Beverly Hills city council in September agreed to create a $1 million rent subsidy program to help COVID–19 affected tenants in the city pay the rent. The objective of the program is to provide a measure of stability to tenants in their moment of need. The program is also intended to benefit landlords by providing rental income that might otherwise be delayed due to COVID–19. But the devil is in the details. Here’s how it works.
City council has tasked the Rent Stabilization Commission with discussing important aspects of the city’s rent stabilization ordinance and then recommending to council whether changes should be made. Up next is relocation fees: should the fee requirement be eliminated — or should the relocation fee amount be reduced or in some way modified? Here’s our preview of the commission’s relocation fee discussion.
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Dear Mayor Friedman and members of the city council: Before you is a recommendation to increase solid-waste rates over five years. A new solid waste collection contract is forcing the city’s hand and we fully expect you to approve the proposed rates. However it should be noted that the rates, if approved, will force multifamily customers to shoulder even more of the burden of covering the city’s residential solid waste collection cost. Here are some observations.
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Beverly Hills city council in September agreed to create a $1 million rent subsidy program to help COVID–19 affected tenants in the city pay the rent. The objective of the program is to provide a measure of stability to tenants in their moment of need. The program is also intended to benefit landlords by providing rental income that might otherwise be delayed due to COVID–19. But the devil is in the details. Here’s how it works.
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California voters have spoken! Biden/Harris prevailed with 65% of the statewide vote and handed Trump/Pence a defeat by a margin of thirty points — a showing matched by just a few left-leaning states. But Los Angeles County leans even more blue: the Biden/Harris ticket won over 71% of county voters. How did Beverly Hills voters swing?
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On November 17th city council is poised to sharply increase the cost of solid waste services and alley maintenance. Every landlord pays these charges but some don’t pass the cost on to tenants. That may change: rising rates may prompt landlords to add a surcharge for refuse. As more tenants pay, we will notice just how steeply those costs will rise over the next five years. Let’s take a closer look at the proposed rate increase and see why this is a bad deal for multifamily customers.
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The Tenant, Homeowner, and Small Landlord Relief and Stabilization Act of 2020 was signed by Governor Newsom at the end of August. Among other things, the legislation establishes a statewide framework for delaying rent due to COVID-19 financial hardship by preempting our local moratorium’s protections. There is also a new process for requesting forbearance and a new deadline for repaying back rent. What does it mean for Beverly Hills tenants? We try to make sense of it!
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Beverly Hills city council has placed on the November ballot a measure to conditionally add three-quarters of one percent to the sales tax IF Los Angeles County voters at some point in the future approve any increase. Dubbed by city council as the ‘Beverly Hills Tax Payer Protection Act,’ Measure RP would put our city a step ahead of the county by grabbing the resulting revenue. But the measure raises some questions about equity. In this time of unprecedented stress on county health and homelessness services, is it fair to put Beverly Hills first?
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We support Proposition 15 on this November’s ballot because it would right an egregious wrong when voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978. That measure was sold on the premise it would limit property-tax increases for older homeowners. But the ballot measure did not distinguish between commercial and residential property, which allowed commercial property investors to surf the cresting wave of tax-revolt in California to a big score. Commercial property owners saw tax assessments rolled-back to 1975 levels and annual increases capped at 2%. It was a gift that’s been giving for four decades. Proposition 15 would force owners of commercial property to pay their fair share while shielding residential property owners from big increases.
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The ‘Tenant, Homeowner, and Small Landlord Relief and Stabilization Act of 2020’ (AB 3088) was enacted on August 31st to protect COVID–19 affected tenants from eviction. And just in the nick of time: just hours later the California courts would resume processing evictions for non-payment of rent! But lawmakers had another motive: to make COVID–19 evictions policies consist statewide by preempting local measures (like the Beverly Hills eviction moratorium) under certain circumstances. Now it looks like Beverly Hills unwittingly played into the hands of the state and ceded authority over our own COVID–19 protections.
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When legislators in Sacramento won’t protect tenants then it’s up to the people to step up. On this November’s ballot
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On the November ballot is Proposition 21, “The Rental Affordability Act.” Every tenant should support this ballot measure because it will roll back many, though not all, of the limits on rent control adopted by our landlord-friendly legislature in Sacramento. Nearly every pro-tenant bill each session is shot down by legislators who are not tenants and don’t understand tenant concerns. This by-the-people initiative bypasses the legislature to amend key sections of landlord-tenant law with rental affordability as the top priority. (Heck, it’s right there in the name.) Renters Alliance urges a YES vote on Prop 21!
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