Change is in the air.

A little more than a year after the Santa Barbara City Council voted to reject a right-to-return policy as part of a broad tenant protection ordinance, a new council appears poised to flip the script.

The City Council voted 4-3 to direct city staff to draft a right-to-return policy for tenant protections stemming from renovations.

The issue is scheduled to come back April 8 for a vote. Council members Meagan Harmon, Kristen Sneddon, Oscar Gutierrez and Wendy Santamaria voted in support, while Councilmen Eric Friedman and Mike Jordan and Mayor Randy Rowse voted to oppose.

Rowse, Friedman and Jordan attempted to make economic arguments against the right-to-return policy, amid a flurry of tenants and their advocates who spoke from the heart about how they have been displaced, or fear displacement from a “renoviction.”

“I am a tenant here. I live this housing crisis,” Santamaria said. “I have lived the housing crisis not only personally, but through many friends and neighbors.”

She pushed back on the idea that a right-to-return policy would devastate landlords by preventing them from investing and renovating buildings.

“A lot of these out-of-town wealthy folks who are coming and seeing our housing stock, frankly, are seeing our local community as a dollar sign,” Santamaria said.

The right-to-return proposal states that property owners cannot raise rents more than a maximum of 10% after evicting a tenant to make renovations. The landlord essentially must offer the unit back to the original tenant at no more than their original rent, plus 5%, plus cost-of-living, but no more than 10%.

Santamaria was elected in November largely on the fact that she campaigned on stronger tenant protections.

“I want to help create an atmosphere where the local mom and pop can thrive, and not your wealthy out-of-town billionaire investor,” Santamaria said.

The meeting at times got testy, with Sneddon cutting off Friedman at one point.

Friedman mentioned out-of-town podcasts he has listened to and attempted to give a history lesson on the Gold Rush. He said the first zoning laws in 1885 “were designed to keep the Chinese out of certain neighborhoods.” He added that the attitude caught on, and in 1916, New York created zoning laws that “kept the Jewish people out of Fifth Avenue.”

“The issue gets into government regulations and whether or not we are allowing the supply to come up every time we put up government regulations,” Friedman said.

He then brought up developer Peter Lewis, who built a 81-unit apartment project by combining lots, before eventually selling it to UCSB, seemingly as an example of how difficult it is to build housing in Santa Barbara.

Sneddon had enough.

“We’re talking about lot splitting, we’re naming property owners by name — none of these would be considered under this ordinance,” Sneddon said. “This development, this narrative, I think is pretty far afield.”

City Attorney Sarah Knecht said Friedman’s comments would be more appropriate when the City Council actually votes on the ordinance.

However, the drama didn’t die there. Jordan popped off at Sneddon for interrupting Friedman, saying she was silent when Harmon and Santamaria were making cases for the right-to-return policy, but that she tried to stop Friedman.

“It’s amazing to me that we have sat here for hours listening to people call landlords greedy and predatory, but all of a sudden we’re worried about someone mentioning a developer by name and specific instances of stuff,” Jordan said.

Sneddon earlier in the meeting declared her support for the new tenant protections.

She said units could be renovated when people move out and that most evictions for renovations are unnecessary.

The city, she said, has waited too long.

“I just feel more and more behind, and we need to act on this today,” Sneddon said.

Rowse has been a consistent opponent of the right-to-return tenant protections.

“We’re trying to make a serious financial decision without data,” Rowse said. “We have a lot of stories, and I believe them. There are a lot of tough stories. Nobody is up there lying. I get that.”

He added that he wants more information.

“I have no idea how many units we have that are going to be susceptible to this,” Rowse said. “I have no idea how many units are in the process of doing this eviction for renovation thing. I have no idea what the financial return looks like when an investor takes on this kind of project, or is it going to deteriorate into an old, dilapidated property.”

Jordan expressed strong opposition to the ordinance changes as the meeting ended. He said it would burden staff and chill new housing development.

“It will certainly benefit those existing tenants, but no one in those buildings ever after that,” Jordan said.

The changes also propose requiring property owners to obtain a written opinion supported by a detailed explanation and signed under penalty of perjury from an independent construction expert who holds a current and valid California Contractors State License Board license stating that the work cannot be reasonably accomplished in a safe manner with the tenant in-place, and that the work requires the tenant to vacate for at least 30 consecutive days.

City staff expects to answer some of the council’s questions before the April 8 meeting.