Concord rent stabilization ordinance suspended days after approval
CONCORD, Calif. - An effort at rent stabilization and just cause for eviction in the East Bay city of Concord has been suspended only days after it was adopted by the City Council.
The rent stabilization ordinance came to a halt when the city clerk received information about plans for a petition to place this issue on the November ballot.
The plan adopted by the Concord City Council just last week would impose a rent stabilization on multifamily rental complexes of two or more units, built before February1995. The ordinance was scheduled to go into effect in April, but now it faces new challenges.
"We have heard from tenants for years, and it feels as if at the eleventh hour there are homeowners and landlords who are like, ‘Okay time for us to come and make some noise about how this is going to affect our bottom line, our profits.’ And for me it's not about profits, it's about the people who live here," Concord City Councilmember Laura Nakamura told KTVU.
A new petition against the ordinance is in the works, and some organizers hope to keep the ordinance from ever going into effect.
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The ordinance would have capped annual rent increases in the city to either 3% of rent cost or 60% of the consumer price index, whichever was less.
That means that a monthly rental which began at $2,500 per month could not be raised by more than $75 per month annually. The same ordinance aimed to make it tougher for landlords to evict residents without just cause.
The ordinance also had strict protections against evictions, even for single-family homes. For example, renters who were evicted from a single-family home by no fault of their own would be entitled to payment from the homeowner. That payment would have been two months of rent as well as a $2,000 relocation fee.
A Concord resident who maintains East Bay rental properties says this ordinance has done more to divide Concord residents than support tenants.
"At the end of the last council meeting regarding this issue, the mayor sat up there in his position in front of his placard, and said "I told you guys eight years ago when this was on the ballot and didn't pass, when the city did it, it would be worse for the homeowners, and now it is.'" Randolph Hopkins told KTVU.
Rising Juntos supports tenants across the East Bay and advocates for affordable housing. They say the fight for rent control has been going on for years.
"Now that it's been suspended, they are feeling overwhelmed, they are feeling sad. They feel like they can't be celebrating now… After fighting for eight years, now there's more that they have to do to fight back," Cecilia Perez-Mejia, community organizer with Rising Juntos said.
If the petition succeeds, the Concord City Council will have two choices: repeal the ordinance or place it on the November ballot to let voters decide. Organizers in support of keeping the rent stabilization from going into effect will have to gather 7,204 signatures from registered voters in Concord.
The Rising Juntos team says their main concern is that people know what they are signing when it comes to this petition.
"The opposition are spreading misinformation also about how rent control and just cause affects homeowners. In some instances, they have lied to peoople in order to gather signatures...I want to let people know to read before they sign anything," Perez-Meija tells KTVU.
Nakamura says she hopes rent stabilization can succeed in Concord.
"If you care about people who rent, we have 50,000 people in Concord who rent, don't sign the petition," Nakamura said.