Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 8.97 relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
All right, let's go. Okay, we're going to do one more item then public, then the public comment. So let me go back up to. Which is the other one I got pulled. Okay, Adam. 43, the second reading of the tenant relocation. Communication from city attorney recommendation or declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to tenant relocation assistance red and adopted as red citywide. This is the second reading. There's a motion and a second is the public comment on this item. Seeing. Not in the public eye. Please come forward. Oh, yeah. Please come forward. Is there any other. I'm going to close the speakers list. And anybody else. Now is the time we're trying to move. We've still got a full agenda, so please, we can be brief. That would be great. This is the second reading. Please hold on 1/2. Okay, I'm closing the speaker's list. And it's closed. It's fine. You're in line. Guys, is everyone in line for this item? This is the second reading. So I think we've we've let's be. Yeah, I get that. So let's go ahead and begin, please. My name Jeanette. And actually, I'm sorry. We're going to go down in 90 seconds. Please begin. My name's Natalie Shaw. I there's a six unit building I live in, and three units have been thrown out. And a new owner came in, and they did not give us two option to pay more rent. They just have evicted us. And you're doing it on July 25th, so we would not be covered by the August 1st bill. And we all might be homeless for a while until we can save some money to get first and last month's rent. And I just wanted to say that this item 43 is very important, and I do hope it does pass. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next item, please. And before Mr. Fox goes, we have closed the speakers list. So the gentleman in the back is our last speaker. Nope. Actually, this not just. Yeah. Behind Jordan? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm here for the second reading of this ordinance. I remember that they said that there was going to be some tweaking to this ordinance last time we were here. Did that get accomplished? Rex Richardson brought it on the floor that we could adjust certain things. I haven't heard anything back about any kind of a adjustment to the ordinance as read. I'd like to have an answer for that if possible. My concern on this ordinance, frankly, is for tenants, not for landlords, particularly the more stringent we make any kind of . Contract between landlords and tenants. The more stringent the landlords will be in selecting tenants. Right now we do favors for people and say, Oh, you have a 505 score, we'll let you rent anyway. We don't care. You're a nice person, but if it becomes too onerous with relocation costs, not based on the 10% thing which the state already said, but don't just cause eviction, it may make it difficult for people to get an apartment because the standard will be so high. And so I think there's always consequences to what we do, and I hope that we will. You know, if you are going to pass this ordinance that in the future we look at that and see come back to it maybe in a year to figure out if we can amend the ordinance, as Miss Price had wanted to do. And Darryl Supernanny and I thank you so much for your time today. I just wanted to make that a little speech for you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fox. And also, I know there's there's some other folks that are kind of, I think, having some conversations in the in the gallery. So, please, if you have to chat, please go outside. I want to get through our public comment. Yes, sir. Council Mayor Chuck Brewer. I am here to say that since the conversation of this ordinance had come into place, I have seen rents already go up and it's hurting. The tenant. This ordinance will eventually hurt the tenant. I've also seen investors who are excited about the city. Talk about leaving the city. We've seen this before. We've seen it in. In our businesses. As Toyota has left the state, we're right now. The hot area to buy in is not California. Well, you know, when you go up there, let them know that we're seeing businesses leave. We're seeing people leave and people who want to invest in the state leave. Delaware statue trusts are one of the way it goes. So when toilets need to be correctly cleared, windows need to be fixed, and there's damage to buildings. And a landlord can't make a decent profit to do this because of ordinance of rent control like this, it will eventually hurt the tenant and our city. Our city deserves better. I think there's unforeseen consequences and we see it in our city just like we see potholes. We thought we couldn't fix the city, let the potholes go. Well, the same thing is going to be with the tenants and the landlords. Thank you for making the next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor Robert Garcia and council members. I'm sorry, knew it. This is like it my third or fourth time. But I'm I get like to the point because I'm very, very active with this. 43 lieutenant relocations is that I am for this because if this doesn't pass, how can you have people relocate and then they don't have the money to relocate? Because the you know, the housing is really, really high. I mean, Long Beach, affordable housing. They have Section eight. They have Long Beach affordable housing as well, a sliding scale. But some management companies, they don't have that. So my my I hope this you will understand that instead of doing something to reduce homelessness, this is going to create homelessness. And it's big enough as it is. We want to do better in our city. And I hope that this passes because another thing is also the risk, not only the rent control is high, but also minimum wage. You know, as soon as minimum wage goes up, then next thing you know, then the rent goes up and then everything else in the grocery stores goes up. I mean, I remember once upon a time when you could buy a can of Campbell's soup for a dollars a 40 something says now it's almost $5. