Tenant Advocacy Group Starts Gathering Signatures for Rent Control, Eviction Restrictions in Pasadena

The Pasadena Tenant Justice Coalition has launched a signature-gathering effort in order to place a city charter amendment on next year’s ballot to enact both rent control and eviction protections, the group has announced.

Paperwork has been filed with the city, and the group now has until Dec. 2 to collect at least 13,878 signatures in order to put the proposed law in front of voters.

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Read the proposed ballot measure here

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With current tenant protections enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the local, state and federal levels on the verge of expiring as the pandemic wanes, tenant advocates say they fear an avalanche of evictions on the horizon if permanent protections aren’t put in place.

A similar effort in 2018 did not qualify for the ballot, but it came close, garnering more than 10,000 signatures, PTJC Steering Committee Co-Chair Michelle White said.

“What we’re doing is we are looking for the adding to the charter of Pasadena language that will afford protections for renters around rent control and just cause eviction,” she said.

“The rent control would limit increases for all housing to 75% of [consumer price index]. And then the just cause evictions will deal with things like [arbitrary evictions] because you’ve decided that you want to charge more money or you’d like to just upgrade without any real reason, et cetera,” according to White.

While the issues are always important, current events make them even more vital, she said.

“If we don’t do the rent control and just cause eviction work, then we’re going to have a situation where people coming out of the pandemic will lose their housing — unless we do something,” White said.

“This is also a fair housing matter, because most of the people who are impacted by this are Black and Brown,” she said. “This will have a disproportionate effect because of that.”

Signature gatherers began collecting autographs over the June 12-13 weekend, according to White.

“We don’t really have an option. We have to keep doing this until we get some kind of relief. Otherwise, we’re going to lose our housing.”

The proposed charter amendment would create a rental board to oversee the process in Pasadena, said PTJC Co-Chair Ryan Bell. The board would include both renters and nonrenters.

“So a landlord who feels that, due to some circumstances, they aren’t getting a fair return on their investment — by state law, landlords are allowed to get a fair return and they define that in certain ways… a landlord could petition for an exception and to raise the rent a little higher,” he said. 

Tenants would also be able to appeal to the board for lower rent “because of habitability or failure to repair things that are required by law,” Bell said. “So the board would hear petitions on both sides.”

According to the PTJC, about half of Pasadena residents are considered “rent-burdened,” which they define as paying more than 30% of household income in rent.

“In 2019, an estimated 48.8% of renter households (15,640 households) were paying 30% or more of their income toward rent, and 25.7% of renter households (8,240) were severely rent-burdened, defined as paying 50% or more of their income towards rent,” the organization said in a written statement.

Critics of the proposal included local realtor and property owner Adam Bray-Ali.

The temporary policy change in response to COVID-19 “has proven to be very helpful to keep people housed through an absolutely horrible year of the pandemic,” he said. “And now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, it only seems fair that we go back to the original and recognize that this was meant to be a short-term, temporary solution to get us all through a pandemic.

“To use this as an excuse to create a much broader set of rules and to literally take the business opportunity that exists for property owners away from them without a real due process is not something that I think is fair,” Bray-Ali added.

“I would suggest that the city leaders learn how price controls impact the supply of quality homes at affordable prices,” he said. “The reality is that it will create outcomes that are easy to predict: decreased spending on repairs and maintenance at properties with regulated low rents; owners of inherited properties not being able to ask their tenants to move for any reason. making them unwilling landlords; increased rents as landlords take advantage of every opportunity to raise rents whenever possible because they have no choice but to ‘use it or lose it.’

“As a longtime property manager, I’ve seen how a similar program in the city of Los Angeles has not created more housing, more affordable housing or a better community after 43 years of a stricter version,” he said. 

More information on the Pasadena Tenants Justice Coalition can be found on the organization’s website at pasadenatenantjustice.org.