ACTION Apartment Association

Los Angeles' homeless crisis goes from bad to worse

07/19/2017 11:05 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

By Peter Bowes, BBC News, Los Angeles

Homelessness in Los Angeles County soared by 23% in the past year and it shows. The problem has become tangible and inescapable, with makeshift tent encampments cropping up across the sprawling metropolis.

The yearly homeless count in Los Angeles County rose to 58,000 in 2017, up from 46,874 in 2016.

Construction based rent adjustments coming back to Rent Control Board

07/19/2017 10:04 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The Rent Control Board has postponed a decision on revisions to construction based rent reduction rules and will now pick up the discussion at their August meeting.

The Board made the decision this week citing a lack of time to study the proposed revisions and a desire to have all boardmembers present for the discussion.

Staff released their report in the afternoon of July 11 in advance of a July 13 meeting. The 20 page report recommended language simplification throughout the ordinance and a set of “substantive” changes.

Substantive revisions included rules requiring a tenant to have suffered some adverse effect before applying for a construction-related rent decrease, clarification of concepts for ease of citation, specifying state any rent decrease will cover the entire duration of construction impacts – not merely those occurring after the date on which the Board sends notice to the landlord that a rent decrease is possible, coordinating requests from multiple units within a single complex, clarifying the confidentially of mediation including notice that the agreements are not confidential themselves and allowing lawyers to participate, requiring tenants to provide a basis for the rent decrease, removing language made moot by past legal cases and equalizing rent decreases based on similar cases.

While the law does not require a rent decrease for all construction in a rent controlled unit, it does provide for a rent decrease in most cases.

Santa Monica Files First Tenant Harassment Lawsuit Alleging Landlord Targeted Roommates

07/19/2017 9:53 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

July 17, 2017 -- The Santa Monica City Attorney's Office last week filed its first lawsuit claiming a landlord harassed tenants by forcing existing roommates who were not on the lease to vacate, officials said.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Santa Monica Superior Court against Ante Trinidad and the Adel Luzuriaga Trust, the owners of a nine-unit rent-controlled building doing business as SanMo17 Property.

Santa Monica Water 'Neutrality' Law Begins with Trickle of Doubts

07/19/2017 9:51 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

July 17, 2017 -- Can a city, especially one scarred by drought, embrace significant increases in population and new development without dipping deeper into a troubled water supply?

The City of Santa Monica began testing that equation this month with a law limiting water use for new residential and commercial development to the existing level of use, which is the lowest since the 1990s ("Santa Monica Launches Program to Cap Water Use," June 14, 2017).

Mountain View - Tenant attorneys demand citywide rent refund

07/17/2017 10:23 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Could Mountain View's landlords soon be on the hook to pay back a small fortune in overcharged rents?

Measure V did indeed include "plain language" about its effective date -- Dec. 23 -- but complications cropped up after Mountain View voters approved the law in November with about a 53.4 percent majority. A widely anticipated lawsuit was filed by the California Apartment Association on Dec. 21, derailing the planned implementation two days later.

DCP clears penultimate hurdle

07/15/2017 10:30 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

City Council has given preliminary approval to the Downtown Community Plan with instructions to bring a final version of the document for approval on July 25.

The council made a series of unanimous votes at the end of a six-hour meeting to advance the plan with several revisions.

Council kept a trio of opportunity sites earmarked for larger development, maintained ground level commercial use in the downtown area and streamlined housing development up to 75,000 feet.

SMa.r.t.-The DCP: When Less is More

07/14/2017 1:00 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

We’re a unique beachfront community and we should capitalize on that, not change it. The Downtown Community Plan (DCP) as proposed will likely have serious consequences for our city – it is not a plan, but rather a wish list for developers. It would substitute open sky and parks with tall buildings that will darken our streets and mire our downtown in gridlock.

Downtown Districts: Housing

Santa Monica’s past has shown that the “market place” will not produce affordable housing on its own. Land and building costs, combined with a scarcity of housing in an affluent community, will cause housing costs to continue higher and out of range for many in need of shelter. In short, we cannot “build our way to affordability” solely by increasing our housing stock. The City is therefore left with only two options: 1) mandates that require existing or new projects to provide it and/or 2) City subsidies or funds to defray the costs or adequate City funds to provide it themselves (e.g. Community Corp.).

City Attorney Files Lawsuit To Stop Harassment of Local Tenants

07/14/2017 7:58 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office sent the following press release this afternoon:

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Consumer Protection Division has filed a lawsuit against two local landlords, alleging violations of a local law that protects tenants against harassment.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Santa Monica Superior Court, names as defendants landlords Ante Trinidad and the Adel Luzuriaga Trust doing business as SanMo17 Property. It alleges that the defendants bought a nine-unit Santa Monica apartment building in July 2016 and immediately targeted three long-term, below-market-rent tenants with harassment tactics in a manner designed to make the tenants vacate so that the landlords could obtain higher rents from new tenants.

The lawsuit alleges that the landlords’ misconduct included:

Using fraudulent and coercive tactics to force tenants’ existing roommates to vacate

Improperly refusing to allow the tenants to get other roommates, and

Conducting bogus and intrusive “inspections” of tenants’ units

State Officials Release Earthquake Fault Map for Santa Monica

07/14/2017 7:47 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

July 14, 2017 -- For the first time, the California Geological Survey on Thursday released new draft maps that show the location of earthquake fault lines that run beneath the city of Santa Monica.

The map -- which includes Westside communities along the Santa Monica Fault -- will impact future development, since state law requires that those seeking to build in a fault zone hire a geologist to determine if their property is on the fault line, state officials said.

The final authority will rest with local building officials, who must ensure the buildings are not constructed on the fault line, officials said.

The release of the map comes less than three months after the Santa Monica City Council approved the nation's most extensive retrofitting effort.

and

https://patch.com/california/santamonica/new-map-fault-under-santa-monica-could-spell-trouble-building

Affordable Housing Bill by Santa Monica Lawmaker Clears Hurdle

07/14/2017 7:45 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

July 14, 2017 -- A bill authored by Assembly Member Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) that would channel more money to local governments to finance construction of affordable housing cleared a hurdle Wednesday.

AB 1568 -- which passed out of the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on a 5-to-1 vote -- allows local jurisdictions to use any increase of receipts for local sales and use taxes to finance affordable housing.

If enacted, the “Neighborhood Infill Finance and Transit Improvements Act” would require local governments to use 20 percent of the bounty for housing for extremely low- to moderate-income earners.