Recent Albany Property Rights Mixer

Thanks to all who attended the APRA Mixer on May 2! Here are recordings and resources from the event.

Our first speaker was Elizabeth Carrade, CivicSpark Climate Fellow for the City of Albany spoke about Albany’s Climate Change Initiative. Click here for a video of her presentation and Q&A is available (YouTube)
(apologies that these videos may be hard to hear as they were recorded with a Handycam since we don’t have professional video recording equipment)

The websites upon which the handouts are drawn are:
City of Albany Climate Action Plan 1.0
City of Albany Climate Action Plan 2.0

The second speaker, Jeff Bond, Community Development Director of the City of Albany, spoke about the City’s development of a soft-story retrofit program. Click here for the video of his presentation and Q&A (YouTube).

Click for the Earthquake Field Guide handout.

APRA Mixer

Come to an important meeting with fellow Albany rental property providers.

What: An informative and educational evening, with light refreshments. Get to know other Albany rental providers!
When: Thursday, May 2, 2019, 5:30 to 7:30 PM
Where:  Albany United Methodist Church, 980 Stannage Ave., Albany (@ Marin Ave).
Why: Learn Albany’s plans for your property.
How much:  Free!

• Jeff Bond, Albany Community Development Director, will address us on the proposed Seismic Retrofit Ordinance and how it will affect your property.
• Learn about the Climate Action plan that may prohibit the use of gas appliances, gas water heaters, and gas space heaters in your property.
• APRA represents and advocates for Albany property owners. If you are not yet a member consider joining today. Only you can help us be your critical, and much needed voice for Albany’s rental providers. Together, we can make a difference!

Mark your calendar today and come to this must-attend event.

ALBANY CLIMATE ACTION PLAN

The Albany City Climate Action Task Force is drafting a Climate Action Plan for Albany. The objective of the Plan is to (1). Eliminate the use of fossil fuels in Albany, (2).Create a carbon free economy in Albany, and (3). Build a resilient community. The Task Force wants to eliminate the use of natural gas in homes and rental property and to develop a strategy to expedite electrification. This means the phasing out of gas heaters, gas water tanks, gas stoves, and other uses of natural gas. This will involve costly upgrades for most property owners. Also, the Task Force wants to develop a strategy of encouraging energy savings improvements such as double pane windows, energy saving roofs, and LED light bulbs.

The Task Force has held 4 meetings with stakeholder groups. Four members of APRA attended a stakeholder meeting with property owners on April 2, 2019. The APRA members stressed that improvements to achieve the climate action goals need to make economic sense and be feasible. For example, many property owners have already installed energy efficient windows and are now using LED light bulbs.

The Task Force is drafting a Plan which should be ready for review by mid-April and to be finalized by June. APRA plans to review the Plan and provide feedback to Council. The Task Force wants the plan to be adopted by Council in September 2019.

Recent Updates

Please read our Open Letter to the Albany City Council regarding the Rent Review Board.

Read the APRA positions on the Rent Mediation Program.

After lull, Bay Area rents are rising again, but not like before

After two years of low to negative growth, Bay Area rents picked up steam in 2018, especially in the second half of the year, according to a quarterly survey of large apartment complexes by RealPage, a real estate analytics firm.

The average Bay Area asking rent grew 4 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period in 2017, its fastest pace in almost three years. But it’s still not close to the stratospheric rates that persisted from 2011 through 2015, when they often reached into the double digits.

Bay Area rents are expected to grow a little more slowly this year, thanks to an expected increase in new apartment completions.

Click here to read more on the sfchronicle site

El Cerrito Considers Tenant Protection Ordinances

On Tuesday, December 18, 2018, responding to complaints of high housing prices, the El Cerrito City Council considered four “Tenant Protection” ordinances. All four ordinances specifically excepted single-family homes and condominiums.

The Rent Review Program ordinance would have enacted rent review very similar to Albany’s, but without an application fee from the tenant. Like Albany’s ordinance, El Cerrito’s would have had a five percent threshold, with rent increases above that allowing the tenant to request rent review before ECHO Housing. This ordinance did not pass.

The Minimum Lease Terms ordinance requires property owners to offer a minimum twelve-month lease to new tenants, current month-to-month tenants and upon expiry of leases. This ordinance passed.

The Termination of Tenancy ordinance requires property owners to report to the city when they terminate tenancies or evict tenants. The City wants to collect this information so that it has more information about the number of tenancy terminations and evictions. This ordinance passed.

The Tenant Relocation ordinance requires that property owners provide relocation assistance when displacing a tenant, including for remodeling or removal for market, in the form of a refund of the security deposit less damages, a subscription to a rental agency service, and three months’ rent for an equivalent unit. Additional assistance is mandated for special circumstances households, e.g., the elderly and disabled. This ordinance passed.

The ordinances are published online.

