Concord City Council
September 5, 2023

Local Jurisdiction Research Tables
Richmond Alameda Antioch
Demographics
Population (Census) 116,448 78,280 114,801
Occupied Housing
Units 38,677 30,980 37,081
Owner Occupied 52% 48% 64%
Renter Occupied 48% 52% 36%
RSO and JCEO
Rent Increase
Allowed 100% of CPI 70% of CPI 60% of CPI
Rent Increase Cap n/a 5% 3%
Rent Increase Floor n/a 1% n/a
Effective date 12/30/16 9/4/19 11/11/22
Banking N/A
Up to 8% in annual increases can be “banked”
but only 3% of the banked amount can be
recovered per year spread over non-
consecutive years. Banked increases can also
only be recovered three times per tenancy,
and don’t carry over to a new tenancy or to a
new owner if the property is sold
N/A
Covered units
All Residential Rental Units in the City of
Richmond, except those Rental Units
exempt under one or more of the
following provisions:

Dwelling Units that do not qualify for the full
or partial exemption under subsection A, for
example, the Landlord withdraws the Dwelling
Unit from a subsidy program or a regulatory
agreement expires and/or is not renewed, the
Dwelling Unit will immediately be subject to all
provisions of this Article.

Any building or part of a building that is used
for residence and that is rented to a tenant as
a dwelling place, except those units
exempted
Exempt units
Units exempt per state law (Costa-
Hawkins Rental Housing Act); units in
hotels, motels, inns, tourist homes and
rooming and boarding houses.

Units in hospitals, convents, extended
care facilities, nonprofit homes for the
aged, dorms higher education
dormitories; units owned or subsidized
by the government.

Units exempted by the Homeowner
Protections portion of the ordinance
(homeowner who is the primary resident
of a single-family home creates a
“temporary tenancy;” temporary tenant
does not enjoy ordinance’s protections).

Dwelling Units in the Housing Choice Voucher
Section 8 Program; Dwelling Units owned by
the Housing Authority; Dwelling Units rented
or leased for 30 consecutive days or less ;
Rooms in hotels, motels, inns, tourist homes,
short-term rentals, boarding houses,
Commercial units, Hospitals, convents,
monasteries, extended care facilities,
convalescent homes, homes for the aged, or
dormitories operated by an educational
institution; Rooms in a facility that provide a
menu of services, such as case management;
Mobile homes; Houseboats; Community
cabins; Dwelling Units in which the landlords
owns the rental unit, occupies the rental unit
as the landlord’s primary residence and shares
kitchen or bath facilities with one or more
tenants;
Units with CO issued after Feb 1, 1995
Property that is alienable separate from the
title to any other dwelling unit or is a
subdivided interest in a subdivision
Other property that is exempt pursuant to
Costa-Hawkins
units owned/ operated by a govt agency
School Dormitories
Mobile Home Parks
Hotels
Medical care facilities
Units occupied by the landlord or landlord's
family
Vacancy Decontrol
Landlord can “reset” to market rent
following a voluntary vacancy or one
resulting from a just cause eviction.

Rent may be increased to any level on
rerenting following eviction for nonpayment of
rent, as well as after voluntary vacancies. Rent
is limited to no more than 5% of the former
tenant’s rent when the vacancy follows a just-
cause eviction.

N/A
Attachment 1

Richmond Alameda Antioch
Rent Registry
All landlords must submit an annual Rent
Program Enrollment application for each
rental unit, obtain a business license, pay
a fee, and comply with the rental
inspection program.

Registration and an annual per-unit program
fee required. The city annually determines and
notifies the landlord of the Maximum
Allowable Rent (if applicable) for each
registered unit. (ACO § 6-58.55.)
Landlords must register all units subject to
rent stabilization with the City's registry which
is currently in development
Registry Fee
$218/unit fully covered, $123/unit
partially covered and govermentally
subsidized
$155/fully regulated units; $105/partially
regulated units; $0/rental units occupied by
subsidized tenants
Amount to be established by City Council.

Currently at $5.25
Pass thru N/A
Beginning July 1, 2020, landlords will be
allowed to pass through 50% of the fiscal year
2020-21 Annual Rent Program Fee to a tenant
in 12 equal installments. Passing through 50%
of the fee will not be considered rent for
purposes of calculating a rent increase. No
additional program forms are required to
institute a tenant pass-through fee.

N/A
Notice Requirements
Notice terminating a tenancy must
contain the cause for the termination
and be filed with the Richmond Rent
Board before serving the tenant.

Landlord must allege and prove
compliance with RCO 11.100.050. A
Richmond Rent Board brochure
informing tenant of legal rights and
duties must be provided at the
commencement of the tenancy and with
each notice of rent increase.

