HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 2.B 02/12/2017 (2)"Just cause eviction" -can it be justified?
By Trevor Pitts, a Petaluma resident,
tpitts @pobox.com
The claim is being made that landlords evict tenants to raise the rent, to retaliate, to
discriminate, or simply arbitrarily, in order to justify "just cause eviction" laws.
Where is the evidence of such harm or that the proposed law will help?
Firstly, discrimination and retaliation are already highly illegal. Secondly, arbitrary
evictions and ones to raise the rent (unless it is done to make improvements that
are impossible in an inhabited unit) do not happen. How do I know? I have been a
landlord in California for 45 years.If I want to raise the rent on a unit, I do so.
Sometimes the tenant leaves. A vacancy is expensive. Who evicts the tenant when
they might stay if the new rent is market or below? And who evicts arbitrarily? I sell
im . Once gone, it's gone.
Why do I evict anyone? To protect their neighbor tenants, or rarely for non - payment
of rent. I get complaints from the neighbors of some troublemaker. I try to mediate,
and I often succeed, having some power to encourage a compromise. What if I now
have to go through another major procedure involving delay, and new enormous
relocation expenses, years of net profit. What happens with delays? The nice tenants
move out, especially if they feel endangered, if I am evicting some thug who
threatens them for complaining. What happens now, if I can't quickly remove
troublemakers- drug dealers /growers, thieves, those who harass women, or have
screaming violent arguments where they beat up women?
The nice people will get hurt. Maybe I can't afford to care anymore, since now I
could sell their unit without enormous relocation fees?
What if the tenant is not the problem, but the boyfriend, is? This is very common. I
can choose the tenant carefully, but not the boyfriend. How will a "just cause" law
deal with this, when the problem person may not even be on the lease?
The final problem is this. I owned a series of condos at Marina Bay in Richmond.
Richmond passed a "just cause" law. So I sold three - quarters of my units since then,
as the tenants moved out. The last will go whenever tenants move. All the buyers
intend to occupy. People I know have sold over 300 condos there since "just cause"
was passed, almost all to homeowners.
I will never again invest my savings in rentals, or re -rent a vacancy. I think I will fail
to persuade you of the folly of this proposal, and the folly of punishing the providers
of a service in order to procure more of it. Has that ever worked? Lenin tried that
with the Kulaks, the more efficient peasants of the Soviet breadbasket, Ukraine.
Millions starved. Nobody will ever build another rental in Petaluma if this passes,
and everyone will sell what they can as fast as they can.