Rent control

The city is suing a landlord who authorities say tried to bypass Oakland’s rent control ordinances and nearly triple his tenants’ rent by pretending to move into the duplex.

The city attorney’s office, alongside tenant rights legal firm Centro Legal de la Raza, filed a lawsuit March 20 against landlord Rong Fu Lee alleging that he claimed to be living in the downstairs unit of the duplex in 2016 and attempted to drastically increase the rent for Salvador Sotelo — who had lived at the West Oakland duplex with his family since 2003.

A typical two-bedroom apartment at market rates in Santa Monica required a yearly income of $111,000 last year, according to an annual update on the state of the City’s troubled rent control system.

It also shows dramatic rent differences in apartments that haven’t been vacated under the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and are still pegged to the 1979 caps on rent.

Mountain View's Rental Housing Committee could soon be headed back to the courtroom over a decision to exclude tenants at mobile home parks from the city's rent control protections.

Earlier this month, an attorney representing two mobile home residents at Santiago Villa issued a demand letter urging the committee to reverse its decision not to extend rent control to Mountain View's 1,100 mobile homes. If the committee refused, the residents would file a lawsuit to get the action rescinded, said attorney Armen Nercessian of the firm Fenwick & West.

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CONTACT: Shanti Singh, shanti@tenantstogether.org

District Attorney Files Felony Charges for Election Fraud Against Signature Gatherers Paid by the California Apartment Association

After hearing from anxious landlords and tenants, Santa Monica’s Rent Control Board on Thursday asked staff to explore if -- and by how much -- both can share the rising costs of surcharges property owners now pass through to renters.

The board ordered more analysis on the possibility of instituting a cap on the total in surcharges the renters can absorb, based, for example, on total rent paid. These surcharges rise in buildings that are reassessed when they sell.

A moratorium on what some are calling a loophole to Oakland’s rent control ordinances is being extended another six months as city officials figure out a permanent solution.

Before the moratorium, the exemption allowed landlords to raise rents after making repairs to their property.

City Council members voted Tuesday for the extension, which will go into effect after the original moratorium — passed in November — expires. It is scheduled for a final reading April 17.

Clipboards in hand, signature-gatherers are fanning out across four Southern California cities this month, turning up at supermarkets and metro stops and apartment complexes to pitch a measure for the November ballot that they say will be salvation for renters.

But for landlords, their pitch is blasphemy.

At issue is whether the cities of Long Beach, Inglewood, Glendale and Pasadena should join a tiny band of California cities that already have rent control and “just cause” eviction laws that prevent landlords from ousting tenants in good standing.

A San Diego group is calling for the city to take emergency action to help control the ever-rising cost to rent.

San Diego Tenants United plans to speak to the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee during public comment Tuesday.

The tenant group will ask the committee to invoke a government code that would slow the rate of rent increase.

The group says San Diego policymakers have made it easier to build housing over the last year and now it’s time to start protecting renters.

A City Council request for answers about how rent control could impact Long Beach and its government brought both sides of the issue out to state their cases Tuesday night.

Fourth District Councilman Daryl Supernaw brought the matter to the council, saying the city needs answers before a petition drive puts rent control on the ballot.

The move was in response to a petition drive organized by Housing Long Beach. The proposition, which is in the signature-gathering stage, would impose rent control citywide.

“Rent control is a moral, ethical, and human issue,” said tenant organizer Walter Senterfitt Tuesday evening, in laying out his position at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Pasadena/Foothills Chapter Forum on rent control.

Continued Senterfitt, “Rent control is a human right,” as he laid out a brief history of rent control in Southern California. Senterfitt was joined at the speakers table by Allison Henry of the Pasadena Tenants Union and attorney Frank Broccolo.