The passage is tentative and must be approved by another vote. This was originally scheduled for Tuesday, January 15, but is going to be postponed until Tuesday February 18, 2019.

If you are a resident of or have rental property in El Cerrito, please consider contacting the City Council with your opinions. Many property owners are unaware of these ordinances because the City did not send notification to property owners, despite the fact that the City knows who the property owners are, having a database of business license holders.

2019 Plumbing Fixture Deadline – Are You Compliant?

California’s SB 407 (Padilla) is a water-conservation measure that was passed in 2009. The bill requires that on or before January 1, 2019, all noncompliant plumbing fixtures in multifamily residential real property and commercial real property be replaced with water-conserving plumbing fixtures.

Click here to read more.

Rent control emerges as hot topic in Contra Costa’s biggest city

Concord presently has a non-binding rent mediation program with a 10% threshold. The program has been successful but activists want strict rent control and just cause eviction.

Click here to read more from the East Bay Times

Rent Review Board Ordinance at City Council

Dear Members and Interested Parties,

On the afternoon of Wednesday May 30, City Staff posted the final version of the proposed Rent Review Program. To read it , please go to http://www.albanyca.org and hit the Agenda of the Council for the meeting on June 4, 2018 at 7:30 pm. At this meeting Council will vote on the second reading of the ordinance and will no doubt adopt it..  Council plans to take six months to implement the ordinance and the effective date will be November 2, 2018.  Copies of the ordinance and staff report are attached for your convenience.

For the past three weeks, APRA Board members have been meeting with Albany City Council members to persuade them to take a second look at the ordinance.  Council members have not been receptive to our requests to keep the ordinance from being rent control.

At a recent Council meeting Staff stated that the City of Albany plans to spend as much as $150,000 for the Program per year and expects the Program will be used by 10 to 15 residents.  The much larger City of Concord has a similar ordinance, and it has resulted in a total of two mediation.  For the City to spend $10,000 to $75,000 per tenant in the Program is absurd. This money could be better spent subsidizing needy tenants in financial hardship.

The ordinance will apply to all rental properties including family homes and condominiums. Property owners will pay most of the cost.

Further , the ordinance will empower the City to deny a rent increase if the property owner fails to participate in the program or fails to give proper notice.  It also opens the prospect of just cause evictions.  Despite the claims of Council both of these are blatant forms of rent control.  The trigger for mediation is any increase over 5%.

If you want to protest the proposed ordinance, please attend the Council meeting on Monday June 4 at 7:30 in Council chambers and speak or send an email to Council members prior to noon on Monday.

A number of you who were members have renewed for the current year, and some of you who have expressed interest have not yet joined.  We desperately need your support and need your membership.  Only with many members can we be effective  in our battle against rent control and to protect the rights of property owners in Albany. APRA is the voice of property owners in Albany and will continue to fight for their rights during implementation of the Program and afterwards.  We hope that all of you appreciate the value of an organized property owner group.  Prior to APRA landlords had no voice in Albany.  If you have not done so, please renew or join today.

Thanks,

Sam Sorokin
APRA Board Chairman
http://albanypropertyrights.org/

Proposed Rent Review Ordinance
Staff Report on Rent Review Ordinance

Update on the Albany Social and Economic Justice Committee (SEJC)

The following URLs are some of the key moments of the SEJC’s discussion regarding “Rent Review.” All property owners in Albany should be alarmed. The discussion paints a clear picture that the committee will eventually want the City to establish < strong >rent control and eviction control.

• Beginning of Discussion
• Notice to tenants
• Discussion of trigger amount
• Trigger tied to CPI
• Discussion of how and who can distribute flyers
• Percentage of CPI as trigger point, as used in Berkeley and San Francisco, should determine the trigger for rent review
• More discussion of trigger point
• “Off radar” rental coverage
• SEJC list of items for discussion at work shop

Watching these videos, it’s becoming more and more clear that the push will be to establish rent control in the City of Albany. Be sure to let your city leaders know how you feel.

APRA Board Votes to Decrease Membership Dues

At the last APRA board meeting, the Board voted to decrease the yearly APRA membership dues from $60/unit/year to $30/unit/year. The membership dues will cover the period from March 1, 2019 through February 28, 2020.

Affiliate members who are interested in joining APRA but do not provide rental housing in Albany are encouraged to do so. Membership dues for affiliate members are a flat $30/year.

Latest Update

Hello everyone,

I attended the Social and Economic Justice Commission (SEJC) meeting Tuesday evening. The members of SEJC were very concerned about the Rent Review ordinance being prepared by the City Council. They believe it does not have sufficient protection for tenants. They expressed concern about maintenance and habitability issues, questioned whether the costs of maintaining and operating a property are really increasing very much, they seem to think that a tenant should be able to challenge ANY rent increase as they think the “trigger” point should be the CPI (currently around 2.2%), and they REALLY want to have a just cause for eviction provision in the ordinance. We can count on the SEJC to pull the second reading of the ordinance from the consent calendar at the May 7 Council meeting (7:30PM). Listening to the members of the commission talk, it sounds like they are very disappointed that the ordinance is not more like rent control. They will be campaigning for major changes to the proposed ordinance at the May 7 meeting. You are urged to attend the meeting if at all possible. The ordinance is already bad enough–they want to make it worse.

