By Jorge Casuso

April 9 -- The City Council Tuesday night could decide whether to back a slate of bills tenant advocates contend provide added protection from evictions and condo conversions and offer incentives for low-income housing.

While some of the seven bills outlined in the discussion item placed on the agenda by Council member Kevin McKeown will have little or no impact on Santa Monica, at least three could have repercussions in the long-time tenant bastion.

Two of the bills add protections for mobile home tenants, such as those at Village Trailer Park near Santa Monica’s industrial corridor.

A third bill, sponsored by State Senator Sheila James Kuehl, could have a widespread impact on owners of rent-controlled buildings weighing the option of going out of the rental business under the State’s Ellis Act.

“I often bring housing bills to our council during springtime of a new legislative session in Sacramento,” said McKeown, a member of the Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights majority on the council. “This year we have some local issues that could be very much affected by state lawmakers.”

Perhaps the legislative action that hits closest to home and is already stirring controversy is the effort by Kuehl, who represents Santa Monica, to limit evictions under the 1985 Ellis Act to owners who have owned their property for at least five years.

The bill also would extend from 120 days to one year the time period given to tenants to vacate a rental property being taken out of the rental business when a qualified elderly or disabled tenant has exercised the right to stay for a year.

McKeown, who considers the bill as “crucial, contends it will “limit evictions by new buyers of existing apartment buildings looking to speculate on condo development” and “gives tenants more reasonable notice when they're about to lose their housing.”

Housing providers counter that the bill would penalize property owners by eroding the hard-won right to go out of the rental business in highly regulated cities.

"The Ellis Act has been a valuable and useful means for property owners to go out of the rental housing business, and it only became necessary due to the unreasonable regulatory schemes imposed on housing providers, such as rent control," said Joseph Fitzsimons, vice president of Sullivan-Dituri Realtors, one of the largest property management firms in the city.

"The proposed change to Ellis would only further penalize housing providers," Fitzsimons said. "If cities want housing providers to stay in business, they can easily remove restrictions, while at the same time encouraging the production of new housing."

Landlord advocates believe the bill would especially burden mom and pop owners.

“Ms. Kuehl's law,” said local landlord attorney Rosario Perry, “does not deal with the poor owner who wishes to leave the rental market, the small unit owners who wish to use their rental building as housing for their families, the harassed property owner who wants to keep their property, but is sick and fed up with local controls and harassment.

“With this change in the law, the small property owner will have no redress, no protection against the local governments' harsh treatment, nor against the tenant's oppressions either,” Perry said. “They will be forced to sell, and, worse, at low prices.”

In addition, the proposed law would place a burden on property owners who wish to transfer their properties to trusts and family partnerships, landlord advocates said.

“If the owner decides to change how title is held, for instance, by transferring it into a trust established by the owner, the five-year time period starts over again, even though the underlying ownership has not changed," Fitzsimons said.

If anything, the provision that allows the tenants in an "Ellised" building to stay a year if a senior or disabled tenant qualifies to remain in the building would backfire, Perry predicted.

"No one's going to rent to seniors," Perry said. "They'll leave units empty. It's counter productive."

Two other bills that could impact at least one significant Santa Monica rent-controlled property would eliminate the removal of rent control on mobile home park conversions and require greater protection of displaced tenants in conversions of mobile home parks to condominium properties.

“I'm concerned about rules protecting mobile home park residents like those who are currently threatened in Santa Monica's Village Trailer Park near Colorado and Stewart,” McKeown said, referring to the mobile home park near the eastern edge of the city.

Four other bills the council will consider backing would:

• Require all residential hotels, including those that are low and very-low income, to provide each residential unit with a locking mail receptacle;
• Give fee deferral incentives to low income housing produced by non-profit developers. (Santa Monica already offers these and other incentives to affordable housing providers);
• Require those who acquire an ownership interest in a property for which an enforcement agency has recorded substandard building violations to register with the agency, and
• Allow stricter enforcement of low income housing covenants on redevelopment projects by requiring that all new or substantially rehabilitated housing units developed or otherwise assisted with moneys from the Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund remain available at affordable housing cost.

McKeown is confident his action will garner the necessary support.

”Protecting our housing stock and the people who already live in Santa Monica is something with which our whole council historically has agreed,” McKeown said.

“An affirmative vote on Tuesday supporting these bills will authorize City staff to make sure Santa Monica's interests are well heard in Sacramento.”