Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending and restating Chapter 8.99, relating to just cause for termination of tenancies, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you. Item 25. And I do. I know the city attorney has a few comments at the start of the item and then we'll do public comment. And in a moment about. Report from city attorney. Thanks for. This. Continue. Sorry, Rich. Oh. Okay. You can hear me. Okay. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. And council members. Just a couple of introductory remarks. I wanted to point out that I'm bringing back an ordinance in that complies with the direction you gave me back on December 7th. In all respects, except for one. One of the things you asked for was that there would be a 90 day notice in advance of any tenant termination for a substantial remodel rather than a 60 day notice. I apologize that we did not discuss this in depth on December 7th. We should have, but it wasn't brought to my attention until after you gave me that direction. That there is a California appellate court decision that pretty strongly holds that landlord tenant transactions and notices under a lease are a matter of statewide concern and can't be changed by local city council actions. So we removed it. I'm fairly confident that the 90 day change would not have held up had it been challenged. I took it out so that you could consider action on everything else. Tonight we can discuss this further if you're so inclined in closed session. Whether you approve this tonight or disapprove it. We can always discuss this further and make further changes in the future if need be. The second thing that I would like to address is that there's I think as a lot of people know, the county recently extended its eviction moratorium on January 25th. In that what that means is any change that you make may make tonight to Chapter 8.99 regarding substantial remodel. It will be legal and it will immediately go into effect. As far as being on the books. But in practice, it's going to be suspended. It'll be on the books, but there will be no landlord that will be moving forward with a termination of tenancy or an eviction because the county moratorium will effectively immediately suspend any evictions under the substantial remodel. You can still go forward with your change. It does not conflict with the county moratorium. It'll just be suspended. So because of that, we had originally set this up as an emergency ordinance. I really don't think that it needs to be an urgency ordinance anymore given the recent county extension of its moratorium. So I would if the Council is interested in moving forward with this adoption, I would suggest that maybe the the motion could be to adopt the staff recommendation, but subject to the following, which would be the removal of the emergency declaration. And then related, we need to adjust the effective date of the prohibition on evictions. We need to make sure that those will be effective as of April 1st, because that will be the effective date if you remove the urgency declaration. Just a couple of minor ministerial changes to the ordinance amending 8.102. Hopefully that was clear enough. That's that's all I have to say. I stand by for any questions. Councilman Allen. Thank you, Mayor. I just I'm glad to see this ordinance today. I know it's been a long road and I'm pleased to see how far that we have come. And I know that many folks have for their concerns. But what we have here today are concrete actions that will make a difference for renters at a lower cost to both the city and landlords. I also want to recognize my co-sponsors on the original item Councilwoman Susie Farrow and our Cosigners Vice Governor Richardson and Councilwoman Van de Hoff for their partnership and support on this. Sorry about the background noise. I also want to thank all the Senate and property groups and residents who reached out to my office and participated in the process to voice their questions and concerns. The work that we've done is going to actually improve our housing climate in the city, I understand, but still continue to have concerns. And I recognize these perspectives. But increasing relocation benefits, collecting data and establishing a civil fine for both bad landlords are actions that make a difference for renters today and in the city. So I would like to make a motion to adopt that recommendation subject to the following. First, due to the renewed L.A. County eviction moratorium. I like to remove the urgency declaration from both ordinances. And second, as a result, I would like to adjust the effective dates referenced in the ordinance amending Chapter 8.1 or two to reflect the actual effective date resulting from the removal of the urgency declaration. So just a summary. I'd like to move this item forward, but remove the urgency declaration due to the current L.A. County moratorium and take the steps necessary to make that happen. Thank you, Councilman Ciro. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to also think I want to thank Councilwoman Allen for her leadership on this item. I know that I agree with her that there's been concern raised. And I want to make sure that to thank the our in those who reached out to share them that that we we heard you and we also know that it's important that we do that that I know that I'm in support of Councilwoman Allen's motion that she just made around some of these changes. And I just want to share and just think staff for their hard work and and getting us to this point with the language as well and that I know that there's more that we could do that you feel that we could do. And I think that that today is and the only time that we'll have a discussion about this item, I believe so. With that, I agree with Councilman Allen and and I and I seconded and I support it. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? At this time, if there's any members of the public that works to speak on this item, please use the raise hand feature or press start on our first speakers credit Mona. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Member. I know that we're all tired of revisiting this issue, but I nevertheless ask you to table item 25 until later in the year in acting. I will just cause confusion since it will be suspended until next year because of the L.A. County eviction moratorium. If you insist on taking action on this item tonight, I urge you to revisit the staff recommendation to change the construction threshold for a substantial remodel from 30 to 60 days. This item, which came out of meetings with tenants and landlords, was the only item in staff recommendations that actually prevents evictions. Rather than just making them more expensive, this change would protect the remaining 20 original tenants in my apartment complex and many other Long Beach tenants who will otherwise face eviction. At the end of the county moratorium. Moratorium. Even with the proposed changes tonight, whether you table the item or act on it, I request that the city issue a statement to the press and posted on the city website and social media as well as mailing directly to landlords, clearly stating that landlords are required to comply with the L.A. County eviction moratorium. I know of three people who received illegal 60 day notices in the past week, so the city needs to do more to educate both landlords and tenants that there is still a moratorium in place through the end of the year. