General News

Los Angeles real estate investors are gearing up for a campaign to defeat a ballot measure that would increase a tax on the sale of multimillion-dollar properties to help pay for housing one of the biggest US homeless populations. 
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Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed an emergency bill that will extend through June eviction protections for Californians suffering financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic, acting just days before an earlier moratorium was set to expire.

People who live in mobile home parks are in a precarious position: They own the homes they live in, but rent the space underneath them. And few receive the protections that other types of renters enjoy.

In El Dorado County, where a new mobile park owner is offering decades-long leases, residents fearing displacement are hoping elected officials step in. While dozens of California counties and cities have passed protections of their own, few statewide rules exist. 

A contentious proposal to suspend rent for three months for families who are struggling to make rent due to coronavirus was struck down by San Jose’s attorney at a virtual City Council meeting Tuesday, concerned the policy violated the Constitution.

City Attorney Rick Doyle said the city would be on the hook for the forgiven rent amounts, if it approves the proposal. Otherwise, he said, it’s equivalent to taking someone’s property away.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and top Democrats announced Friday evening that they have reached an agreement to place limits on how much landlords can increase a tenant’s rent each year.

The compromise offers a stronger path forward for Assembly Bill 1482, which cleared a key budget committee earlier on Friday.

Even some natural supporters for reforming rent control seemed to be turned off by the city’s latest changes. Mobile home advocates for years have been urging Mountain View leaders to extend rent control protections to them, and the upcoming ballot measure seems a perfect opportunity to press their cause.

Ever since Proposition 13, California’s iconic property tax limit, was passed by voters in 1978, unions and their political allies have yearned to either repeal or modify it. After years of cogitation, they gathered enough voter signatures to put their “Schools and Communities First” measure on the ballot.

Attempting to strike a balance between the interests of renters and property owners, Inglewood approved a rent control ordinance this week that caps increases at 5% — lower than first proposed — but imposes protections against unfair evictions.

Landlords and realtor groups earned a win in the California Capitol this week after lawmakers shelved a bill to restrict evictions and amended another to limit caps on rent.

A bill aimed at protecting California tenants from “egregious” rent hikes cleared a key hurdle in the state Legislature today, less than 24 hours after pro-tenant groups learned their latest try to expand tighter rent controls throughout California is flailing in the Capitol.

Several Highland mobile home residents asking for “rent stabilization” during the March 26 City Council meeting learned that should the city pass such an ordinance California law exempts their long-term mobile home leases from the rent control.

During the last City Council meeting, several Highland mobile home residents took the public comment opportunity to voice complaints about conditions and rising costs at their mobile home parks asking the council to consider placing a rent control ordinance on a future meeting agenda.

The Arcata City Council directed city staff to research the possibility of placing a temporary ban on the closure and conversion of mobile home parks to a different use Wednesday night.

A ban on closing and converting mobile home parks for other use would allow time for the city to create zoning that would protect mobile home park residents from the threat of eviction. Once a zoning type for mobile home parks is in place, securing land use for mobile home parks alone, the city could then create an ordinance according to these zoning protections.

The Pasadena City Council on Monday approved an expanded set of protections for people who rent their homes, which officials say strikes a compromise between the interests of tenants and their landlords.

Renter advocates last year pushed the council to strengthen the city’s 2004 tenant protection law, last updated in 2017, after apartment renters at a South Roosevelt Avenue property were told to pack their bags within 60 days after the building changed hands.

California is a costly place to live. Homes cost 2.5 times the national average and rents are 50 percent higher than the national average. According to the non-partisan State Legislative Analyst’s Office, California’s housing crisis is fueled by a lack of supply and high demand.

Californians not only understand this, they feel it. In a recent CNBC poll, the high cost of homeownership was the leading reason why 53 percent of Californians are considering leaving the state, a jump over the 49 percent polled last year and this view is strongest among millennials (63 percent).

