ACTION Apartment Association

Council Approves Extensive Seismic Retrofitting, Zero New Energy Law

04/03/2017 7:53 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Council Approves Zero Net Energy Ordinance

Council Approves Seismic Refit Program

20 Great things to do as a housing provider

03/30/2017 12:55 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Read Rosario's Perry's List here: 10 great things to do as a housing provider by Rosario Perry..pdf.pdf

Amid L.A.'s Housing Crisis, There's a Fight Over Expanding Rent Control

03/30/2017 9:23 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

L.A. housing advocates say the city desperately needs a new law, proposed by Santa Monica–area Assemblyman Richard Bloom, that would strengthen rent control statewide by expanding the pool of housing eligible for it. The law would allow cities to restrict rent increases for single-family homes as well as for apartment units built after 1995 (Los Angeles' cutoff is 1978), neither of which is allowed today.

AB 1506 also would allow cities to limit rent increases even after a unit has turned over and a new tenant has started a new lease. Under current law, landlords can reset those units to market rates. The legislation would do all this by overturning the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which put those limits on rent control in place in 1995.

Santa Monica wins court victory over vacation rentals

03/30/2017 7:15 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The City’s newly formed Vacation Rental Enforcement Task Force has scored a major win against a Los Angeles-based vacation rental operator.

Early last year the Task Force began investigating Globe Homes for operating illegal vacation rentals in Santa Monica. City code only allows homeowners to share homes in which they reside and prohibits turning a house or apartment into a vacation rental.

Audit Subcommittee ... Faces New Challenge

03/29/2017 1:32 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

March 29, 2017 -- When it was created almost two years ago, a special panel to act as a watchdog of public spending at Santa Monica City Hall inspired some high hopes.

“A movement is now afoot,” said Tricia Crane of Northeast Neighbors, one of many neighborhood organizations that have been going head-to-head with the City over issues ranging from development to the cost of employee compensation and -- in particular now -- soaring costs for pensions.

Crane said “many residents (insist) that the City must account for the high salaries we pay City staff compared with other cities in our state.

NMS Properties says they are vindicated by City audit

03/28/2017 8:18 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

A four-month long multi-department review of NMS Properties’ contracts with the City of Santa Monica failed to produce a smoking gun or even very much smoke.

RENT CONTROL WOULD PUT HOUSING OUT OF REACH FOR MORE CALIFORNIANS

03/27/2017 9:30 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Rent-control laws simply don’t work, though. And rather than keep rents down, they actually discourage the development of additional housing that would lower prices. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, government attempts to make housing more affordable – rent control, for one example – do “very little to address the underlying cause of California’s high housing costs: a housing shortage.”

Rent Control Board supports bill to repeal Costa-Hawkins Act

03/27/2017 7:59 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Facing escalating rents and strong opposition from landlords, the Rent Control Board voted unanimously Thursday to support a State Assembly bill that would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act.

Landlord Michael Millman owns 11 buildings, one of which is in Santa Monica. He has long-term rent control tenants paying as low as $525 a month in his building. Millman argued the market-rate tenants are subsidizing the tenants who have not seen a significant rent increase in decades.

“I’m happy to keep them in the building because the market rate tenants keep the building in the black so I can keep their life perfect without putting any pressure on them,” Millman said.

Even with high prices, Landlord Elaine Golden-Gealer says it takes three to five years to recoup the investment she’s spent fixing up units.

“In order to get those rents to be higher I personally, and a lot of other owners, had to spend a lot of money,” Golden-Gealer said. “I spent 20 or 30 thousand dollars to upgrade the unit to make it very desirable.”

Santa Monica Rent Board Endorses State Bills to Turn Back Clock on Housing Lease Laws

03/24/2017 1:31 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

March 24, 2017 -- Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom’s bill that would allow for the return of extreme rental housing price control eliminated two decades ago has received a mixed reaction statewide.

But his bill has the full support of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board. The board voted unanimously Thursday to endorse Bloom’s proposal (AB 1506).

The board also endorsed another of Bloom's bills, AB 982, that would require landlords to provide a one-year notice to tenants before evicting them under the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to get out of the rental business.

The Shriver Project has negatively impacted apartment building owners

03/24/2017 9:33 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Our housing work includes innovative projects designed to address specific, timely issues. One of these is the award-winning Shriver Housing Project—an unprecedented collaborative led by Neighborhood Legal Services—which provides eviction defense at the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse, where more than 25 percent of the County’s Unlawful Detainer cases are filed by landlords seeking to terminate rental agreements.