Peter Campbell

1/18/18 – APRA Annual Members’ Meeting & Mixer

Please join us Thursday, January 18 at the offices of Winkler Associates, 1215 Solano Avenue, Albany.

6:00 pm: Annual APRA Members’ Meeting

6:30pm: Free APRA Mixer for Albany Property Owners & Supporters

• Hear a status update of rent regulation in Albany!
• See a presentation by Stan Pollock, radio personality, tax accountant and consultant on accounting and taxes for rental property and ask questions!
• Meet other Albany property owners!
• Enjoy refreshments!

Albany is preparing many changes to its regulations that will affect how you run your rental business and impact your property rights—including single-family properties and single duplex units.

The City says this is not rent control, just a rent review program. Don’t be fooled—once regulations are put in place, rent control advocates will push for full rent control!

Update on Rent Review in the City of Albany:

This link will bring you directly to the video of the Albany City Council agenda item on Rent Review on January 8, 2018. As a result of APRA’s constant advocacy on this issue APRA will have two members on the Rent Review Task Force helping the Staff write the ordinance.

1/11/18 – Update on Efforts to Repeal Costa Hawkins

Elaine Stelton and Sam Sorokin, APRA Board members joined their sister organizations BPOA and EBRHA and travelled by bus to join hundreds of property owners, investors and tenants to voice opposition to Assemblyman Bloom’s bill AB1506 which would repeal Costa Hawkins.

After hearing over an hour of speakers on both the pro and con side, members of the public were given the opportunity to voice their opinion. It took three hours for the public to give their one sentence statement.

Elaine and Sam proudly opposed this terrible bill that could potentially result in Albany enacting full rent control during and upon turnover.  In addition new construction and single family homes and condos could be controlled.

Ultimately the bill got a 3 to 3 vote with one abstention effectively killing the bill. Had it made it through committee it would have been presented to the entire assembly for passage.

While the win was a great victory for rental housing providers, the true battle has only begun. It is expect that an initiative will be placed on the November ballot to repeal Costa Hawkins.  The outcome there is uncertain and it is incumbent on everyone to join the fight.

1/8/18 – Council Considering Rent Review Program Ordinance

On Monday, January 8, 2018 the Albany City Council will be considering instructing the city staff to draft a non-binding rent review program ordinance. This ordinance would cover all rental housing in Albany including single-family homes and condominiums.

APRA Board Members will be there to represent your concerns and strongly advocate that any cost incurred by this program should be covered by the city of Albany and not by charging a fee to the rental property business licensees.

Please take the time to read the information below and click on the links for the full version of the staff report and the ECHO mediation program.

If you cannot come to the meeting, you will be able to watch the City Council meeting live at starting at 7:30 PM.

Watch the KALB  24/7 live stream 

In part two of the newsletter you will find information about a statewide effort to repeal the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act in the California State Assembly.

REMINDER:  Annual Members’ Meeting is January 18, 2018 at 6:00 PM at 1215 Solano Ave., Albany.  See you there!

More news and details in our January Newsletter »

Ballot initiative filed to repeal Costa-Hawkins, California’s rent control limitation law

A statewide ballot initiative was filed today to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, landmark legislation that’s protected California from extreme forms of rent control.  Because Costa-Hawkins has prohibited rent control on new construction after 1995, it has  encouraged private investment into new rental housing for more than 20 years.

Proponents of the initiative include Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation; the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, also known as ACCE and one of the primary tenant organizations in California; and the Eviction Defense Network.

Under the Costa-Hawkins Act, apartments built after 1995 are exempted from local rent control laws, as are single-family homes. Costa-Hawkins also allows a property owner to set the rent at the market rate once a tenant moves out and a new tenant moves in – known as vacancy decontrol.

According to Tom Bannon, CEO for the California Apartment Association, “If new construction and single-family homes are not protected from rent control  and the ability for owners to raise rents to market when a tenant vacates a unit is not protected against rent control, private investment into rental housing will come to a screeching halt.  Without a degree of certainty, small landlords, pension funds, and other investors will not have an incentive to maintain or improve the current rental housing stock.  Without an adequate supply of homes for their employees,  businesses will look to other states that are more favorable to housing construction. California’s efforts to attract employers will ring hollow.  California already has a housing shortage, and repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act would make matters considerably worse.  No new construction would mean there would be no place for our grown children and grandchildren to live.”

