The Goleta City Council unanimously approved an urgency ordinance providing tenant protections during its meeting Tuesday evening.
The urgency ordinance, which is effective immediately, includes several requirements regarding no-fault just cause terminations, evictions related to substantial remodel, and more to protect tenants from displacement.
“We have an opportunity now to do something quickly, because I feel strongly that it’s needed,” Mayor Paula Perotte said about the tenant protections. “We are seeing people that are at risk of becoming homeless, experiencing homelessness because of the raising costs of living here — and they have jobs, they have kids in schools here — and I think there is something that needs to be done quickly.”
The ordinance includes conditions for certain no-fault lease terminations, such as for substantial remodel or owner move-in, and higher tenant protections than required in state laws.
For example, if an owner is terminating residential tenancy for a substantial remodel, the owner must first obtain all required permits and attach copies of permits with the Notice of Termination.
The Notice of Termination must also include a full statement of the reason for the termination, the type and scope of work to be done, and explanation why the tenant must vacate for more than 30 days.
Owners will also be required to offer to re-rent to these tenants. The urgency ordinance requires that the rental price after substantial remodel must be no more than the previous rent plus 5% and the consumer price index increase, or 10%. The Goleta City Council is planning to revisit and further discuss this cap when it considers the non-urgency ordinance for these tenant protections.
The ordinance also requires the owner to provide relocation assistance for no-fault terminations equal to two months rent. This relocation assistance must be paid to tenants either in full within 15 days after termination notice, or the owner can pay 50% within 15 days, and the other 50% at move-out.
Another provision in the ordinance sets conditions for termination due to the owner — or the owner’s spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, or grandparent — wanting to occupy the unit. In these cases, the owner or family member must move in within 90 days and occupy the unit for at least 12 months. If these conditions are not met, then the tenant can move back in with the same terms and rent.
Most of these provisions are similar to those recently enacted by nearby jurisdictions, such as both the City and County of Santa Barbara.
Public commenters during Tuesday’s meeting provided feedback both in support of and against the ordinance.
“This is about protecting tenants, it’s also about protecting our region’s general housing affordability,” said Stanley Tzankov, a volunteer tenant organizer with the Santa Barbara Tenants Union. “Because we know — as we talk about building new housing and meeting our region’s demands — we know that the quickest way we lose that affordability is actually by these processes of deregulating the rent, and so allowing tenants to stay in their homes is huge.”
Those speaking against the ordinance included people with the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors and landlords.
“Unlike the larger corporations, many of the small owners that have one, two, three, four units — that’s all they have,” said public commenter Nick Gonzales, who said he and his daughter had worked on renting out units. “They don’t have a pension, they don’t have a 401(k), they don’t have a guaranteed retirement. They work their mom-and-pop job and saved all their money, week in and week out. … And you’re taking this big brush and you’re just painting us all the same, and you’re putting at risk everything.”
Some of the units that would be exempt from these tenant protections include rental units issued certificates of occupancy in the last 15 years; a single-family dwelling, condo, or mobile home where the owner is not a corporation, LLC, or mobile home park management, and the tenant is provided written notice of the exemption; units subleased for less than a year; hotels, motels, or short-term vacation rental units; units rented out by hospitals, schools, or employers; and deed-restricted, below-market-rate units.
Because the urgency ordinance was adopted with a unanimous vote, these tenant protections go into effect immediately, and city staff will return to the Goleta City Council at a later date with a non-urgency ordinance that can be modified by the Council.
More information on the tenant protections ordinances can be found in the Council’s staff report here.