News: Santa Monica

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A judge last week ruled that a local rent control initiative belongs on the Burbank city ballot, even though the city’s clerk disqualified the measure just two months ago. In June, Burbank City Clerk Zizette Mullins rejected the petition because it lacked some legally required wording. Price-control advocates, who had submitted the required number of signatures to qualify the measure, responded with a legal challenge. On Friday, L.A. Superior Court Judge Mary H. Strobel ruled in their favor.

Tagged: Los Angeles

Tenant advocates demanded rent control at this week’s Inglewood City Council meeting, but the city’s mayor said the policy isn’t the best path forward, pointing to Santa Monica as evidence. Outside groups and a small number of renter activists staged a mobilization during Tuesday’s council meeting, calling for both rent caps and “just cause” eviction measures.

Tagged: Los AngelesLong Beach

Citing pending litigation, the California Apartment Association has urged Marin County supervisors to defer work on an ordinance that would force rental property owners to participate in the Section 8 program. Despite CAA’s objections, county supervisors are scheduled to formally adopt such a law at their Nov. 8 meeting. The board granted preliminary approval of the proposal, an “ordinance to establish source of income protection,” on Oct. 25. Yet as the Board of Supervisors considers its measure, the city of Santa Monica is embroiled in a lawsuit challenging its adoption of a similar ordinance. Mallori Spilker, CAA’s vice president of… Read More

Tagged: North Bay

During a pair of public hearings this month, the Mountain View City Council scrapped a number of bad rental housing proposals. At the first meetings, Oct. 19, the council rejected a moratorium on rent increases, rent control and just-cause for eviction. The 5-2 decision came after nearly seven hours of presentations, public testimony and council discussion. Darren Carrington, senior vice president at Prometheus Real Estate Group, said the proposals won’t address the root of the problem — the city’s housing shortage. “Everyone agrees demand far outweighs supply,” Carrington said, according to this San Jose Business Journal article. “This is the… Read More

Tagged: Tri-County

A bill that would close a change-of-ownership “loophole” in California’s Proposition 13 has undergone significant business-friendly amendments, helping it gain momentum in the Assembly. At the insistence of the California Apartment Association and other groups, Assembly Bill 2372 no longer contains wording that could prompt a flood of unnecessary reassessments. In the revised version of AB 2372, authored by  Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, and Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-Pacoima, reassessments would follow the sale of commercial property whenever 90 percent of the property is sold over any three-year period. CAA strongly opposed the first version of the bill, which would… Read More

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Years ago, the process for an uncontested eviction took about 30 days. Now, that process takes about 45 days. Unfortunately, the process is about to take much longer and initial estimates project a 60 day uncontested eviction. I recently attended the Eviction Hub meeting in downtown Los Angeles given by the presiding judge. The Los Angeles County announced sweeping cuts to counteract a $60 million to $80 million budget shortfall.  We learned that very soon — in fact, possibly beginning late this month — L.A. County will downsize its eviction courts from 25 to a five-court trial-hub system. Basically, it… Read More

Tagged: Long Beach