Fairfax residents balk over recently-approved rent control, eviction ordinances
FAIRFAX – In the small Marin County town of Fairfax, property owners are staging an uprising over a new pair of ordinances that mandate rent control and just cause eviction protections for most rental units.
Unlike larger cities, in Fairfax, it's an issue that hits local landlords very close to home.
"The door on the right is my entrance and this door on the left is for the ADU," said Elizabeth Froneberger. She spent a lot of money to convert the lower portion of her Fairfax home into a separate apartment, or ADU.
It was meant to produce the income she might need to stay in the home after her husband died. But now, Froneberger said renting the place out is off the table completely.
"I mean, I can't," she said. "I don't mind rent control and I understand that. But the just cause eviction stuff is a killer. It's a showstopper. It would take just one wrong decision on my part, one wrong move, one bad tenant, and I would be financially, I mean, I would be in a mess."
What's got Froneberger, and a lot of other so-called "mom and pop" landlords so scared is the recently passed ordinances meant to stabilize rental rates and prevent unjust evictions.
Mayor Chance Cutrano, who voted for the new rules, said the Council wanted to give renters more housing security.
"We wanted to be more proactive and didn't want it to be a bigger deluge of people being displaced from Fairfax," said Cutrano. "So, we're caught in between both the start of that problem and trying to prevent a really significant problem on our hands."
But unlike Oakland and San Francisco, many of the rental units in town are part of the landlords' own property. Critics of the proposal say some of the provisions in the new law make it very hard to ever remove a tenant, even though they may be living next to, or even inside the house itself.
Frank Egger, a former, long-time mayor of the town, said the ordinance even empowers a tenant to sublet the space to another party without the property owner's permission.
"This ordinance is going to push these folks, the small mom and pop landlords, out, I think," Egger told KPIX 5. "It's part of Fairfax's affordable housing base, and we really can't afford to lose these little units and have these folks withdraw from the rental market."
Michael Sexton is worried. He maintains a rental apartment right next to his home.
"It's different when that tenant lives right next door or right below you and you interact with them every single day," he said. "To give up control of your own property like that, that's what gets homeowners really scared."
Even if a landlord decided to stop renting under the new regulations, it may be too late. The ordinances were written to be retroactive to the time the Council started discussing the matter last February.
As a result, Sexton started a petition to freeze the ordinances and put the issue on the ballot. He said he gathered 600 signatures in a week, which he said is enough to qualify it for a vote.
"Ultimately, I really don't think it will stand," Sexton told KPIX 5. "I think the more the homeowners understand or find out down the road what's about to be landing on them...the more angry and active they get."