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City Council meeting Jan 18 2022
News 

City Council Bunts on Residential Moratorium

Mark Elliot , ,

City Council deferred all decisions on the residential moratorium until sometime February when the impact of the Omicron variant might be better understood. Left unchanged is the tentative sunset date of March 31st and until that time at least the prohibition on eviction for nonpayment and for no-fault remain in force. Rent increases are on hold too. But the discussion suggested how councilmembers are thinking about ending the moratorium — and the costs that tenants may bear for rent increases delayed.

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Eviction moratorium
News 

City Council Will Revisit Local Moratorium Tenant Protections

Mark Elliot , ,

Beverly Hills City Council on Tuesday will again reconsider whether or not to end moratorium tenant protections. The moratorium on evictions and rent increase may sunset as early as March 31st. For tenants still affected by the pandemic, the prospect of paying full rent, or facing eviction for nonpayment or no-fault, may be cause concern. And all tenants will likely find the prospect of a rent increase significantly higher than 3.9% a worry too.

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unit in need of maintenance
Analysis 

Habitability: A Few Key Concepts

Mark Elliot

Tenants living in rent-stabilized apartments time-and-again have informed city officials that conditions in rental housing need improvement. Sometimes the housing is substandard because it doesn’t meet the state’s ‘tenantable’ requirement which is merely fit for human habitation. More often conditions deteriorated because the landlord failed to maintain the property. Habitability touches on a number of concepts that didn’t get an airing in the Rent Stabilization Commission discussions. Let’s explain!

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Rent Stabilization Commission zoom meeting January 5, 2021
News 

RSO Commission OKs Fees, Whiffs on Habitability

Mark Elliot , , , ,

The Rent Stabilization Commission has agreed to recommend to City Council that relocation fees should be calculated differently. Most households would receive a substantially reduced fee according to our analysis. Households that rent from a ‘mom-and-pop’ landlord owning four or fewer units could see their fee further reduced. The good news is that the commission came to loggerheads on habitability so no action was taken that would tank a better standard for conditions in Beverly Hills rental housing.

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Rent Stabilization Commission discusses habitability December 1, 2021
News 

Habitability Comes Back to the Rent Stabilization Commission

Mark Elliot

On January 5th the Rent Stabilization Commission continues its habitability discussion and will likely decide whether or not Beverly Hills should create a local standard for minimum conditions in rental housing — and whether we need a rental housing inspection program to ensure landlords meet the standard. Today the city defaults to the state’s minimum standard — fit for human habitation — and with no systematic inspection some landlords fail to even meet that low bar. Let’s look at the commission’s prior discussions and what to look forward to at the next meeting.

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421 S Maple
Commentary 

‘Fit for Human Habitation’ is Too Low a Habitability Standard

Mark Elliot , , ,

Beverly Hills needs a local habitability standard! Today the city defaults to the state law’s requirement: residential must be fit for human habitation. That is a low bar and most landlords meet it. But some problem landlords fail to maintain their property and then pocket the savings as profit. Case in point: 421 South Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. From the outside it is appealing to an apartment shopper. But poor conditions inside were a reminder that we hold very low expectations for the state of rental housing in Beverly Hills — and some landlords even fail to meet them.

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Relocation fees chart illustration
Analysis 

Commission Recommended Relocation Fees: A Bad Deal for Tenants

Mark Elliot ,

On December 5th the Rent Stabilization Commission is poised to pass a resolution that will recommend Beverly Hills to change the way the relocation fees are calculated. The new formula would reduce the fee for nine out of ten rent-stabilized households, should they be evicted, and effectively reduces the compensation for moving expenses to a flat $1,000 regardless of apartment size. The commission majority supported a change to relocation fees by a 4–2 vote. Tenant commissioners didn’t support it, though, because it would be a bad deal for tenants.

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Courier on relocation fees: fake news
Commentary 

Courier Gets It Wrong: Relocation Fees Would Fall, Not Rise

Mark Elliot , ,

Again the Beverly Hills Courier gets it wrong. A recent report says the Rent Stabilization Commission’s recommended change to Beverly Hills relocation fees would result in higher compensation for most tenants. Not true: nine out of ten households would receive a lower fee — as much as several thousand dollars less — while some households would see their compensation further slashed if they rent from a ‘mom-and-pop’ landlord. We try to correct the record with this letter to the editor but the “Newspaper of Record for Beverly Hills” declined to print it.

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RSO commission meeting on Zoom
News 

RSO Commission Recommends Changes to the Relocation Fees

Mark Elliot , ,

At the November 3rd meeting the Rent Stabilization Commission recommended a new formula to calculate relocation fees in Beverly Hills that will, in most instances, reduce the fee paid to households if evicted by the landlord due to no fault of the tenant. At the next meeting in December the commission recommended that tenants of ‘mom-and-pop’ landlords should receive 25% less. If City Council enacts these changes then come July households across the city will fare much worse than today if evicted for no fault. Let’s take a look at the commission’s recommendation.

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no parking for outsiders sign
News 

Crescent Homeowners Say NO to Visitors Parking at the Curb

Mark Elliot

Homeowners on the 200 block of South Crescent Drive are petitioning City Council on Tuesday, November 16th to modify the preferential parking zone on their block. They want a new ‘No Parking Anytime Permit Q Exempt’ designation. Only Q-permit holders could park. That may benefit a few dozen homeowners but it would inconvenience visitors who depend on an hour of parking without a Q-permit. More important, if approved the designation would push that parking demand to numerous adjacent multifamily blocks where capacity is already limited.

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Commentary 

RSO Basics and Updates Webinar: Our Review

Mark Elliot ,

Beverly Hills rent stabilization division this week hosted a webinar Q&A titled RSO Basics and Updates. It is the latest virtual ‘training’ on tenant and landlord responsibilities. Helen Morales, deputy director of the rent stabilization division, walked through the basics: history of the rent stabilization ordinance, reasons for no-fault termination, the city’s moratorium and more. Dry stuff mostly, but there are a few nuggets to highlight before we render our verdict.

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