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ailsa Chang. Good evening. Councilmembers Members Tung from Long Beach forward. A huge, huge thanks to council members Alan and sorrow for championing this item. Look, as you heard from the city attorney and from the Legal Aid Foundation letter submitted yesterday, the countywide eviction moratorium bans substantial remodel evictions in Long Beach through the end of the year. Therefore, passing this ordinance tonight will lead to mass public confusion for both tenants and landlords and unfortunately will lead to more evictions. As explained in Lafleur's letter. The county policy is not an actual moratorium on filing eviction cases. Thus, a landlord can still serve an illegal notice, file an illegal eviction, and it would be up to the tenant to know their rights and assert them in court. Most tenants don't know their rights, don't want to go to court, and are understandably terrified when they get an eviction notice. So most tenants simply move out without knowing they are protected. This is a self eviction because of the awkward timing of this ordinance. It is fundamentally the city's responsibility to prevent mass public confusion and publicize via news media, social media websites and mailers that the countywide eviction moratorium is currently the law of the land and protects Long Beach tenants from eviction through December 1st through December 31st of this year. Thank you. Our next speaker is Leona. Libra wishes to. Support the concerns that have been raised. And we echo the things to the city council members that have supported this. And I especially want to recognize tonight the tenant leadership and consistent participation over months to try to move this the tenant protection policy forward. I agree that we need the Council to make a clear statement about the county protections covering all of us who are resident here and the council people, not only the city staff, but the council people need to use your newsletter. You need to use the area of City Hall where we pay our utility bills. We need to have leadership from the city. If you are going to pass this because as has been said, the evictions have already started, illegal or not. There are bad actors, as we all know. There are just regular landlords out there. And they are. Escalating their use of evictions. Leverage telephone is ringing off the hook when we are making outreach calls to thousands of tenants here in Long Beach. We are increasingly hearing about what are illegal evictions. So if you pass this tonight, we are going to look to you and to the city staff for an aggressive public education campaign to make sure the tenants do not get preyed upon by landlords who will attempt to use this public confusion to. Get rid of the tenants that they have. Thank you. Our next speaker is Melody Ozuna. Good evening, Council and Mayor. Again, my name is Melody Osuna and I'm an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. I'm also a resident of the eighth District. LeFlore agrees with city attorney Rich Anthony's assessment that the county moratorium prevents substantial remodel evictions while the county resolution is in place, which is at least until December 31st, 2022. It's important that the city communicate that landlords cannot move forward with these types of evictions until the county resolution known as the moratorium, is over. As I mentioned in my letter to the city yesterday, there's a real risk of tenants self evicting after receiving a notice from their landlord or landlord filing an unlawful detainer action as the county resolution is not an actual moratorium on evictions, but a defense a tenant has to assert against an unlawful detainer in court. There needs to be a strong effort from the city to communicate that these notices are invalid until the county resolution ends. Finally, I have to reiterate that this current substantial remodel item does not go far enough to protect long standing tenants, making a small adjustment of requiring 60 days worth of work other than 30 days for a substantial remodel. Eviction. Show that the city supports long established tenants. The current substantial remodel ordinance. Just make substantial remodel evictions slightly more expensive. It doesn't protect the long established tenants. Tenants will be displaced for higher paying tenants, and the cost to substantially remodel and evict the previous tenants will be recuperated quickly by the property owner. Without strong anti displacement policies. The third is choosing to support profit rather than long established communities of color and tenants. Thank you. Our last speaker is Maggie Swallow. Maggie Valenzuela. That concludes public comment. I'm sorry. I just got. I'm sorry. I was doing hard time with my. Good evening. Name is Michelangelo. I am the senior organizer with the union, part of the Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy. I wanted to speak about the center model ordinance. One Long Beach member comes to mind name is Shelly Ward, who expressed to her member concerns the damages in her apartment. She applied to Long Beach rental assistance application even after applying was still served with a 15 day notice and then of 30 things to make her very sick to the point where she ended up in the hospital because the L.A. County Emergency Eviction moratorium and no fault evictions through the end of 2022, which includes the substantial remote evictions passing the ordinance today will lead the mass confusion of language with bad landlords to take advantage and issue eviction orders to tenants who don't understand the rights. To truly prevent these evictions, we still need to change the definition of substantial remodel to construction work that requires a tenant to make use of 60 days instead of 30 days. Thank you. Take include follow comment for this item. Thank you for back to councilman zero. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to make sure I forgot to ask the question earlier. If, um, Mr. Anthony can just clarify. How do we make sure that there isn't confusion about this moratorium that county, as you know, put out and between what our ordinances. Thank you. I don't know that there's any change that can be made to the language of the ordinance that will help assist with that. I think I would probably say that the most effective way to combat confusion would be what several of the speakers mentioned, which would be, you know, a concerted effort on the part of staff to publicize the fact that there's a county moratorium and to publicize it as widely as possible. I think you. I have councilman's in house. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say thank you to Rick Anthony for the clarification provided. I really appreciate it. I would also like to thank Councilwoman Allen and Councilwoman Sorrell for bringing this very important item forward. I'm glad that the L.A. County has issued a moratorium and will be protecting tenants who are still combating COVID 19 challenges . So thank you again for this item. I do. I do want to say that we should definitely. Do as much as we can of the city to inform both, both landlords and tenants about the moratorium. I think that's going to be important. I also think that there might be people out there that I mean, landlords out there who may not know about this moratorium and who may feel that they can evict, but they're not doing that maliciously. They just don't know about the new ordinance. So we just need to make sure that we are able to pass out this information to everyone. Anything additional from staff. No. Mr. Mayor, we are. My report is done unless there are any further questions. And I believe we did public comment already. So with that roll call vote, please. District one. I district to district three i. District for. Right. District five. By District six i district seven. I. District eight. District nine? Yes. Motion is carried.