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, councilmembers and Mayor. My name is Maria. I'm a proud de one resident. Ten years. Thank you, Lina, for serving undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. And I'm also the community organizer, director of community organizer for housing Long Beach. I would first and foremost like to thank everyone who has put work into this in getting this ordinance. It has been a long journey for us at Housing Long Beach. In 2016, we advocated for a responsible renters ordinance which mirrored just cause. In 2018, we pulled papers for rent control and stirred up the whole city. We are ready for this policy. We look forward to working alongside you all, alongside landlords and alongside all our beautiful community members. Again, before I leave. When renters rise, cities thrive. Thank you. Thank you very much, Nick Speaker, please. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Ailsa Tong with Long Beach Forward. I just want to thank you so, so much for your leadership in putting this ordinance forward. This ordinance will help prevent homelessness. Period. Full stop. We are working Long Beach Forward is working. Proud to work alongside our partners housing Long Beach and Libra. And we also urge you to make the critical fixes that we did discuss in the last round, especially to ensure that tenants do receive their relocation assistance before they are required to move. But in any case, thank you so much, Mayor and City Council, for your leadership on this critical ordinance. Thank you. Next week for please. Good evening, Mayor. Council and staff. My name's Peter Madsen. I'm in the third district and I am with Long Beach. Residents Empowered. It's great to see such a critical policy being treated with the urgency that reflects the urgency of the housing crisis that we're facing in Long Beach, that families, seniors, disabled folks are all facing here in Long Beach. I'm eager to see this policy and other policies continue to be strengthened to better protect the renters that make Long Beach the diverse and vibrant city that we always love to talk about. I've heard that word thrown out a lot tonight, and I love my city, too. I grew up here and want to see it protected and I want to be able to continue living here myself. I think. Yeah, it's great that we got the. Urgency to reflect that crisis and I think to make it stronger, we got to make sure that these tenants get the money before they move out so they can actually use that money to get the next place they're going to live instead of winding up without a home. That's kind of the really what the spirit of this policy is supposed to get at. And I hope we can I hope we don't forget to prioritize that additional source of funding that we want to find to provide the extra relocation amount to seniors and disabled renters. Um, I hope this remains a priority because these are some of the most vulnerable to displacement and have the least amount of safety nets. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi there. My name is Jordan. When I'm a resident of the seventh District as a tenant, I like to speak for myself and as attendants rights advocate, I've been empowering other tenants to speak for themselves as well. So I speak for myself and hopefully I speak for other tenants in that we're really thankful to everybody on the council and on the staff that has helped push this forward and get this tenant relocation policy passed, something that we've been waiting for for a long time. And it's the first step in fantastic housing policy. From here, we have more work to do. I really hope that council members see this as a call to action for future action, especially advocating for affordable and supportive housing services that we need throughout our city. It's just as important to build as it is to have comprehensive rent stabilization and renter protection policies in good city planning. So once again, thank you so much for bringing this forward and I really encourage you pass this tonight. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. And our last speaker. Good evening. Council Mayor Garcia, I mean, I'm not sure why I'm here because you guys have already decided to push this through. So it's kind of I think the people that watch this on TV need to know that everything's already decided before we hit this council chamber. So congratulations housing Long Beach, because you already made it happen. But the truth is, yeah, congratulations. But you know what? The real loser is going to be the tenants, because they're the ones going to lose their housing. And you guys can take the blame for it because they're going to lose their housing because you push policy that isn't going to keep you in your homes. So you guys should think again. When you push policy like this, it's bad for the tenants. Rent controlled cities have the highest rent in the nation. So I mean, I'll benefit as a property owner because now I can push my rent really high now because I'm going to need to because of the policies you're pushing. So, hey, think about it. Santa monica rent control, highest rent in the nation, San Francisco rent control, high rent, New York rent control. So you're pushing policy that's going to raise rents. You're going to put it on the backs of the property owners. You're going to have a lot of small property owners lose their housing. You're going to lose your housing when the property owners lose their buildings. So think about it, because as you grow your political future, you're harming a lot of people. You're harming a lot of people, and you're making it look like you're helping them, but you're hurting them. You're going to hurt a lot of people. Like in Santa monica, 30% of the Latin population was vacated out when they implemented Erika Charles So think about that. Housing Long Beach. Goodnight. Goodnight. That concludes public comment. So we have a motion in a second on the motion. Councilor Pearce. Anything? Nope. Country Ranga? Nope. