ACTION Apartment Association

Rent Control Report-Santa Monica; AB1506-Repeal Costa-Hawkins

03/06/2017 3:39 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

By Michael Millman

On February 17, 2017, Assemblyperson Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica),

Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), Assemblyperson Bota (Oakland) and

Assemblyperson Chiu (San Francisco) introduced AB 1506, designed to

repeal the Costa-Hawkins Fair Housing Act, 1995.

COSTA-HAWKINS was enacted to address draconian and arcane Rent

Control policies in West Hollywood, San Francisco, Santa Monica and

Berkeley.

You need to call, write and email, stating simply: “I am opposed to AB 1506.”

Too late to turn the tide on Santa Monica salaries

03/06/2017 7:51 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

About twenty minutes into the late night meeting, Councilmember Sue Himmelrich finally made a statement everyone could agree on.

“I feel as if every time I come into this room, everyone is so angry,” she said.

The crowd of about thirty activists and members of the North of Montana Neighborhood Association mumbled and nodded in approval. The laundry list of complaints during the Thursday night meeting ran the gamut: perceived over-development of the City, tourists, staff incompetence and government waste. Himmelrich kept trying to bring the room back to the topic at hand: city salaries.

“We can’t go back. This is our situation today,” said the councilwoman. “We cannot do wholesale firing of entire departments and we can’t roll back pensions.”

Wilmont landlord still going strong after 40 years

03/06/2017 7:50 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A thicket of mature trees and plants frame a hidden, underground entrance to Ocean’s Eleven Plaza. Visitors descend a staircase and pass a tiled lobby with a bubbling fountain and shaded park bench. Inside the wood-paneled elevator time ticks by a little slower as you creep up to the third floor.

“What could be better than living here?” asks Sandy Roth, the building’s oldest tenant and longtime landlord. She’s used to selling the units to prospective renters. After 41 years, you would be hard pressed to find a building manager in Santa Monica who has been doing it longer than her.

Proposed Law To Expand Rent Control Raises Ire Of Landlords

03/06/2017 7:42 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Assembly Democrats on Friday announced a slew of proposed new laws aimed at bringing the Bay Area’s sky-high prices back to earth.

One is AB 1506. It would allow local governments to create and impose rent control

“It’s a very controversial bill, but you have to look at both sides of the economic equation,” said California State Assembly member Richard Bloom.

Santa Monica’s Lincoln Boulevard could get pedestrian-friendly makeover

03/06/2017 7:40 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A long stretch of Lincoln Boulevard through Santa Monica is all set to get a major makeover that will make the street a bit more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians. As Santa Monica Next reports, the city’s planning commission is set to review plans for the project’s first phase this coming Wednesday.

The Lincoln Neighborhood Corridor Plan seeks to promote public transit ridership and improve the experience of walkers and bicyclists along the stretch of thoroughfare between the 10 Freeway and Ozone Avenue.

State bill aims to keep rent in rent-controlled units low

03/06/2017 7:24 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

State Assemblymember Richard Bloom has introduced a bill that would allow cities to make it illegal for the owners of rent-controlled buildings to hike rents after tenants move out.

The bill would repeal the state’s Costa-Hawkins Act, which allows the owners of rent-controlled buildings to raise rents to market-rate prices when tenants voluntarily leave or are evicted.

S.M.a.r.t.-A Costly City Services Building; Is It Worth It?

03/03/2017 8:04 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Since Santa Monica has outgrown its City Hall, its staff are currently scattered across our city. The placement of the New City Services Building (CSB) behind our historic City Hall building will resolve this issue. Although its understated design may diminish its visual impact on our historic City Hall, its budget will not. Because it was initially designed to the highest level of sustainability, it could cost up to three times a typical office building – $86 million ($1,720/SF.) This does not include the financing that will add an additional $80 million.

Costa-Hawkins Repeal Threatened. Stop 1506

03/02/2017 8:07 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Help Fight California assembly bill 1506 which threatens to repeal Costa-Hawkins.

Activists press for district based elections

03/01/2017 2:55 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Santa Monica activist Oscar de la Torre is highlighting his own election loss last November in a legal effort to dismantle the way the City has held elections for seventy years.

De la Torre is the board co-chair of the Pico Neighborhood Association, which has sued Santa Monica over the City’s use of at-large elections. De la Torre’s wife is also a plaintiff in the suit. The suit claims that citywide elections violate the California Voting Rights Act, which prohibits at-large elections if they can be shown to racially polarize voting.

The case is slated to head to trial in October.

New Bedbug Mandatory Disclosure Requirements

03/01/2017 2:34 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

In 2016, a comprehensive bedbug statute was enacted. It involves comprehensive and complicated “DISCLOSURE” requirements “and protocols wherein Tenants and licensed pest control operators are required to not only cooperate with the “investigation,” but exchange and deliver pest control reports wherein it is determined that either in an Apartment Unit or common area there is “evidence” of infestation of bedbugs.

There are two essential and important Disclosure dates: July l, 2017: Owners shall provide to all “NEW TENANTS” a written document in 10-point font containing “educational information about bedbugs; a simple procedure to report suspected infestation to the owner; and a protocol or statement that the tenant shall not only cooperate with the inspection, but will facilitate the detection and treatment.” Again, this is a “no fault” Statute.

Effective January 1, 2018, an Owner must give a prescribed “educational” Notification to all Existing Tenants