After San Leandro mobile home owners, many seniors with limited means, spoke Monday night of suffering harassment by their mobile home park owners, along with fears of retaliation, the San Leandro City Council voted to continue an agenda item that would have given them some protections from displacement.

The council, which unanimously voted to direct staff to further study the proposed ordinance, also accepted a “gentlemen’s agreement” offered by the city’s nine mobile home park owners to not raise rents for 90 days, while they meet with city staff.

In an attempt to slow displacement and upheaval in communities where rents are rising faster than incomes, Oregon has just adopted the nation’s first statewide rent control law, capping the annual increase landlords may impose on tenants. Sounds dramatic? Well, it could happen in California too, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers are discussing similar efforts to stabilize rents amid a long-term, crisis-level housing shortage.

At last! Democracy prevails! Residents of Vineyard Valley as well as those registered in the City of St. Helena will be allowed to vote on their preference for or against the Rent Stabilization Ordinance recently passed by the city council. The ordinance applies only to Vineyard Valley.

SANTA CRUZ — New legislation proposed by a Monterey Bay state assemblyman would strengthen protections for mobile home residents facing displacement, in the name of California’s affordable housing goals.

California might be about to undermine the best argument it has to attract new business and jobs. A ballot initiative has qualified to eliminate the protections against property tax increases guaranteed by Proposition 13, to the extent applied to business property. The importance of Proposition 13 to job growth in our state has to be better understood: at present, our state’s political leaders appear primed to support this change.

Oceanside plans to better regulate its short-term vacation rentals by hiring a full-time enforcement officer, requiring licenses and annual fees, and streamlining the tax collection process.

The proposal outlined by first-term Councilman Chris Rodriguez got the City Council’s unanimous approval Wednesday, along with the stipulation that details of the program be worked out by city staffers and ready for the council’s consideration in 120 days.

It’s been almost 41 years since Proposition 13 passed in 1978, lowering property taxes for every home, apartment building, commercial structure, farm and parking lot in California.

Through almost all that time, the initiative sponsored by longtime anti-tax gadflies Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann remained a sacred cow, a third rail that election officials and candidates of every stripe feared to touch for fear of political electrocution.

SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz City Council took the first step toward reviving recently lapsed landlord eviction limits Tuesday, putting in place temporary rules for up to a year in a 4-3 vote just before midnight.

If the council gives final approval to the interim ordinance with a second vote at a coming meeting, landlords once again will need to ensure they have “just cause” for their tenant evictions. Acceptable eviction reasons range from failure to pay rent to nuisance violations.

Opponents of rent stabilization at Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park have gathered enough signatures to force the City Council to repeal the new ordinance or put it on the ballot.

Opponents needed to collect 344 valid signatures, equivalent to 10 percent of St. Helena’s registered voters. They submitted 579 signatures, and of the 364 checked by the Napa County Election Division, 345 were confirmed to be valid.

Once thought of as a sacred cow, Proposition 13, the tax revolt measure passed in 1978, is now under attack. Schools and Communities First, a coalition of nearly 300 groups and leaders, has qualified an initiative for the Nov. 2020 ballot that would lift caps on property taxes for commercial and industrial properties.

The coalition says that if the initiative is approved, it will reclaim more than $11 billion a year for K-12 schools, community college, cities, counties and special districts that support everything from parks to libraries.

Sacramento’s rent-control wars hit a boil this week. And became incredibly convoluted as well.

A petition drive to stifle rent hikes by landlords got a boost at City Hall, albeit from a not entirely supportive City Council. The same day, a competing proposal, kinder to landlords, written by three council members, saw its first formal hearing. And a business group vowed a lawsuit to kill the petition effort.

A rent-controlled apartment in the Bay Area is a coveted find that tenants will hang onto as long as possible. So why is a California ballot measure that would allow cities to expand rent control not just losing here, but trailing by a wider margin than it is statewide?