County reviews tenant rights ordinance

 

The Daily Sound
County reviews tenant rights ordinance
By COLBY FRAZIER — April 21, 2010
 
Three years after more than 50 families were evicted from the Cedarwood apartments in Isla Vista, prompting widespread outcry from community groups and local politicians, Santa Barbara County leaders yesterday reviewed an expansive document that could bolster tenants rights and increase the duties of landlords.
 
Across the county, where rents are notoriously high and affordable units are scarce, housing advocates say many tenants faced with abrupt evictions wind up on the street.
In 2002, the county adopted an ordinance to help bridge the gap between the vulnerability of some renters and the power of landlords.
But according to staff reports prepared for yesterday’s meeting, a string of six mass evictions between 2005 and 2008, two of which were in the unincorporated area, made it clear that the ordinance, found under chapter 44 of the county code, needed more teeth.
“It’s OK for the county to say ‘Well, you need to make sure those folks aren’t going to end up homeless as a result of that decision,’” said Daraka Larimore-Hall, chair of the Democratic Party of Santa Barbara, explaining that landlords who wish to improve their properties should be saddled with the responsibility of ensuring evicted tenants don’t end up homeless. “It doesn’t take away any of their rights, it just says [to] anyone that you have to do your fair share to mitigate your impact on the rest of us.”
The quest to begin probing the effectiveness of the current ordinance, and discovering areas where it could be improved, began last year when the Board of Supervisors directed the county’s Department of Housing and Community Development to convene meetings with stakeholder groups and six county departments to hash out the details.
The coalition identified five core problems. The include: evictions that displace tenants, the limited nature of the affordable rental market, limited knowledge of rights and responsibilities by tenants and landlords, inadequacy of services in event of mass eviction and lack of enforcement of the current ordinance.
In response to the problems, 50 potential solutions were identified. Chief among them is a proposal to require landlords to provide relocation assistance to tenants who are evicted due to remodel, rezoning, demolition or a condominium conversion. Under the current ordinance, tenants are eligible for relocation assistance. However, according to the Board’s staff report, no assistance has ever been given.
Other changes that garnered significant support from advocacy groups, as well as several Board members, include increasing from 60 to 90 the number of days landlords must give tenants for eviction notices, fast-tracking permits for landlords who give tenants an early security deposit return, improving information about resources to tenants and landlords and more closely tracking the impacts of evictions that do occur.
Some Board members also said they hope to increase the flow of preventative information through public service announcements on county television and the Web.
The possible ordinance changes, which are expected to return to the Board in about two months, were largely lauded by public speakers.
Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf, the Board’s chair, credited the widespread outreach efforts by county staff for the relative lack of controversy surrounding the possible changes.
“Staff, I think, did a really good job in getting feedback from folks,” she said. “What they came back with was reasonable.”
While the Board majority, consisting of Wolf, and supervisors Doreen Farr, 3rd District, and Salud Carbajal, 1st District, voted to receive the report and direct staff to move forward on revamping the ordinance, the North County bloc abstained.
Fourth District Supervisor Joni Gray said she was concerned that increasing the minimum eviction notice from 60 to 90 days wouldn’t fall in line with state law. County legal counsel acknowledged as much, and before an ordinance returns, county leaders said this and other legal issues would be examined.
But Gray also worried that the tougher ordinance might single out landlords, who she noted also should have rights. She also expressed concern that more county involvement in tenant issues could discourage landlords from improving their properties.
“I don’t’ believe that renters are the only equation in rental properties,” Gray said, explaining that she recently received a letter from a landlord whose tenants constructed a methamphetamine lab in the home. “Sometimes the landlord has a bit of a problem.”
Carbajal responded to Gray’s concerns, saying the tighter ordinance wouldn’t have any impact on the ability of landlords to evict tenants if cause is warranted, and would not discourage remodels.
It “in no way shape or form” targets average renters, he said. This is focusing mostly on mass evictions and that’s what it is.”
Fifth District Supervisor Joe Centeno, who also abstained from voting, said he wasn’t prepared to sign off on any of the changes due to the late circulation of a document that he didn’t get the chance to read before the meeting.
Even so, it didn’t appear any of the Board members had substantive objections to the bulk of the report, which, if implemented in an ordinance, many feel will adequately, and fairly, prevent the sometimes-tragic fallout from abrupt mass evictions.
Isaac Catalon, whose comments were translated from Spanish to English during the meeting, told the Board a tear-jerking story about the difficulties he and his family went through when they were evicted a couple of years ago.
He said he loaded his family’s belongings in the back of a pickup. After having dinner at a restaurant, he said his 5-year-old daughter asked if they were going to live under a bridge. “In that moment we just stayed quiet and we didn’t have an answer,” he said, adding, “This is the effect of evictions on our kids.”
Catalon said a friend allowed the family to sleep on his floor. We “had to get out at 6 a.m. so he wouldn’t have trouble with his manager,” he said. “But if he wouldn’t have given us a place to stay, we would have probably been sleeping in the truck or in the street.”
 
Date: 
21 Apr 2010 - 1:20am