ACTION Apartment Association

NMS Properties says they are vindicated by City audit

03/28/2017 8:18 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A four-month long multi-department review of NMS Properties’ contracts with the City of Santa Monica failed to produce a smoking gun or even very much smoke.

RENT CONTROL WOULD PUT HOUSING OUT OF REACH FOR MORE CALIFORNIANS

03/27/2017 9:30 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Rent-control laws simply don’t work, though. And rather than keep rents down, they actually discourage the development of additional housing that would lower prices. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, government attempts to make housing more affordable – rent control, for one example – do “very little to address the underlying cause of California’s high housing costs: a housing shortage.”

Rent Control Board supports bill to repeal Costa-Hawkins Act

03/27/2017 7:59 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Facing escalating rents and strong opposition from landlords, the Rent Control Board voted unanimously Thursday to support a State Assembly bill that would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act.

Landlord Michael Millman owns 11 buildings, one of which is in Santa Monica. He has long-term rent control tenants paying as low as $525 a month in his building. Millman argued the market-rate tenants are subsidizing the tenants who have not seen a significant rent increase in decades.

“I’m happy to keep them in the building because the market rate tenants keep the building in the black so I can keep their life perfect without putting any pressure on them,” Millman said.

Even with high prices, Landlord Elaine Golden-Gealer says it takes three to five years to recoup the investment she’s spent fixing up units.

“In order to get those rents to be higher I personally, and a lot of other owners, had to spend a lot of money,” Golden-Gealer said. “I spent 20 or 30 thousand dollars to upgrade the unit to make it very desirable.”

Santa Monica Rent Board Endorses State Bills to Turn Back Clock on Housing Lease Laws

03/24/2017 1:31 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

March 24, 2017 -- Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom’s bill that would allow for the return of extreme rental housing price control eliminated two decades ago has received a mixed reaction statewide.

But his bill has the full support of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board. The board voted unanimously Thursday to endorse Bloom’s proposal (AB 1506).

The board also endorsed another of Bloom's bills, AB 982, that would require landlords to provide a one-year notice to tenants before evicting them under the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to get out of the rental business.

The Shriver Project has negatively impacted apartment building owners

03/24/2017 9:33 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Our housing work includes innovative projects designed to address specific, timely issues. One of these is the award-winning Shriver Housing Project—an unprecedented collaborative led by Neighborhood Legal Services—which provides eviction defense at the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse, where more than 25 percent of the County’s Unlawful Detainer cases are filed by landlords seeking to terminate rental agreements.

Earthquakes ... subject of City Council Meeting

03/24/2017 8:32 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Seismic Retrofit Ordinance

The public will have one last chance to comment on the City’s vast seismic retrofit ordinance Tuesday night when it comes up for second reading. Once the ordinance passes, the City will begin sending out notices to building owners May 1st that they must hire an engineer to evaluate the structural integrity of their building. Most owners of buildings that need retrofitting to meet current seismic standards will have two years to complete any construction.

The City Manager is urging the Council to move forward with the ordinance, which is coupled with several new tenant protection laws aimed at helping renters whose buildings will need structural renovations. The City will gain oversight of hazardous material abatement (such as asbestos dust or lead) and may hire environmental consultants to evaluate compliance.

Court rules against SF in Ellis Act apartment rental case

03/24/2017 8:16 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

“…the court said the 'adverse impact' on evicted San Francisco tenants was not caused by their landlord’s decision [to go out of business], but instead by the city’s 'policy decision to impose residential rent control.”

Renters Now Rule Half of U.S. Cities

03/24/2017 8:07 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Fifty-two of the 100 largest U.S. cities were majority-renter in 2015, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled for Bloomberg by real estate brokerage Redfin. Twenty-one of those cities have shifted to renter-domination since 2009.

Low-Income Housing Crisis in Santa Monica Poised to Worsen Under Proposed White House Budget

03/22/2017 2:16 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

March 22, 2017 -- When the City of Santa Monica re-opened its application list for subsidized housing on January 31 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., some 18,000 applications poured in -- for 1,167 vouchers.

Federal funds couldn't begin to meet demand, so a City lottery system was established for the top 500 applicants, those financially stressed enough to qualify and either already working or living in Santa Monica.

Bill would reshape Rent Control in Santa Monica

03/22/2017 7:54 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

On Thursday, the Santa Monica Rent Control Board will decide whether to throw its support behind a controversial California Assembly Bill that would vastly change the way rent control operates in the City.

The bill introduced by local Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) and two other legislators from the Bay Area, Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) and David Chiu (D-San Francisco), would allow local jurisdictions to set rent control rates for vacant apartments and expand the number of units that fall under Rent Control.

AB 1506 accomplishes this by repealing the 1996 Costa-Hawkins Act which outlawed vacancy control in California, ending a decades-long practice in Santa Monica where the Rent Control Board set rents for certain apartments in perpetuity. After Costa-Hawkins became law, landlords were able to reset rents to market rate after a tenant moves out. About 27,600 apartments in Santa Monica fall under rent control jurisdiction because they were built before 1979.