Landlord must give notice of the ordinance
and specified informational material to
current and prospective tenants. Landlord
must offer a one-year lease to an existing
tenant upon the first rent increase after
enactment of rent control, and to any new
tenant thereafter. Landlord must use specific
forms for rent increases, terminations, and
other actions.

On or before tenancy, the landlord must
deliver a written Notice of Tenant Rights. A
Notice of Regulated Rent Increase must be
provided on or before tenancy and with any
notice to increase rent.

Just Cause Eviction
No Landlord shall take action to
terminate any tenancy unless: Failure to
pay rent, breach of lease, nuisance,
failure to give access
No Landlord shall take action to terminate any
Tenancy except on one of the folloring
grounds: failure to pay rent, breach of rental
agreement, nuisance, failure to give access,
ownermove-in
N/A
Relocation Assistance
Tenants have rights to relocation
assistance and return for just cause
evictions: owner or relative move-in,
withdrawal from the rental makert or
demolition, refusal to temporarily vacate
so that landlord can undertake
substantial repairs needed to make
premises code compliant.

Tenants receiving notice of a rent increase
above 10% are entitled to relocation
payments if they choose not to renew. (ACO §

6.58.110(D).) Tenants relocating because of
government orders, health and safety
remediations, or capital improvements must
be paid temporary relocation payments.

Tenants forced to move for an owner move-in,
demolition, capital improvement, withdrawal
from the market or government order are
entitled to permanent relocation payments.
(ACO §§ 6-58.95–6-58.100.)
N/A
Petition Process
Landlords may raise rents on September
1 of each year, by an amount tied to the
CPI for the region. Rents may be raised
starting September 1 each year by an
amount equal to the regional Consumer
Price Index (CPI). Landlords and tenants
may petition for upward and downward
departures. Landlords and tenants can
petition for adjustments.

A Landlord or a Tenant may file a petition with
the Program Administrator to request an
upward or downward adjustment of the
Maximum Allowable Rent or Certified Rent.

Accepted petitions are scheduled for a hearing
by the Hearing Officer
Tenants may file a Petition for Reduction of
Rent if they believe they are being over
charged, or a Petition for Determination of
Compliance if a Landlord i ncreases Rent
without complying with the Notice or other
requirements of the RSO.

Landlords may petition for additional rent
increase by fil ing a Petition for Fair Return for
reasons such as, CPI changes after tenancy
Rent Board
The board shall be made up of Richmond
residents, consist of five Board Members
appointed by the City Council
Rent Review Advisory Committee N/A
Petition Authority Hearing Officer, Rent Board. Richmond City Hall Hearing Officer, City Attorney's Office Hearing Officer, City Attorney's Office

Table 1: Summary of Sample Jurisdictions’ Program Administration Jurisdiction
Full-Time
Equivalent
(“FTE”)
Annual Budget
Allocation Division of Work
Total
Number of
Rental
Units
Alameda
10 Note: FTEs
are split
between the
City and
Housing
Authority
Start-up budget: $1.7
million
Expenses: $2.2 million
Revenues: $1.8 million
Compliance, Hearings,
Petitions, Public Information,
Registration, Termination of
Tenancy
14,000
Antioch 2 FTE
TBD*
*Program has not been
implemented for a full
year yet
Compliance, Hearings,
Petitions, Registration,
Public Information
13,500
Berkeley
24 Projected to
reach 30
Start-up budget:
$225,000
Expenses: $5,466,666
Revenues: $4,850,000
Administration,
Compliance, Counseling,
Hearings, Housing,
Mediation, Petitions, Public
Information, Termination of
Tenancy
25,000
Beverly Hills 6
Expenses: $1.1 million
Revenues: Paid from
General Fund
Commission,
Complaints, Compliance,
Petitions, Registration,
7,700
Attachment 2

Jurisdiction
Full-Time
Equivalent
(“FTE”)
Annual Budget
Allocation Division of Work
Total
Number of
Rental
Units
Inglewood
8 Projected to
reach 17

Start-up costs:
$352,379 Personnel,
$788,500 Office, and
professional services

Expenses: $3,427,121

Revenues: N/A (Still
within first year of
program)
Administration Inspection,
Public Information,
Registration, Termination of
Tenancy
23,000
Richmond 12

Start-up costs: $1.1
million

Expenses: $2,425,312

Revenues: $2,609,056

Compliance, Counseling,
Hearings, Housing, Legal
Assistance, Petitions, Public
Information, Registration,
Termination of Tenancy

18,450
Santa Monica 24

Expenses: $5,287,331

Revenues: $5,307,131

Administration, Hearings,
Mediation, Petitions, Public
Information, Registration
27,484
West
Hollywood 10

