Measure H — the ballot initiative that brought about Pasadena’s rent control law — was billed as the “Pasadena Fair and Equitable Housing Charter Amendment.” But there’s nothing fair or equitable about the rental housing board the measure created.
The board is designed to be hostile to rental housing providers, the very individuals who fund the board’s work and are bound by its decisions.
The 11-member board is made up of seven seats that represent each of the city’s council districts, and four “at large” seats that represent the city as a whole. All seven of the “district” seats are reserved for tenants. And not just any tenants. They must be a sort of “uber tenant” who can prove that neither they, nor their extended family members, either own or manage rental units anywhere in Los Angeles County and have not done so in the preceding three years. You worked as a property manager two years ago? Disqualified. Your grandmother owns a duplex in Palmdale? You’re out of luck. This structure all but ensures that most of the seats on the board are occupied by individuals who are unlikely to have insight into or appreciation of the realities of operating rental housing.
You might assume that with a supermajority of the board guaranteed to these “uber tenants” there are at least some seats on the board reserved for landlords. They are, after all, the ones regulated by the law. You would be wrong in that assumption. While landlords are permitted to serve in any of the four “at large” seats that constitute the minority of the board, no seats are reserved for them. There’s nothing that prevents all 11 seats on the board from being occupied by tenants. Indeed, two of the four “at large” seats on the current rent board (and thus nine of the 11 total seats) are occupied by renters.
Further entrenching the inequity, the law also mandates that for there to be a quorum of the board to take action; at least four tenant members must be in attendance. There is no requirement that any “at-large” members be present for a quorum. This ensures that no vote can take place unless at least half of the members present are tenants.
The degree of unfairness comes into focus when considering the board’s responsibilities — making key decisions about administering the law, determining rent increase petitions, relocation assistance and establishing a budget. A budget, it must be said, that is to be funded entirely by a fee charged to landlords.
It should come as no surprise then that it is the board, rather than rent control in and of itself, that is at the heart of the California Apartment Association’s lawsuit challenging Measure H’s validity. Our lawsuit, filed just after the measure passed, contends that Measure H not only unconstitutionally restricts who may serve on the board, but that it upends Pasadena’s city government by, among other things, bestowing the exclusive power on the board to make key decisions about how rental housing works in Pasadena.
Thus far, the courts have not agreed. In ruling against these claims last March, Judge Mary Strobel found that “[i]n context of the narrow scope Measure H” there was not a “fundamental change in the city’s basic structure of government.” The melee at City Hall over setting up the new rent stabilization department suggests otherwise, which we are hopeful the Court of Appeal will recognize.
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