Fairfax advances rent stabilization, eviction ordinances

Fairfax is on the verge of becoming the first Marin jurisdiction to have a rent control program protecting tenants from excessive annual increases.

The Town Council voted unanimously to approve ordinances for rent stabilization and just cause for eviction at a special meeting last week. A final vote is set for Nov. 2. If approved, both ordinances will take effect in 30 days.

Vice Mayor Chance Cutrano said Monday that Fairfax, with a population of fewer than 8,000, is believed to be the smallest municipality across the nation to take this step.

“I think it’s indicative of the moment we’re in with regard to concerns about equity, concerns about affordability, concerns about making sure that we have working families that not only can survive but thrive in our community,” Cutrano said. “It’s just one piece of the puzzle of making a Fairfax that’s livable for all. It’s definitely a historic moment.”

Elsewhere in Marin, Larkspur has also begun discussing rent control, appointing an ad-hoc committee to study the issue. City officials planned an online forum Monday night to solicit input from landlords on potential ordinances.

The San Anselmo Town Council previously agreed to discuss rent control, using the town of Fairfax’s decision as a launching pad for deliberation.

Over the past few years, Fairfax has taken a number of actions to bolster tenant protections. The council has adopted an income-based rental discrimination prohibition, mandatory mediation for rent increases exceeding 5% and a just-cause-for-eviction law.

More recently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the council adopted an urgency moratorium on evictions without cause through Sept. 30.

The rent stabilization ordinance caps annual increases at 60% of the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index. The annual adjustment, however, cannot be greater than 5%. The cap is retroactive to Feb. 2.

The Town Council will serve as an appeals board. The town will work with Legal Aid of Marin and the city of Berkeley, which has a rent control board, for support services as the rent stabilization program gets off the ground.

The new just-cause-for-eviction ordinance would strengthen the existing law with additional protections for elderly, disabled or terminally ill tenants. It would add school-year eviction protections for educators and students; require landlords seeking no-fault termination to make relocation payments for tenants; and tighten breach-of-lease qualifications.

The ordinance would also establish protections against what fair housing advocates call loopholes in the Ellis Act, a law allowing landlords to remove residences from the market. The ordinance states that homes returned to rent within two years and five years would be subject to the same rental rate charged at the time of removal from market, and that the displaced tenant would have the option to return to the residence.

“A tenant’s right to return must be a length of time high enough to disincentivize bad actors and outside investors from using no-cause, just-cause evictions to get around rent caps,” Lucie Hollingsworth, an attorney at Legal Aid of Marin, said at the council meeting.

Hollingsworth urged the council to adopt the strongest protections possible, adding that despite COVID-related moratoriums and rental assistance, her firm has defended 75 Fairfax residents in cases involving harassment, inability to pay rent and fraudulent no-cause evictions.

Property owners and managers said they are concerned about the implications of such strong restrictions on increases.

Melissa Prandi, owner of Prandi Property Management, said many of her clients use the rental income for retirement, assisted living and other needs.

“We pride ourselves in not raising rents too high,” Prandi said. “I think what you’re doing has great weight to it, but I also think that we need to look at the fact that not all landlords are greedy and some rely on the income to live on.”

Councilmember Barbara Coler said she supports the ordinance, but agreed with Prandi that “there’s a lot of folks out there who are trying to do the right thing.”

Councilmember Renee Goddard said one of the reasons she supports the ordinance is that it also allows property owners to petition for rental increases above the threshold when they are in situations where that maximum cannot cover management costs.

Mayor Stephanie Hellman said that while the state continues to sign more and more housing laws into the books, “we feel the loss of local control.”

“This is something that we can do locally to support housing stability,” Hellman said. “It’s anti-displacement. It’s thinking about the whole community.”

Curt Ries is a San Anselmo renter and leader of the Marin Democratic Socialists of America, a group that is collecting signatures countywide to enact rent control across Marin.

“I think we’re really excited and proud of Fairfax,” he said, noting that rent control is usually associated with larger municipalities such as San Francisco. “All renters deserve these protections, regardless of where they live, and this really opens the door for the small and medium cities to follow suit.”