WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS
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From: Cynthia Baseman <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 12:08 PM
To: WebCBH MAYORANDCITYCOUNCIL <[email protected]>; Lili Bosse <[email protected]>; 13-Lester J. Friedman <[email protected]>; John Mirisch <[email protected]>; 12-Julian Gold <[email protected]>; 14-Robert Wunderlich <[email protected]>
Cc: Fred Wolf
Subject: Discussion on eviction and rent moratorium
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Dear Mayor Wunderlich, Vice Mayor Bosse and Councilmembers Friedman, Mirisch and Gold, Regarding your agenda item concerning evictions and rent rates, please consider the following:
1. Anyone who met the criteria for financial support during Covid has had significant opportunity to apply and receive it.
2. Housing providers are not shielded from inflation, and the costs of properly maintaining and repairing apartments have skyrocketed.
3. In order for housing providers to invest in ADUs and additional rental units, they need adequate revenue to finance them.
4. The world has changed since the onset of Covid. While infection is on the decline, it seems that all of us will be living with Covid for years to come. Thankfully, there are protocols in place to protect tenants, such as the new law requiring companies to compensate employees for days off due to illness, caring for others who have contracted Covid and for side effects from vaccinations.
5. Unlike the beginning of the pandemic, job openings are plentiful, and businesses are moving forward.
6. Housing providers have been restricted from operating their businesses…for years. It is now time to lift these restrictions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Very sincerely,
Cynthia Baseman, Royal Development Company
Fred Wolf, Greystone Properties
CYNTHIA BASEMAN
ROYAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
3932 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD, SUITE 102
LOS ANGELES, CA 90010
213-381-1666 ph
From: Zackery Alexander Carrington
To: City Clerk
Subject: Please Read for Study Session A-2: COVID-19 Related Rent Protections Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 9:46:11 AM
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Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council,
I have been a Beverly Hills Resident for the past four years, and along with working here, I also shop, dine, and host friends in the City's venues when time and money permit.
I want to register my objection to any proposed retroactive rent increases.
How many employers who laid off or furloughed employees gave their employees two years of back pay when (and IF they rehired them), or for those who continued to work but not receive COLAs, do you think the employers gave them two years’ worth of past annual increases? NO!
The same should apply to landlords.
Many residents and business owners alike suffered great loss of both loved ones and income as a result of the pandemic. Many families are still struggling to make ends meet, particularly with the current inflation rate.
Many companies and store owners went out of business. So why would it be fair to allow landlords the ability to charge already hurting renters retroactively for past increases that were halted under the moratorium? We all need to count our losses and move forward. Landlords should be no different. I believe that landlords should be able to increase rent, however, any increases should be re-established at the previously maximum allowable amount of 3.1%, that had been in place pre-pandemic.
Please be our advocate against greed and protect the families, including mine, who are working very hard and still living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Please help us.
Thank you.
Zack Anthony Carrington
1 Du
Subject: Comment To Be Read in Re: SS Item A-1 2. (Update and Options Regarding the City's COVID-19 Related Rent Protections)
From: Jay Cohen
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 3:02 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>; Michael Dunn <[email protected]>
Subject: Comment To Be Read in Re: SS Item A‐1 2. (Update and Options Regarding the City's COVID‐19 Related Rent Protections)
Below is 349 words exactly. To be read at this current session please and thank you.
Lifting the moratorium in March during a potential spike from Super Bowl week or even during the tapering off of the pandemic when people are struggling mentally, physically, and economically would be unconscionable + very short sighted. Our city should have tenant protections in place for at least another year until we know for sure that the worst is over, or we risk serious displacement of many valued residential tenants. We just had the Super Bowl here. Experts warn that the cocktail of behaviors could lead to a nationwide spike in COVID-19 infections. Landlords think that lifting the moratorium and or raising rents which will end up displacing a plethora of tenants will help their bottom line is short sighted! People are not rushing into Beverly Hills to pay higher rents in this environment of disease and economic hardship and a large swath of people that live in our City are not likely to stay if they have to pay higher rents after losing significant income because of this pandemic. Lets not forget about our residents who were not able to pay their rent in full or at all and are just now trying to get back on their feet? Given where we are, and the continued risk to our community, we need protections that help us stay cohesive as a City. Helen Morales seems to only argue for one side- the landlords + developers which seems very interesting. There are no checks and balances! Lets work together! Also, Helen never sent out any mailer and or information on the 750k in BH Rent Subsidy Reserves to the constituents as was ordered by the Council at the last meeting. With all this said, Dr. Barbara Ferrer of the LA County Health Dept is on the record as of a few days ago emphasizing that the pandemic is not over, that transmission is not low by any means, and there will be waves of surges after last week's events. There are way to many indicators that tell us that we are not ready to lift any moratoriums or raise rents in March.
