Rent control

Rent control, until now the domain of Chicago’s far political left, could be going mainstream with two major Democratic candidates for governor endorsing the concept.

State Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston and Chicago businessman J.B. Pritzker each say they would support legislation to lift a statewide ban preventing local governments from limiting how much rent landlords can charge.

Lifting the ban, which was enacted by the Legislature in 1997, would allow home rule units such as the city of Chicago to enact ordinances controlling rent increases.

Amina Rubio thought little of the notice she received in the mail in October 2016 informing her that the Powell Street apartment building where she’s lived for nearly 20 years was under new management.

At the time, the name of her building’s new owners, Veritas Investments and its subsidiary, Greentree Property Management — one of the largest landlords in San Francisco — didn’t ring any bells, so it was a fact of life easily tucked away in the back of her mind.

Washington cities are prohibited from regulating rent prices, but one lawmaker wants to change that. Democratic state Representative Nicole Macri says she'll propose a bill in 2018 to end the rent control ban.

Macri, a resident of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, says it's time for lawmakers to take dramatic action and give local communities more control over rental housing. She lives near an elementary school where many students don't have permanent housing.

Extra assistance for renters who are displaced through no-fault evictions failed to pass a second reading at the Oakland City Council last night after Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington had the legislation pulled from the agenda's consent portion of the calendar and scheduled for a future council meeting's non-consent portion, where it will likely be debated and amended.

Organizers with San Diego Tenants United say the time for rent control in San Diego is now and that too many people are being displaced by rising rent costs.

They've gathered over 8,000 signatures on a change.org petition to implement rent control in the city.

"People are getting priced out of their homes, they're getting displaced, to the degree where you're seeing mass displacement," said organizer Rafael Bautista. "We're making homeless people by not creating rent control in San Diego."

The Pasadena Tenants Union said on social media that it is behind the filing of papers last Wednesday notifying City officials of the intended public circulation of a petition supporting a new City Charter Amendment which would create rent control in Pasadena.

The “notice of intent to circulate” the petition was signed by three people who did not state their affiliation with any group. On Friday, on Facebook, the Pasadena Tenants Union acknowledged it had “filed for Rent Control and Just Cause in the City of Pasadena for the November 6th, 2018 election.”

The Pasadena Tenants Union will soon begin collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to cap rent increases at 4.5 percent per year and require landlords to pay moving costs if a tenant is evicted without adequate cause.

Union members started the process last week, and they’ll need more than 12,000 signatures to get the charter amendment before voters in Nov. 2018.

The group is pushing for an initiative because they found little support from city leaders, according to Nicole Hodgson, a member of the union and one of the filing parties.

Following steps taken by tenant advocacy groups in Long Beach and Glendale, a Pasadena group has filed preliminary paperwork to place a rent control initiative on an upcoming ballot.

The Pasadena ballot measure would limit rent increases, force the city to adopt just-cause eviction policies — which limit the reasons a landlord can evict a tenant — and establish an independent rental housing board.

The main adversaries over the Measure V rent control law -- the Mountain View Tenants Coalition and the California Apartment Association -- are both facing investigations by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.