Activists Continue Petition for Rent Control Initiative

Despite missing a deadline to make the November ballot, proponents of an initiative that would establish rent control and “just cause for eviction” laws in Long Beach said they will continue gathering petition signatures in hopes of making the ballot for the next regularly scheduled election in 2020 or earlier.

Long Beach City Clerk Monique De La Garza confirmed that proponents of the initiative failed to turn in the required 27,462 signatures, which represents 10 percent of registered voters, by June 1 to qualify for the November ballot, as the city’s deadline to submit verified signatures to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/ County Clerk is Aug. 10. However, proponents still have an opportunity to submit signatures by July 30 for the initiative to be placed on an election ballot in March 2020, she said.

If required signatures are submitted and found sufficient, other options would be for the City Council to call for a special election to be held in December, adopt the measure outright or order a report. While De La Garza wouldn’t speculate on what action the council may take, a majority of the council has previously expressed opposition to the rent control initiative.

Josh Butler, executive director of Housing Long Beach, an affordable housing advocacy group that is proposing the initiative along with a senior-citizen advocacy group called Long Beach Gray Panthers, said in an interview with the Beachcomber that meeting the city’s deadline to make the November ballot was a “challenge” due to a “very tight timeline” of four months.

The city attorney’s office officially approved a ballot title and summary earlier this year for the proposed measure to be titled “Long Beach Rent Control Ordinance,” giving proponents 180 days from late January to circulate petitions and obtain required signatures, according to the city clerk’s office.

Although Butler wouldn’t disclose how many signatures the group has obtained so far, he said proponents are continuing to gather signatures and plan on meeting the city’s July 30 deadline in hopes of placing the initiative on a subsequent election ballot or gaining more council support.

“Our No. 1 challenge was trying to meet a very tight timeline of four months rather than the complete six,” Butler said. “We’re still collecting signatures. We haven’t stopped collecting and we’re marching our way toward what we believe to be the number that will be necessary to turn in.”

According to a summary of the ordinance, the initiative, if approved, would establish residential rent control and restrictions on how landlords would terminate tenant leases. The ordinance would also establish “just cause for eviction” requirements that would be enforced and administered through a new Rental Housing Board.

Advocacy groups, including Latinos in Action California, are proposing the initiative in response to reports of “exorbitant rent increases,” low vacancy rates and a lack of affordable housing in the city that has contributed to a rise in evictions and homelessness.

Butler said the ordinance is a “fair and common sense way to prevent unfair evictions,” adding that proponents will continue to push for rent control as rents continue to rise, more of renters’ incomes go to rent and the City Council has yet to bring forward any viable alternative solutions to the housing crisis.

“We are going to keep collecting signatures until we meet our goal and keep pushing forward for rent control,” he said. “One thing that hasn’t stopped is rents rising. They’re going to keep going up and buildings are going to keep being sold and the problem still exists.”

However, opponents to the initiative, including the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities (AACSC), Pacific West Association of Realtors (PWR), the California Apartment Association (CAA) and Better Housing for Long Beach, argue that previous rent control policies in other major cities, such as Los Angeles, Santa Monica and San Francisco, have failed and have ultimately kept rents high.

Opponents also have said that such a policy would only create another layer of bureaucracy between landlords and tenants, making the housing crisis even worse and stifling new housing development.

“I just think rent control is a disaster, and the reason is all they have to do is look at the past history of the City of Los Angeles,” said Ed Arnold, a longtime owner of Long Beach apartment buildings, who once served on a housing task force for Los Angeles city nearly 36 years ago and currently serves as chairman of the board for the AACSC. He added that a rent control ordinance would only force landlords to raise rents more frequently and cause developers to build less housing in the city.

“Under rent control, you’re going to raise rents every year, and there’s no question about it,” Arnold said. “You have a housing department that charges you and, all of a sudden, there’s no more friendship between the landlords and tenants because now you have a monitor in between. It doesn’t help anybody and it sure doesn’t keep the economy going.”

The Long Beach city attorney’s office, meanwhile, has stated in a city memo that the proposed rent control ballot initiative would likely lead to “massive taxpayer-funded legal bills,” as the proposed ordinance contains at least six violations of the City Charter.

Butler said that the city attorney’s memo is primarily in response to landlords and opponents threatening to sue the city if the rent control measure passes, as has happened in other cities, adding that he hopes the city attorney will be in a position to defend the case for renters instead of landlords.

“The renters will be better off, we know that, and the renters are taxpayers too,” Butler said. “Renters will have some stability knowing that they can come home from work at the end of the day and not see a note on their door telling them they got to go or that they have a rent increase they can’t afford now.”

sean@beachcomber.news