The Santa Barbara City Council approved a new tenant protections ordinance Tuesday night. The ordinance included new harassment stipulations and tenant first right of refusal, but there won’t be a rental price cap after a unit is renovated.
"It's half victory, half defeat because what's the point of a right to return if there is no rent cap?" said Maria Navarro of the organization CAUSE.
Without a rent cap, landlords can raise rents past the typical 10% annual increase when a tenant returns after a renovation, which Navarro says causes displacement.
"Especially in the Latino community, which is what we’ve seen here in the last decade and especially in the last three years here in Santa Barbara," Navarro said.
Renter Estela Montaño of Santa Barbara claims her home needs repairs, but if it becomes uninhabitable or she is evicted, she says she’d have to move far away from her work and her kid's school.
"The only thing we want is to work, to live here, to raise our children here, to send them to school," Montaño said.
Landlord Nick Gonzales says it’s unfair to throw blame at all landlords equally.
"We don’t want to have vacancies. We don’t want to have empty buildings. That's only done when it's absolutely necessary," Gonzales said.
The ordinance groups together landlords owning five units or less with corporations that can own hundreds of units.
"There’s no reason to make blanket ordinances that make blanket policies that unjustly impact one group over another," Gonzales added.
Gonzales believes that exempting non-profits and the housing authority from these ordinances is the driving force behind rising rents and evictions.
"Because every year they raise their rents and so they are setting the federal standards higher and higher, and they are the ones who are housing the most vulnerable population and have the highest percentage of evictions," Gonzales said.
The ordinance also addressed tenant harassment, including landlords failing to provide regular maintenance and upkeep to effectively evict a tenant and misrepresenting when a tenant must leave a residence.
