The New Rental Control Laws
November 10, 2015
The New Rental Control Laws
by Randy Shaw
On November 4, a near riot broke out in the usually quiet city of Alameda, California. The reason? A battle over rent control. Rising rents and evictions are causing tenant displacement and activists hoped that the November 4 City Council meeting would bring some relief. Instead, the meeting broke out in violence, with a city official assaulting a tenant activist and the police arresting two tenants for the “crime” of advocating for rent control.
Alameda is the latest battleground in the new rent control wars. Earlier this year the city of Richmond, California enacted a rent control and just cause eviction law, only to have landlords get it suspended by qualifying a referendum. Instead of waiting for the election on the referendum Richmond activists are now gathering signatures to put their own measure on the November 2016 ballot.
Activists in cities that have long had rent control laws are pushing for stronger measures. In Los Angeles, activists like Larry Gross, Director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, want the city to stop allowing tenants to be evicted so that speculators can demolish their rent-controlled buildings (emptying the building through the Ellis Act, a state law that preempts local just cause eviction laws). CES and their allies forced the head of the California Housing Finance Agency to resign over his Ellis Act eviction of tenants.
San Francisco has been strengthening its rent control laws through ballot measures and legislation for three decades. The city recently enacted an Eviction 2.0 package to further protect tenants.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/10/the-new-rental-control-laws/
