Landlords push back against Concord tenant-protection ordinance
CONCORD -- Many Bay Area cities have passed local ordinances strengthening rent and eviction controls and, after seven years of often angry debate, Concord passed a tenants-protection ordinance much to the delight of housing rights advocates. Now the new law is on hold as the landlords scramble to put the issue before the voters.
"By preventing high rent increases, renters will be able to save money for other needs, like groceries and medicine!" said tenants' rights organizer Betty Gabaldon, to a small crowd of activists gathered Sunday at Cambridge Park in Concord.
It sounded like a campaign for rent control but that's a battle that has already been won. The question is: who will win the war?
"This was approved by city council -- four to one -- and these wealthy real estate groups are putting this on hold," Gabaldon said. "And this will mean for renters to keep getting more rent increases or unjust evictions so we want people -- the residents of Concord -- to know what's going on."
In February, the city council approved new rent controls and just-cause eviction protections for renters. At the meeting, they made it clear they felt there needed to be more control over landlords.
"It's been a rough night. It's been a rough seven years," said Mayor Edi Birsan. "We gave it seven years without acting and, quite frankly, it didn't work."
"We are in a housing crisis right now," said councilmember Carlyn Obringer. "And I think this is a very important step because I don't want to see any more people falling into homelessness."
"Don't point the finger at us!" councilmember Dominic Aliano angrily told the landlords in the audience. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if your people -- colleagues and friends who own property and are landlords -- weren't harassing tenants or abusing their rights!"
"Then, what I say to that is: penalize those people, not the homeowners or the small mom-and-pop places," said Jo Sciarroni.
Sciarroni, a Concord resident and real estate broker, thinks the council went too far. She said the city's tenant ordinance went from eight pages to thirty and now gives eviction protection to people living in all residential buildings including single family homes.
Sciarroni believes homeowners could lose all control over their properties so she is spearheading an effort to put Concord's new ordinance on the ballot.
"My feeling was, we had asked them to put this to a vote," she said. "Let the citizens of Concord -- both tenants and landlords -- let the citizens of Concord -- and that includes everybody -- vote on the ordinance. That's all we ask and that's what the referendum is about."
By law, the ordinance is on hold for 30 days while Sciarroni tries to raise enough signatures to qualify the referendum. If she can't, the ordinance goes into effect immediately and that's why the tenants-rights activists were honking horns and caravaning through the streets on Sunday afternoon trying to raise awareness and support if it should come down to a vote.
Sciarroni says she's OK with that.
"If the citizens of Concord vote as a majority that they want rent control and this ordinance, then so be it, we'll have to live with it ... That's a democracy," she said. "If they vote it down then that should tell the council something."
Sciarroni said they have until April 18 to gather 7,204 signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. If the referendum is successful, the entire ordinance would be scrapped and the city council would be back to square one on a tenant protection law they struggled for seven years to create.