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After missing a deadline to place rent control before Sacramento voters this fall, tenant advocates on Thursday submitted signatures in hopes of qualifying their initiative for the March 2020 ballot.
Sacramento city officials will now determine whether tenant activists submitted the required number of valid voter signatures to qualify the measure. If the petition is rejected, tenant activists, including members of Service Employees International Union and Alliance of Californians for Community Engagement, would need to start the initiative process over for any chance at making the ballot in 2020.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has informed the California Apartment Association that he will propose a temporary 5 percent rent cap as part of his strategy to address the city’s affordable housing shortage. Steinberg plans to make his proposal at the Tuesday, Sept. 4, City Council meeting.
CAA urges rental owners and property managers to attend this meeting and demonstrate the industry’s opposition to any form of rent control. Members are urged to sign up to speak against the mayor’s proposal during the public comment period.
“We attempted to reach an agreement with the mayor on reasonable alternatives to rent control,”… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control Sacramento Valley
After hearing from the California Apartment Association, its allies, and local housing providers, El Cerrito City Council this week rebuffed efforts to bring rent control and “just cause” eviction policies to the East Bay community.
Discussions of rent control and eviction controls were met with criticism Tuesday, even as the council faced intense pressure to adopt these onerous policies.
Affordable housing advocates have joined a growing list of opponents to a measure that would overturn the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
The California Council for Affordable Housing and the California Housing Consortium are now part of a growing list of opponents to Proposition 10, the ballot measure going before voters in November that would repeal Costa-Hawkins and return extreme forms of rent control to California.
If voters approve Prop 10 and overturn Costa-Hawkins, cities will be authorized to apply rent control to single-family homes and new multifamily housing. They’ll also be able to make rent caps permanent, even after changes… Read More
Tagged: Costa-HawkinsElections
During a televised round-table discussion of Proposition 10 last week, Debra Carlton of the California Apartment Association recalled the days before the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
In 1995, the Legislature passed Costa-Hawkins to protect against extreme forms of rent control, including rent caps on single-family homes, individually owned condominiums and new construction. Before those protections were in place, many landlords were quitting the rental-housing business.
“Property owners were getting out,” Carlton, senior vice president of public affairs for CAA, said during an episode of KQED Newsroom. “Even in Berkeley, we lost about 3,000 single-family homes because owners said, ‘I’m not… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control
The Bay Area Council, which represents more than 300 of the largest employers in the Bay Area, has announced its opposition to Proposition 10, the ballot measure that would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
“We need comprehensive solutions to the housing crisis impacting our region and the entire state, but Proposition 10 would make our problems worse,” Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, said in a news release. “We need to build more units close to public transit options that will help connect workers with good jobs and ensure they can afford a safe, convenient… Read More
Tagged: Costa-Hawkins
Taking a cue from the voters of Santa Rosa, the City Council this week backed away from a proposal to explore a rent control ordinance.
Tagged: Rent Control North Bay
The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 14, will convene a special workshop focused on finding ways to increase the supply of affordable housing.
Council members at the session will examine possible funding sources that could bolster the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which now has just $2.5 million, or enough to subsidize about 15 units. Staff will also present ideas for how to speed the construction of more affordable housing by reducing parking requirements, expediting project reviews, waiving fees, and other steps.
Tenant activists in Glendale this week turned in less than half of the signatures required to place a rent control measure before city voters, prompting the city clerk to reject the initiative.
Rent control proponents on Monday submitted 3,988 signatures but needed 10,529 to trigger the signature-verification stage for the proposed ballot measure.
“The CA Elections Code requires a specific number of minimum signatures for us to move ahead to the next steps of this process,” Ardy Kassakhian, the city clerk, said in a news release. “The initiators of this effort did not meet that threshold, and therefore this specific… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control Los Angeles
After a petition to put rent control on the November ballot in Santa Rosa failed to qualify last week, several elected officials are ready to discuss passing their own ordinance at City Hall.
The Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 7, is scheduled to discuss the possible adoption of a city-drafted rent control ordinance. The California Apartment Association is calling on members to attend the meeting and voice their opposition.
“Your voice is needed to tell the City Council to focus on real solutions to rebuild Santa Rosa and stop wasting time on policies that are proven to fail,”… Read More
Tagged: ElectionsRent Control North Bay