Renters Alliance – The Voice of Multifamily Residents in Beverly Hills Since 2017

Which Holidays Give Us a Break from Construction?

February 18, 2020 Mark Elliot

Federal holidays should bring that rarest of qualities to our multifamily neighborhoods: peace & quiet on a weekday. Day in and day out we are assaulted by traffic, leaf blowers, and the nerve-fraying sounds of demolition, remodeling and construction next door. Holidays should be different. On days when city hall is closed, parking restrictions are suspended and our streets are pleasantly quiet we should expect a break. Yet the city allows construction to proceed. What’s the story?

Explainer

Renters Alliance Endorses Lili Bosse

February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 Mark Elliot Election 2020, Lili Bosse

Vote by mail ballots for the March 3rd city council election became available this week so it seems like a good time to announce our endorsement. Renters Alliance enthusiastically supports incumbent Lili Bosse for Beverly Hills city council. She has served our city well as planning and traffic commissioner and now, after two terms on city council, she has earned our support. Residents who rent housing in particular will know that Bosse has been there when we needed her. We feel that in this election there is simply no better choice than Lili Bosse, who recognizes the value, and the concerns, of those who rent in our city.

News

Traffic & Parking OKs Crescent Q-Zone Restrictions

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 Mark Elliot Canon Drive, Crescent Drive, preferential parking permits

South Crescent Drive homeowners last week petitioned to restrict visitor parking on their block. A split commission agreed: residents there accommodate visitor parking and that means inconvenience for the petitioner because he can’t park in front of his home. The test for the commission was to balance the petitioners’ interests against negative impacts to nearby residents and in our view the commission failed. Here is why that matters.

Commentary

On the March 2020 Ballot: Uncertainty!

February 3, 2020 Mark Elliot Election 2020

The upcoming Beverly Hills city council election will be a departure from the past. Changes include new vote-by-mail ballots, new ballot-marking devices, and even an 11-day window to cast a ballot. The biggest change though is the consolidated election. For the first time our local contest will share the ballot with the statewide primary and some voters will be surprised. In addition to the five declared city council candidates we can be sure that uncertainty, too, will be on the Beverly Hills ballot!

News

Crescent Homeowners Say No to Visitor Parking

February 2, 2020February 2, 2020 Mark Elliot Crescent Drive, preferential parking permits

Homeowners are petitioning the city to modify the preferential parking permit zone on the 200 block of South Crescent. Their objective is to prevent any visitor from parking on their street. While the proposed ‘No Parking Anytime, Permit Q Exempt’ designation could benefit fewer than 40 homeowners, it would make curb parking more difficult for hundreds of multifamily households south of Wilshire. Street parking is already a challenge. This new designation would make it worse by pushing day & nighttime parking demand from Crescent to our blocks.

News

Candidates Kick-Off Election Season!

January 11, 2020January 14, 2020 Mark Elliot Election 2020, Julian Gold, Lili Bosse, Lori Greene Gordon

Candidates Julian Gold, Lili Bosse and Lori Greene Gordon kicked-off their campaigns at 11 a.m., noon and 12:30 p.m respectively. (The other two candidates on the ballot did not hold a kick-off event.) Tightly-scheduled and even overlapping campaign events are the rule for these kick-offs and thankfully they are often in the flats so the only challenge is to time one’s arrival with time to graze, catch the speech and then move on.

News

RSO in Review: A Look Back at 2019

January 3, 2020January 11, 2020 Mark Elliot Year in Review

Ringing in a new year is an opportunity to look back over the past year and it started with a bang: four city council study sessions to finalize the rent stabilization ordinance. But it ended with a whimper. Council created a Rent Stabilization Commission but today it exists only in an ordinance. We’re still waiting on it. Let’s take a look back at 2019 for the past year’s developments in rent stabilization.

News

Election 2020: A New Ballot, A New Problem

December 29, 2019 Mark Elliot Election 2020

On March 3rd voters in Beverly Hills will go to the polls to fill two available seats for city council. The outcome will affect the final rent stabilization ordinance and that makes this an important contest! But it differs from past elections in another way too: the state’s recent California Voter Participation Rights Act has ushered-in innovations like an 11-day voting period and a new electronic ballot-marking device that will change how we elect candidates.

Commentary

Clean & Sanitary: The Most Basic Multifamily Maintenance Standard

November 23, 2019November 23, 2019 Mark Elliot 212 Reeves, Essential management, maintenance

The State Civil Code is clear that “clean and sanitary” premises is a responsibility shared by both landlords and tenants. The tenant must keep her reasonably clean, of course, and the landlord, according to the law, must keep the common areas “in every part clean, sanitary, and free from all accumulations of debris, filth, rubbish, garbage, rodents, and vermin.” As many tenants know that is not the case when basic maintenance goes wanting.

Beverly Hills Bar Association legal seminar

Commentary

Our Recap of the Beverly Hills Bar Legal Seminar

November 17, 2019January 3, 2020 Mark Elliot Beverly Hills Bar Association, education, empowerment

The Beverly Hills Bar Association Barristers today organized a free landlord tenant legal seminar at the Roxbury Park community center. Billed as a ‘pro bono legal clinic’ the event was more a presentation of relevant rental housing regulations punctuated by by audience questions. For tenants with specific questions there were individual consultations. This was not a city event. However it was timely given the coming changes in state law that will affect tenants. Here’s the recap.

Commentary

156 South Reeves: Another Case Study in Neglect and Hazard

October 25, 2019November 23, 2019 Mark Elliot 156 S Reeves, maintenance, neglect, Stephen Copen

Beverly Hills landlord Stephen Copen’s properties are often an object lesson to fellow landlords: When we neglect to repair our residential rental property the inevitable result will be deterioration, decay, and ultimately, a hazard we visit upon our community. That’s the lesson we can all take from 156 South Reeves today. Just take a look at that overhead garage door that fronts on Charleville. It has deteriorated so significantly that it now sags and menaces passersby with exposed, rusty nails. How did it come to this?

News

Who to Watch in the Beverly Hills City Council Election

October 24, 2019December 27, 2019 Mark Elliot Campaign 2020, Farshid 'Joe' Shooshani, Julian Gold, Lili Bosse, Lori Gordon

Beverly Hills voters will elect two councilmembers at our upcoming municipal election scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, 2020. For residents who rent this is an important election. Because the rent stabilization ordinance has yet to be finalized, the incoming councilmembers will have real influence over key aspects like the allowed annual rent increase and relocation fees and more. But many other aspects of rental housing regulation are affected too. It is crucial we have a city council that is supportive of tenants’ interests. After all we are more than half of all city households! Here is a look at the announced candidates.

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