ACTION Apartment Association

Renewable energy program expanding to businesses

03/19/2019 11:45 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Santa Monica residents have been receiving cleaner electricity since February and local businesses soon will too.

City Council decided last September abandon Southern California Edison (SCE) in favor of Clean Power Alliance (CPA), a new utility that provides electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Residents now receive 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources as a default and the average customer pays about $6 more per month for electricity. Customers can also opt down to 50 or 36 percent renewable energy, however, or opt out of CPA entirely.

CPA will be enrolling business, industrial and agricultural customers in Santa Monica and 27 other communities in May, said Allison Mannos, the utility’s senior marketing manager.

Santa Monica Lawmakers' Measure Would Make It Easier to Approve School Parcel Taxes

03/19/2019 11:44 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A ballot measure sponsored by Santa Monica Senator Ben Allen that would lower the threshold for approval of parcel taxes is awaiting referral to a committee, his office said Monday.

Introduced in December, Senate Constitutional Amendment 5 would dramatically improve the chances for school parcel taxes to be approved by lowering the threshold from two-thirds to 55 percent of the vote.

Re-litigating rent control in Sacramento

03/19/2019 11:31 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Lawmakers have passed bills to streamline the development of housing in urban areas and to make it harder for cities to block much-needed housing construction. Voters have approved billions of dollars in new spending to subsidize affordable homes. And there are more bills pending in Sacramento to boost the supply of housing, which is essential after many years during which the state failed to build enough units to keep up with population growth.

But it is increasingly clear that lawmakers can’t address the real-time pain and upheaval caused by the state’s housing crisis without strengthening tenant protections.

Now, a group of Democratic lawmakers has proposed a package of bills aimed at protecting renters, including proposals to cap annual rent increases and to make it harder to evict tenants without just cause. The bills will inevitably be controversial — any discussion of rent control is — but legislators shouldn’t shy away from adopting reasonable policies designed to provide stability and security for renters, who make up nearly half the state’s population.

Slew of State Housing Bills Will Make Little Dent in Santa Monica

03/18/2019 12:20 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A series of housing bills introduced in the State Assembly Thursday will likely have little impact on Santa Monica's skyrocketing rental market, although one of them could pave the way for a local voter initiative.

Of the four bills, the one introduced by Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom could go before local voters if it is signed into law by the Governor, as expected.

Unlike Bloom's 2018 housing bill to repeal vacancy decontrol -- which like a similar state voter initiative failed -- the new bill would make "modest reforms" to the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, his office said.

Editorial: Editorial | Rent control, again: When will California politicians get that it makes housing crisis worse?

03/18/2019 12:16 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

California voters decisively rejected Proposition 10 in November, wisely choosing not to invalidate a state law that bars local governments from imposing new types of rent control on single-family homes or apartments built after 1995. But to no one’s surprise, the state’s housing crisis is once again leading to a new push for rent control in the state Capitol.

Two troubling measures have emerged. Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, has introduced a bill that would dramatically weaken the current anti-rent control law by allowing cities and counties to control the rent on apartments and single-family homes that are more than 10 years old, although it would exempt landlords of small properties. Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill that would put a percentage ceiling on how much landlords could increase rent annually.

Rent Law Backlash

03/18/2019 10:05 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation rent-control bill may have had the unfortunate side effect of hurting some of the very renters it was supposed to protect.

Some tenants say they saw hikes of up to $300 in their monthly rent, while some received no-cause eviction notices prior to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signing Senate Bill 608 on Feb. 28. The law went into effect immediately and was designed to prevent rent gouging that has hit many Oregon tenants.

Editorial: Rent control still can’t solve California’s housing crisis

03/18/2019 10:00 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Proponents of rent control, which is threatening to make a comeback in the California Legislature, often portray the opposition as consisting entirely of landlords and developers. The implication is that the unbridled greed of real estate interests is all that stands in their way.

What they omit is the consensus against the policy that persists among experts and the public. Last fall, despite the depredations of the housing shortage and its proverbial too-damn-high rents, Californians roundly rejected Proposition 10, a ballot measure that would have cleared the way for more rent control. Yes, those dastardly real estate interests outspent supporters of the initiative 3-to-1. But similarly lopsided campaign spending wasn’t enough to pass measures to expand property tax breaks, for example, or fund a grab bag of water projects.

Perhaps the voters understood that despite its populist appeal, rent control is the wrong answer to the state’s housing crisis.

SACRAMENTO – California lawmakers try again to tamp down rising rents

03/15/2019 9:45 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

California lawmakers are trying again to tamp down on rising housing costs with bills to expand rent control and stop rental price gouging.

The bills introduced Thursday come after voters soundly rejected a rent control ballot measure last November.

A handful of Assembly Democrats say the bills are needed because California is in a housing crisis. More than half of California renters spend at least a third of their income on rent.

Lawmakers roll out bills to strengthen rent control across California

03/14/2019 6:05 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Democratic lawmakers in the Assembly unveiled several bills today aimed at protecting renters, including a far-reaching proposal for a statewide limit on rent hikes.

About a dozen cities in California already have rent control laws. Chiu’s proposal, Assembly Bill 1482, would apply to cities that do not, including many in and around Los Angeles, from Burbank to Redondo Beach to Long Beach to Pasadena.

Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) is pitching a bill that would allow cities with rent control to establish rent control in newer rental units.

A third proposal, from Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) would make it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants.

Rent control report highlights value of long-term occupancy

03/14/2019 10:00 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Long-term renters in Santa Monica are staying in their apartments but a new tenant would need to earn $91,200 per year to afford a studio, according to a new annual report on the city’s rent control system.

The city is also showing modest gains in its rent-controlled housing supply. 70 apartments and houses in Santa Monica became subject to rent control in 2018, a little more than the number of rent-controlled units that were taken off the market through the Ellis Act, a state law that allows property owners to evict tenants if they want to exit the rental business. The Rent Control Board will discuss the report at its meeting Thursday.