complex was built in 1988, 80 apartments were set aside as low-income housing for 30 years. The contract expired last year.

AvalonBay, the owner, is offering to keep the 80 units priced at a level its tenants can afford. In return, Avalon wants permission to build an additional 160 market-rate units on the property. If the city doesn’t give permission the company has threatened to take the issue directly to the voters.

The proposal requires no additional land at the Avalon site, but it worries some local residents who fear the housing expansion would contribute to overcrowding and traffic on the city’s west side. The 80 affordable units would be locked in for 55 years, leading opponents also to wonder what additional expansion will occur after that time-limit expires.

Placencio is a resident in one of the affordable units and said he doesn’t want to be priced out.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl has voiced support for the development, which she said will help keep longtime Calabasas residents in their homes.

Speaking on AB 1482, Lawler said low-income residents are the ones who bear the brunt of the state’s housing crisis.

“It’s not just a simple crisis of supply and demand,” she said. “We’ve consistently failed to provide adequate funding and resources to provide enough housing units affordable to people with lower-income units. Those are the people who can least afford rent increases. More people are recognizing that, and it’s creating a movement and a recognition that we can’t just focus on building. We have to focus on keeping people in their homes.”