For weeks, Santa Barbara tenants who have been evicted or are on the verge of being ousted have appealed to the City Council for help in protecting them and their rights against landlords they say want them gone so they can raise the rent for new tenants taking their place.
On Tuesday, it was the landlords’ turn.
The landlords who showed up at the Santa Barbara City Council meeting insisted that they were following the rules laid out in the city’s tenant protection ordinance, that no loopholes were being exploited and that no “clarifications” needed to be made.
Several questioned why they were there in the first place.
“This is a tenant-centric disaster for property owners in Santa Barbara,” Paul Burns said.
The idea of requiring landlords to show “good faith” instead of just “intent” is unfair, he said, because “it’s not that clear what good faith means. It’s subject to interpretation.”
He was especially concerned about the proposal that any rental unit removed from the housing market must be permanent. “Now a landlord could remove it and then three years later decide to rent it again.”
“Permanently means forever,” he said. “It constrains the owners’ property rights. It’s a bludgeon in the hands of the city attorney against landlords.”
The real issue facing the city, he said, is “the incredible dearth of affordable housing.”
Frederick Lang agreed “good faith” is not an objective standard. “Do not make me a criminal because you interpret my motivations,” he said. “Basically it comes down to you can’t make somebody a bad person because you think you don’t like what they’re doing.”
Susan Horn said the council should ask to see the data “to see if this actually needed. Who do you believe, the tenant or the landlord?”
She complained that tenants are not satisfied with explanations of why they have to go or being paid a relocation fee. “They believe they should be let back in at the same rate.”
Teresa Patino questioned what loopholes council members believe they’re closing by passing the emergency ordinance. “If there’s a bad actor, go after them under city law,” she said, “You’re opening up a can of worms.”
Council members and the tenants who spoke Tuesday said no one was pointing a finger at the landlords in the room, or saying all landlords are culpable. Tenants complain that their particular landlords use plans for substantial renovations as an excuse to make them leave, then end up doing nothing or only making cosmetic changes.
The tenants again pressed the council to pass the emergency ordinance requiring landlords to show “good faith,” including taking out work permits to actually do the demolition or substantial renovations.
“We wholeheartedly support the staff recommendation to satisfy the original intent of the just cause ordinance,” Nadia Abu-Shanab said.
She said she’s heard stories of people being evicted after a private landlord says he’s going to do renovations, and then puts in a new sink, or paints a cabinet, or installs new landscaping. “They could easily have remained in the unit while the work was being done,” she said.
Many tenants couldn’t be there, she said, “because they’ve already been displaced and are out of town. The law is absolutely being circumvented by bad actor property owners.”
Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez suggested more needs to be done to define “good faith” on the part of landlords.
“We need something a lot stronger,” she said. “Based on experiences in my district, I don’t want a property owner who owns a complex of 30 units who says he wants to remodel and get permits, but then just sits on it.
“I don’t want to see those types of scenarios,” she said. “People who need housing need it right away.”
Assistant City Attorney Dan Hentschke, however, said “good faith” can be defended in court.
“If you do something in good faith, you’re doing it for the right reason,” he said. “If you’re not doing it because you’re out to hurt the other person, if you’re not doing it for the right reason, then it’s not good faith.”
In the end, council members approved the emergency ordinance, which took effect immediately upon adoption, saying they believed the stories the tenants have shared.
Council members said that more needs to be done to prevent “bad actors” from evicting tenants without truly showing just cause.
“This is a very real problem affecting very real people,” Councilmember Kristen Sneddon said.
She and other council members insisted that all they were doing by passing the emergency ordinance was cleaning up the language contained in the original ordinance.
The only landlord concern that some council members resonated to was requiring any landlord who permanently removes a unit from the rental housing market to also permanently remove the other units on the same parcel.
Assistant City Attorney Hentschke said the goal was to prevent a “piecemeal” approach that removes one unit but not the others.
But the landlords and some council members agreed it would be unfair to owners of buildings with three or four units to make them permanently give up the income they would make from the other units just because one is withdrawn.
They also questioned whether units removed from the market could be temporarily withdrawn and then put back on the market.
Staff was asked to look into the matter further and report back to the council.
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