From: Sally Fentress
To: City Clerk
Subject: Agenda Item Number (A-2) Eviction Moratorium
Date: Monday, February 14, 2022 7:46:05 PM
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Please enter the following written comments at the city council meeting discussing this matter:
The time for the end of the Emergency Eviction Moratorium and Rent Increase Freeze is long overdue. We have vaccines and boosters for COVID now, with milder symptoms. Tenants have access to eviction protections and rent relief programs from the state. Even after the moratorium ends, tenants will have a year to pay back the rent debt. Some landlords have been waiting over two years to receive their rightful compensation for providing housing to tenants.
Why is it right to burden landlords with the ever-increasing rent debt of the tenants? When that debt is finally required to be paid, what stops the tenant from moving out, leaving the landlord with a large, uncollectible rent? While the landlord is waiting for their rightful compensation, they still must pay the city business tax, property tax, insurance, mortgage, utilities, repairs, and maintenance. Those costs don’t get deferred. How is it moral to steal from landlords by taking control of the landlord’s own property without compensation? I can only imagine what would happen if you were to postpone the wages of people indefinitely as you seem to be doing with landlords. Landlords have been very patient as the promises of being allowed to “ask” for payment from tenants have continued to be pushed further into the future. This is wrong on so many levels.
Please end the Eviction Moratorium and Rent Increase Freeze now. It is time.
Sally Fentress
From: Earl Goldstein
To: City Clerk
Subject: Letter to be submitted and read aloud at city council meeting February 16,2022 at 2:30 pm during public comments
Date: Monday, February 14, 2022 4:32:07 PM
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From: Earl Goldstein
Subject: Letter to the city council
Date: February 15, 2022 at 4:30 pm
Dear Mayor Wunderlich and city council members Bosse,
Friedman,Gold and Mirisch,
The past several years since the onset of the pandemic have indeed been a challenging time and I applaud and respect many of the actions the council took on behalf of the city residents over that time period.
Among those actions taken were the rent moratoriums and rental eviction moratoriums to keep rental tenants in their homes during the pandemic.
However, little if any consideration was taken of the practical implications and financial impact this was to have on housing providers. In truth, though almost all retail businesses and restaurants were to suffer during the pandemic, the businesses of housing providers were the only ones demanded by the city to freeze their prices and allow their tenants to dictate and control whether they would stay or leave, regardless of whether they paid their rent and regardless of their ability to pay or not to pay.
Today the state law, “Housing is Key” provides state funds for tenants in need to pay for their rent.This has removed much of the reasoning for the rent moratorium,
Jobs and businesses are now plentiful and many jobs now go unfilled.
In short, the dire future that was predicted and was the primary reason behind the rent and eviction moratorium have not come to pass and where they did , those reasons are now rapidly diminishing.
But the past is the past and the intentions of the council in passing the moratoriums were good. However it is now well past the time to remove some of those moratoriums.
The city council is aware that inflation is raging all across the economy at greater than 7.5%. and no where so much as in the building trades and all labor markets, where housing providers are among the most vulnerable and affected group.
It is time to restore some of the rights of housing providers to raise their rents and I suggest the council take the nearly 10% of deferred increases over the past three years and allow a 5 % rent increase To be allowed in each of the next two years beginning on April First of 2022. This will still be well below the annual rise in inflation.
I also recommend the rent control that was instituted on single family homes and the inability to evict single family home renters be removed by the same date of April 1, 2022.The right of property owners of single family homes to evict tenants for members of their own immediate families should also be restored.
Thank you,
Respectfully,
Earl Goldstein
Housing provider
From: Carrie Macy
To: City Clerk
Subject: Item number A2 - Objection to retroactive rent increases Date: Monday, February 14, 2022 8:43:50 PM
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As a Beverly Hills renter for the last 12 years and local business owner for 6, I want to address my objection to the possibility of retroactive rent increases. In the same way employees are not able to go to their employers to request 2 years worth of past annual salary increases, the same should apply to landlords requesting that of renters.
We have all sacrificed during this time and participated in it's hardship. We should re-establish any increases at the previously established max of 3.1% that had been in place pre-pandemic.
This is of great concern to many of the renters in our community and we appreciate your attention to the gravity of this situation.
Carrie Macy
--
Carrie Macy Talent Agency
9595 Wilshire Blvd. Ste. 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
SAG/AFTRA Franchised
O. 424-281-0256
C. 731-413-1395
E. [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carriemacytalentagency/?pnref=lhc Instagram: @carriemacytalentagency