Start-up costs:
$200,000 Software and
additional personnel

Expenses: $2,659,262

Revenues: $2,211,000

Administration, Complaints,
Compliance, Hearings,
Inspections, Public
Information, Registration
16,707
Sources: City Ordinances, May 2022; Zoom Interviews of Sample Jurisdictions conducted in May and June 2022

Table 2: Sample Jurisdictions’ Compliance Activities
Jurisdiction Penalties and Remedies Activities
Alameda
Series of citations for Article
violations ($250 – $1,000) or
by imprisonment not to
exceed 6 months, or by both a
fine and imprisonment

Any aggrieved person,
including the City and State of
CA, may enforce this article by
means of a civil action
Housing Authority provides annual
report of Ordinance violations to the
City

City Attorney’s Prosecution Unit is
responsible for administering
warning notices

Antioch
Violations of the Rent
Stabilization Ordinance:

Fine up to $1,000,
imprisonment in the county jail
for up to 6 months, or both
fine and imprisonment

City Manager is responsible for
designating a Hearing Officer to
consider the tenant’s petition and to
determine compliance

Berkeley
Petition the board for
appropriate relief

Withhold up to the full amount
of periodic rent in good faith

Seek injunctive relief

File a damage suit against the
landlord

City Department is responsible for
proactive compliance activities
including the provision of online tools
to assess landlord compliance in
addition to mailed communications to
tenants and landlords

Beverly Hills
Series of citations for code
violations ($100 -$500)

City Code Enforcement division is
responsible for proactive annual
inspections

Warning notices are first method of
compliance for registration
violations

Contracted Criminal Prosecutor
issues citations

Mediation services are provided
through a contracted program on
behalf of the City

Jurisdiction Penalties and Remedies Activities
Inglewood

Misdemeanor

Administrative Fine ($500)

The City’s decision regarding
enforcement shall not affect a
Tenant’s right to pursue the
following civil remedies: file a
petition with the Program
Administrator, establish
eligibility for exemptions, or
dispute the amount of
Relocation Assistance due

City department is responsible for
contacting violators including by
phone following a complaint by
tenant

City’s legal aid provides further
assistance by working with tenant to
resolve further disputes

Richmond

Misdemeanor- any landlord
who retains unentitled rent
from a Tenant shall be liable
for costs incurred by the
Tenant

In lieu of filing a civil action, a
Tenant retains the right to file
an administrative complaint

City is responsible for the proactive
administration of penalty fees

Santa Monica
Landlord who retains
unentitled rent from a Tenant
shall be liable for costs
incurred by the Tenant and
Tenant retains the right to file
an administrative complaint

Misdemeanor citations not
exceeding $500,
imprisonment not exceeding
six months, or both

City software system responsible for
notifying users of fees

If fee remains unpaid, enforcement is
handled through City’s legal
department and small claims court

City’s legal department is
responsible for making
recommendations to the Board in the
case of appeals

Mediation services are provided
through a contracted program

West Hollywood

Series of citations for code
violations ($100 to $500)

Misdemeanor upon 4th
offense

City Code Enforcement is primarily
responsible for citations
Sources: City Ordinances, May 2022; Zoom Interviews of Sample Jurisdictions conducted in May and June 2022

Table 3: Sample Jurisdictions’ Petitions
Jurisdiction Type of Petition Petition Fee Approves
Petitions
Petitions
Received
Annually
Alameda
Fair Return,
Separate Capital
Improvement Plan,
Tenant

$0 (None)

Rent Review
Advisory
Committee,
Appeal to Hearing
Officer

3 Fair Returns, 17
Tenant Petitions,
10 progress to
hearing
Antioch Fair Return,
Tenant $0 (None)
Hearing Officer
(Decision is not
appealable)
TBD*
*Program has not
been implemented
for a full year yet
Berkeley
Fair Return,
Separate Capital
Improvement,
Tenant

$0 (None) Petition;
$100-$200 Fair
Return and Capital
Improvement
appeal

Hearing Examiner,
Appeal to Rent
Stabilization
Board

0 Fair Returns
since Ordinance
Effective date,
Limited Capital
Improvements
Beverly Hills
Fair Return,
Separate Capital
Improvement,
Tenant
$896 Fair Return
and Capital
Improvement; $0
(None) Tenant
petition

Hearing Officer,
Appeal to Rent
Stabilization
Commission

0 Fair Returns
Inglewood

Fair Return,
Separate Capital
Improvement,
Tenant

$199 petition,
$265 appeal; $0
(None) Tenant
petition
Rental Housing
Board
New program, 0
Petitions
Richmond Fair Return,
Tenant $0 (None) Hearing Officer,
Rent Board

5-7 Fair Returns,
60 Rent Changes
(majority tenant
downward)

Jurisdiction Type of Petition Petition Fee Approves
Petitions
Petitions
Received
Annually
Santa Monica Fair Return,
Tenant