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I will be voting in support of this second reading. I want to thank public comment. I do want to just reiterate that this was. This issue was was widely. Discussed by the council. I think it was acknowledged that this is an imperfect. Policy and that it still needs work. And I look forward to working to make it a more and even better. Policy that protects tenants and and gives them flexibility. So look forward. To that discussion very soon. Figure Councilman Councilman Price. Thank you. I want to support the advocates who have come out on both sides of this issue. I will be voting against the item tonight consistent with what I have shared in the past regarding my concern with the just cause eviction portion. The rest of it I'm okay with, but I don't like the just cause eviction portion of it. And I look forward to bringing this item back or having somebody bring it back so that we can make those modifications, which I do believe is in the works. And I will happily and proudly support the modifications made at that time. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Supernova. Thank you. Thanks to the speakers here tonight. I have a couple of questions of staff. One involves education and the other involves data analysis. Can staff explain what kind of outreach or training we're doing or plan to do in the future? And the dilemma we have is calls to our council office. Both from tenants and from landlords, wanting the policy explained. Do we have budgeting here to conduct that. Or what is. The plan moving forward? Yes, Councilmember I'll have Linda Tatum and Patrick Harris answer those questions. And yes, we're planning on a very robust outreach campaign. And just to elaborate further, the outreach campaign will involve direct contact with the property owners, as well as the residents using the business license address list, because landlords are required if they have four units or more, to get a business license. Using that as a primary tool, we will be able to identify the very specifically the landlords. And. Provide them with some of the material that was specifically called out in the ordinance regarding information that they'll need to transfer to the tenants. But in addition to that, we have a number of other outreach sources, such as providing information on the city's website, on social media. We'll have a fairly robust outreach effort, and we're I'm happy to share that in a little bit more detail with the city council in a24 from memo to. So you'll have a better idea of that going forward. That, frankly, was one of the reasons we asked for additional time just to allow staff to pull together those resources to make sure that we make a very concerted effort to get the word out to landlords and to the tenants. Okay. Thank you, Will. Appreciate that, too, from four Memo. And we'll if there's something you'd like to do in the interim. Or if would you like to us to communicate our office, to communicate that we'll be waiting for this policy to. Come forward? I'm sorry, could you repeat we're getting questions daily about the Policy Council. Should I sell my units now or whatnot? So the response is we will have those answers. Forthcoming at a certain. Point. Yes. And you can also feel free to direct them to the Development Services Department. We're happy to respond to those questions on a one on one basis. Okay, great. Thank you. My other question is on data analysis and what type of data we have in terms of the number of people impacted. And I'm not sure if much of this was data driven, but do we know how many people have how many landlords have raised rent? So, for instance, I think we know the number for Plex's in the city. The number I have is 2829, if that sounds about right, do you know how many sold in the last year? Would staff know that? Unfortunately, Councilman, we don't have that that kind of data available to us. Okay. So I think. That number is 97 have sold. So my question would be, I wonder if. We're going to at a certain. Point either benchmark where. We are now in terms of how many rents have been raised of that 97, where the. Apartment houses have changed ownership. I just think we either need a benchmarking exercise for where we are so we can track this ordinance as we move forward. So that'd be my request. Thank you. Agreed. And we can certainly accommodate that. That was one of the purposes of the program so that as we get payments made out under the provisions of this, we would have some data that we could start tracking and report back to the to the council. Okay. Thank you, Director. I think we're on the same page. I just wanted to bring it up for the. Public so there's no thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. And finally, Councilman, can. Oscar. I just want to say thank you to our all of the housing advocates. We started this about a year and a half, almost two years ago. Of course, it's gone beyond. And now in my last final meeting, I'm really, really proud of this this ordinance. And I'm looking forward for this to carry through and to really be supportive of of our residents that need it the most. So thank you very much for all of your work. Thank you. And this is this is the the main motion, which is to approve the ordinance. Second reading, please cast your votes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. That concludes that ordinance. We are now going back to the agenda where next up item is going to be 32 and 33. I do want to I do have the public comment that I want to get through here.