CAA, which opposes all forms of rent control, is preparing to defeat the initiative should it ultimately qualify.

At this point, the Legislative Analyst’s Office will perform an analysis of the measure, and the state attorney general’s office will prepare a title and summary. This process could take up to 60 days. Once it is complete,  proponents can begin circulating the petition to qualify the initiative for the November 2018 ballot.

The measure will need approximately 600,000 signatures to secure the 366,000 valid signatures necessary to qualify. The last day to qualify a measure for the November 2018 statewide ballot is June 28, 2017.

The push to put a Costa-Hawkins repeal before voters follows a similar effort that stalled in the state Legislature this year.

In early 2017, Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, authored AB 1506, which sought to repeal Costa-Hawkins. While the bill was put on hold amid opposition from CAA, the assemblyman can request a hearing on the bill again in 2018.

UPDATE ON ALBANY’S EFFORT TO CREATE A RENT REVIEW PROGRAM

Since our last Mixer on June 7, 2017, APRA has been monitoring the progress of the city of Albany’s effort to create a Rent Review program. In April the city published a request for proposal (RFP) for the following services:

The City of Albany is seeking a qualified and experienced organization to assist the City of Albany in providing: (1) technical assistance to City officials in the ordinance to create the Rent Review program; (2) provision of tenant-landlord counseling services; and (3) administering a Rent Review program. The City prefers that respondents submit proposals for all three elements. Applicants, however, may submit proposals for one or more elements of desired. The City reserves the right to select separate organizations to administer each program element. The initial term for the agreement would be for three years, subject to annual performance review.

More details on the City’s website

The deadline for Submissions was June 16, 2017.

Indicative of our position in the eyes of the City of Albany as your representative, Ian arranged a meeting with City Staff in an effort to learn more about the results of the RFP.

APRA representatives Francesco Papalia, APRA President and Ian Bennett-Goldberg, APRA Board Member met with Jeff Bond the Community Development Director for the City of Albany at his office August 31, 2017. We found out that city did not receive any responses to their RFP that they found satisfactory. The city is open to obtaining more proposals and will probably re-issue a new RFP (Request For Proposal)

We explained how crucial it was to determine ahead of time what would be the goals of a rent review program. Who was it meant to serve and what are the guiding principles? Would the tenants have to prove financial need?

We emphasized to Jeff Bond that APRA, and most all landlords, consider Relocation Expenses to be a form of rent control. All rent control programs use just cause evictions and relocation expenses for tenants as an integral part of the program. And cities with rent control can and often do include just cause eviction with relocation expenses that are applicable to single-family homes and condominiums even though they are exempt from rent control.

NOTE: Relocation Expenses can easily run from $10,000 to $30,000 in neighboring cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and Alameda based on factors like number of tenants, length of tenancy, and age or disability of tenants, We all agreed that there is a lack of good data on rents. We discussed options like professional public opinion/information surveys which could be costly.
Although the present City Council appears to not want to have a rent control program at this moment in time, there could be a change to the city policy after the 2018 local council elections where this issue might be on the ballot as a referendum or could be campaigned on by a new City Council Candidate. This is why we must ever vigilant in our efforts.

RENT CONTROL NEWS ABOUT THE BAY

The city of Fremont now has a Rent Review ordinance that is triggered by any rent increase over 5% in a twelve month period.

In 2016, the Fremont City Council considered preliminary research and information prepared by City staff regarding rent control and just‐cause eviction programs in California and requested additional information about such programs to help inform their discussion of the issue. The City requested Management Partners’ assistance in providing more in‐ depth information regarding rent control and just‐cause eviction policies, options as well as program costs. They produced the following report.

Click for an excellent review of recent actions by Bay Area cities to implement Rent Control.

Subsequently on September 19, 2017 the city of Fremont instituted a rent review program which will apply to any rental unit in the city including single-family homes and condominiums.

*******This is what a Rent Review Program could look like in Albany.******

www.codepublishing.com/CA/Fremont/html/Fremont09/Fremont0960.html#9.60

APRA had a booth at the Solano Stroll

Here it is during the Parade. Ian was definitely the Star of the Booth and he was peppered with questions of about real estate law throughout the day and he was there the whole time. THANKS Ian!

City Council Updates

Update on Rent Review – May 1, 2017

Rent Review Progress Report – March 2017

Watch Albany Property Rights Advocates’ Presentation at the October 3, 2016 Albany City Council Meeting:

Albany Property Rights Advocates

The Albany Property Rights Advocates (APRA) is committed to supporting policies that improve the city, increase the quality of housing and promote affordable housing, while protecting the rights of rental housing providers. Housing in the Bay Area is expensive, but rent control policies have a number of negative consequences and are not the answer. APRA believes solutions for affordable housing can be implemented where everyone is part of the solution.
Read our letter spelling out alternatives to rent control »