News – Renters Alliance

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.

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.

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.

News

Metro’ Wilshire-Rodeo Station Work May Continue Through the Holidays

September 16, 2019 Mark Elliot Metro, Steve Mayer, Wilshire-Rodeo station

This Tuesday evening City Council will hear a request from Metro to allow construction (specifically station pilings) to continue throughout the holiday period, prior to Thanksgiving and extending through New Years Day. The issue is whether to require Metro to adhere to the schedule already formalized in a memorandum of understanding with the city, or to grant a waiver to allow that work to continue — and if so under what conditions. Will you be affected?

News

Breaking: Sacramento Inches Toward Statewide Rent Control

August 31, 2019August 31, 2019 Mark Elliot AB-1482, David Chiu, Gavin Newsom, rent control

California leaders announced an agreement to enact strong tenant protections, says a release trumpeting Governor Gavin Newsom’s support for capped rent increases and just-cause eviction only. But we have been here before only to be disappointed by our Sacramento lawmakers. Because it is a rocky road from good intentions to signed legislation. Let’s look at what’s on offer.

News

What is Driving the City’s Housing Policy? RHNA!

August 30, 2019 Mark Elliot housing, John Mirisch, RHNA

Beverly Hills is now entertaining a wide-ranging discussion about housing affordability and accessibility and the key issue is how the city can provide stability to residents today while accommodating housing demand in the future. Cutting right to the heart of the matter is state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment: an obscure and complicated process for assigning to localities some responsibility for providing new dwelling units in order to meet that demand. In fact RHNA as it is known drives every significant housing conversation in our city today.

News

Stop Work Order at 201 South Reeves

August 25, 2019August 25, 2019 Mark Elliot 201 S Reeves, Stephen Copen, unpermitted work

When you wake to the sound of a Sunday-morning demolition you might wonder whether the landlord has a permit for that work. But when your landlord is Dr. Stephen Copen you can rest assured: of course he has no permit! We remembered this lesson when the sledgehammer-and-pickaxe demolition commenced at 8 a.m. That must mean another Copen low-budget, under-the-radar job should meet an untimely end with a stop-work order.

City Council at RSO commission formation 2019-3-5

News

Rent Stabilization Commissioner Appointments Hit a Snag

August 18, 2019August 24, 2019 Mark Elliot Rent Stabilization Commission

City Council created the Rent Stabilization Commission in March to resolve certain tenant-landlord disputes and make recommendations regarding amendments to the rent stabilization ordinance. A total of 29 residents stepped up to apply, including 8 ‘at-large’ applicants (neither a tenant nor landlord). These disinterested at-large members are supposed to balance against the vested interests of tenants and landlords. But what if they’re not disinterested and unbiased after all?

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