Some California landlords are raising their tenants' rents in case Prop. 10 passes
""Dear tenants, I hope you are healthy and doing well," begins a letter sent to Trinidad Ruiz from his landlord in September. Ruiz, 43, has lived in a non-rent-controlled two-bedroom apartment in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles for five years.
"You may be aware of proposition 10 that will be on the ballot this November," the letter continues.
"... If passed, I may potentially have difficulty meeting the high long term costs associated with the building and it's maintenance," the landlord writes. "So as a result, I will unfortunately have to raise rents again." If the measure does not pass, "I will then consider rolling back rents to their current level."
Proposition 10, if approved by voters in November, will lift limits on local rent control laws and enable California cities to extend price ceilings on more of their housing stock. You can read The Chronicle Editorial Board's analysis and recommendation for voters here.
The landlord enclosed "No on Prop. 10" materials with the letter, as well as a notice informing Ruiz that his rent would increase by $75, from $1,550 to $1,625. The landlord had already increased the rent by $50 in August, as he did every year. It was the second notice, sent just one month later, that perplexed Ruiz and his neighbors.
"It's almost like voter suppression," Ruiz told SFGATE.
After the first rent increase, Ruiz, a communications director for a community organization, started looking for a second job. When he first moved into the apartment, his rent was a manageable $1,295. He can just barely afford the current price."
"If I have to move from this apartment, I won't be able to afford Los Angeles," said Ruiz, adding that he has lived in the city for over two decades. "I'm priced out of the whole area."
Tenant advocates say that landlords across the state are preemptively raising rents on properties not protected by rent control. In at least a half of dozen instances, from National City to Sacramento, landlords or property managers have issued rent increases, explicitly citing the measure as their reason for doing so, according to letters obtained by activist organizations and shared with SFGATE.
Jacob Swanson has lived in his two-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood for eight years. It is not rent-controlled, and the property manager issues rent increases of about three-percent every year. He recently received a notice indicating that his rent would increase not by the standard 3 percent, but by 8 percent, increasing his and his roommate's rent from $1,850 to $2,000.
When he asked the general manager of the building what accounted for the unusually high increase by email, he replied: "The building is not currently rent controlled (built in the late 80s), but with the upcoming election, we're facing rent control and more importantly, the likelihood of controls on increasing rent after vacancies."
If Prop. 10 is approved in November, it would repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a state law that prohibits local governments from enacting rent control on residences built after 1995, or earlier for some cities, giving cities much greater freedom to decide how to implement rent control.
Swanson, a manager at a production rental house, called the rent hike "a pre-punishment."
In San Francisco, only buildings built before 1979 are rent-controlled under Costa Hawkins. The law enables landlords to raise rent on rent-controlled units to "market value" any time a tenant moves out. Single-family homes are exempt regardless of their construction date.
Many of the notices, provided by tenants rights organizations to SFGATE, claim the rent will be lowered to the former rate if Prop. 10 does not pass. When Swanson asked if this were the case for his building, a two-story apartment complex, the manager never responded.
"We see this as nothing more than voter intimidation and economic extortion," said Larry Gross, the executive director of the Center for Economic Survival in Los Angeles.
He said the rent increases appeared to be part of a "coordinated effort" by opponents of Prop. 10, citing the language in the notices, as well as the "history" of using rent to sway voter opinion. Some landlords used this tactic in the 1970s, Gross said, when Prop. 13 was on the California ballot.
Steven Maviglio, a spokesperson for the No on Prop. 10 campaign, denied Gross' assertions and said he has seen just one letter instating a Prop. 10-related rent increase, sent by Rampart Property Management to tenants in Los Angeles.
"This is one property owner among millions in our state that is neither a donor or participant in our campaign," he said.
Landlords who reach out to No on Prop. 10 for guidance or information are asked to "communicate why it's bad for renters," he added.
Most of the one-time increases have been small amounts — $25 to $50 per month — but some were as much as $200.
One property management company in Sacramento told tenants that if Prop. 10 is approved, their "cost of maintaining properties will be affected." They said they were issuing a rent hike to "cover the increased administrative costs and other fees" associated with the measure, according to a copy of the rent notification increase shown to SFGATE.
https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/prop-10-raising-rent-control-costa-hawkins-repeal-13327379.php
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