Martin Feinberg, Realtor, notes that the Culver City City Council has approved temporary rent control measures to help Culver City Real Estate area residents deal with California’s affordability crisis. The measure was approved at the council’s latest meeting, which began Monday night and continued into the early morning hours of Tuesday. Culver City is one of a handful of Southland cities that have implemented tenant protections in the last few months.
With a 4 to 1 vote, the city council capped annual rent increases to 3% in buildings built on or before February 1, 1995. Tenants also gained just-cause eviction protections as well at the City Council meeting. Just-cause eviction protection means that a landlord can’t evict a tenant unless certain conditions, such as a failure to pay rent, are met.
On a related note, the temporary “rent freeze,” which was voted into existence by the Culver City Council during it’s June 24 meeting, is set to expire in a year. The temporary rent freeze was created to keep landlords from raising rents while a permanent solution to the affordability crisis is debated.
According to Culver City Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells, “We need to have the freeze in order to have the conversation because the conversation causes displacement.”
Local listing agent Martin Feinberg understands that rent control measures and eviction protection for tenants are becoming popular in Californian cities as homelessness grows and some tenants are seeing rent hikes of 50% or more.
According to Joe Delgado of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, in many areas of California the fight for housing protections is being led by tenant movements using protests and rent strikes. In some cases, renters have even protested at their landlords’ homes.
In Culver City however, the push for increased tenant rights has been led by Protect Culver City Renters.
Protect Culver City Renters describes itself as “a group of residents of Culver City who are dedicated to making sure the renters in our City are protected. Some of us are renters, some of us are not, but we are all committed to making sure our City provides our renters the protections and support they deserve.”
