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The California Apartment Association’s offices will be closed Monday, May 30, in observance of Memorial Day. Normal operating hours will resume Tuesday.
Tagged: News
The California Apartment Association has urged the state Legislature to stop providing funding for defense attorneys to help evicted tenants drag out the unlawful-detainer process.
The practice has occured for several years under a state law that CAA believes should expire in 2017.
Under the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, defense attorneys receive money from the state to represent low-income Californians in a variety of legal areas, from evictions to custody disputes. Since 2011, the Legislature has spent $9.5 million annually on the program in seven areas across the state.
While the concept is laudable, it’s rife with abuse when… Read More
Tagged: EvictionsLegislature
Stricter rent control limits in San Jose will take effect June 17 – many months earlier than expected.
Under the changes, owners can raise rents on rent-controlled units by 5 percent per year. That’s down from the current 8 percent.
The council ratified the June start date on a 9-2 vote at its May 17 meeting.
The lower rent cap is among sweeping changes to the city’s 40-year-old rent control law. The council approved the revisions in April on a 6-5 vote, despite strong opposition from CAA and hundreds of rental owners over the past year.
At the time of… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control
About 50 protesters stormed the headquarters of the California Apartment Association in Sacramento on the morning of Monday, May 16, shaking their fists and demanding rent control.
Shortly past 11:15 a.m., activits wearing yellow shirts barged into CAA’s downtown suite, chanting “Greedy landlords, you can’t hide!”
The demonstrators, arriving unannounced from the Los Angeles-based Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, then clustered shoulder-to-shoulder outside the office of Chief Executive Officer Tom Bannon.
Within moments, Bannon opened his door and calmly made his way through the chanting throng.
Once Bannon reached the middle of the crowd, a representative of the group… Read More
Tagged: News
Beginning June 1, 2016, rental agreements for properties with wood-burning heaters or fireplaces throughout the San Francisco Bay Area must include a document describing the health hazards from burning wood or any solid fuel as a source of heat.
The disclosure document is required within the boundaries of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which includes all of the following counties: Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin, and part of Solano and Sonoma counties. Exact boundaries can be found here.
The disclosure requirement is part of the air quality district’s wood smoke rule,… Read More
Gov. Jerry Brown’s May revision to California’s spending plan would improve housing affordability by making it cheaper and easier for developers to build multifamily communities.
Released this past Friday, the governor’s May revision espouses legislative changes to lift local obstacles to residential development. It favors market-based solutions, such as streamlining the development process, over costly government subsidies that help comparatively few people.
“Hopefully, the supply is going to bring down the cost,” Brown said in this Los Angeles Times story. “Otherwise, through subsidies and through restrictions, we’re just spending more and more tax dollars and getting very, very little.”
Brown’s… Read More
Tagged: Affordable housingLegislation
Stricter rent control in San Jose is now scheduled to take effect next month, but much unfinished business remains in revising the city’s long-standing rent law.
On Tuesday, the council voted 9-2 to implement its upcoming 5 percent annual cap on rent increases beginning June 17. The current limit is 8 percent.
The changes will affect about 44,000 apartments already under rent control through the city’s Apartment Rent Ordinance. While a June implementation date is sooner than many property owners expected, it could have been worse.
One councilman, Raul Peralez, attempted to implement the changes immediately, a move that CAA… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control Tri-County
A CAA-sponsored bill clarifying that landlords can prohibit renters from smoking marijuana in apartments is halfway to becoming law.
On Thursday, April 5, the Assembly approved AB 2300 on a 74-0 vote, sending it to the state Senate.
“This is about protecting families that live in close proximity to others,” the author of the bill, Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, said last week in a statement. “Second-hand smoke can be a real problem, especially for families who live in apartments or other multi-family residences.”
In 2011, the California Apartment Association sponsored, and the state Legislature overwhelmingly passed, legislation to allow rental… Read More
Tagged: LegislationLegislature
Under a bill heading to the Assembly floor, the California Apartment Association could bring legal action against a local government that denies housing projects in violation of state law.
The CAA-sponsored proposal, AB 2584, advances to the floor after winning unanimous approval Tuesday in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. CAA sponsored this bill as California struggles for solutions to its unprecedented housing crisis, which has resulted from a severe lack of new housing construction, both market rate and affordable.
The bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom Daly, D-Anaheim, expands the enforcement of the Housing Accountability Act by allowing groups that represent tenants… Read More
Tagged: Affordable housingLegislation
The California Apartment Association applauds a proposal unveiled by state lawmakers this week to help families struggling to keep up with rising rents.
The plan, announced Monday by members of the Democratic Assembly Caucus, would dedicate more than $1.3 billion to address the state’s housing affordability crisis.
While California has seen explosive job growth, state and local governments have failed to allow enough new housing to accommodate the influx of new workers.
As the resulting housing shortage led to higher rental prices, state and federal funding to develop and preserve of affordable homes has plummeted by 79 percent.
The result… Read More
Tagged: Affordable housingLegislation