$100 per petition
for all properties
up to ten (10)
units; $150
properties with
between eleven
(11) and fifteen
(15) units; $200
properties with
sixteen (16) or
more units; $0
(None) Tenant
petition

Hearing Officer,
Appeal to Rent
Review Board
Limited Fair
Returns, 89
Tenant Petitions
West Hollywood
Fair Return,
Separate Capital
Improvement,
Tenant

$500 for buildings
with 1-4 rental
units; $500 base
fee for buildings
with 5-9 rentals
plus additional fee
of $25 per unit;
$500 base fee for
buildings with 10+
units plus
additional fee of
$35 per unit; $25
Tenant decrease
petition (low-
income waiver
available)

Hearing Officer,
Appeal to Rent
Stabilization
Commission
2 Fair Returns in
the past 10 years,
30-40 Tenant
Petitions annually
Sources: City Ordinances, May 2022; Zoom Interviews of Sample Jurisdictions conducted in May and June 2022

Table 4: Sample Jurisdictions’ Rental Housing Board
Jurisdiction Board Name Members Scope of Work
Alameda
Rent Review
Advisory
Committee
5 members appointed
by the Mayor and
approved by City
Council
• 2 Tenants
• 2 Housing
Providers
• 1 Residential
Property Owner
but not Housing
Provider

• Review requests from
tenants concerning rent
increases
• Hold hearings for
requests for a rent
increase review
• Make recommendations
to the tenants and their
housing providers about
the increases
Antioch
“Rent Program
staff”

(No Rent Board,
Advisory
Committee, nor
Rent Stabilization
Committee)
Two Hearing Officers N/A
Berkeley
Rent Board (with a
number of
Committees)

9 Commissioners
elected by voters
• Must submit a
verified statement
of their interests
and dealings in
real property
during the
previous three
years

• Implement and oversee
program
• Enact regulations
• Hearing petition
appeals filed by tenants
and landlords

Jurisdiction Board Name Members Scope of Work
Beverly Hills Rent Stabilization
Commission

6 members and 3
alternates appointed
by City Council
• 2 Landlords
• 2 Tenants
• 2 members who
are not tenants or
managers or
have financial
interest in multi-
family residential
rental property

• Make recommendations
to the City Council
concerning
amendments to
chapters of the Code
that have not been
resolved by the City
Council
• Perform any other
functions that may be
designated by
resolution or motion of
the City Council
Inglewood

Rental Housing
Board
5 members appointed
by the mayor and
approved by City
Council
• 2 Landlords
• 2 Tenants
• 1 City employee

• Review applications
submitted by landlords
or tenants
• Establish policies and
procedures for
administration and
compliance of the
program
• Conduct hearings on
petitions filed or
appeals of decisions of
a Hearing Officer filed

Richmond
Rent Board
5 members, appointed
by the Mayor subject to
three additional votes
by City Council
members
• Shall be no more
than two
members that
own or manage
any rental
property or are
realtors

• Establish Base Rent
• Make adjustments in
rent increases and
decreases
• Establish rules and
regulations
• Charge and collect
registration fees
• Collect/receive copies
of landlord notices
• Refer violations to
appropriate authorities

Jurisdiction Board Name Members Scope of Work
Santa Monica Rent Control
Board
5 elected
Commissioners

• Controlling residential
rents
• Limiting the grounds for
eviction
• Preserving rental
housing
• Encouraging
maintenance
• Ensuring landlords
receive a fair return
West Hollywood Rent Stabilization
Commission
7 members who shall
be residents of the
city.
• Each member of
the City Council
shall appoint one
member of the
Commission.
• The Council as a
whole will appoint
the remaining two
members.

• Responsible for
promulgating policies,
rules, forms, or
regulations found
necessary
to implement the
program
• Hear all appeals of
decisions by a hearing
examiner
• Submit an annual
written report to the City
Council describing its
activities.
• Evaluate and make
recommendations to
the City Council relative
to the city’s rent
stabilization policies.

Sources: City Ordinances, May 2022; Zoom Interviews of Sample Jurisdictions conducted in May and June 2022

Attachment 3
Tenant and Property Owner Feedback
Th
e City solicited feedback from both tenant and property owner representative groups through two in-person meetings that were held on July 26th and 27th. The meeting on July 26th with the property owner representatives was attended by the California Apartments Association and the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. The meeting on July 27th with the tenant representatives was attended by numerous groups including Centro Legal De La Raza, Monument Impact, Raising Juntos, Todos Santos Tenants Union, EBASE, Public Advocates, Front Porch and others. City staff also engaged feedback through surveys which were available on the City’s website, available in both English and Spanish.

Collectively, through the in-person workshops and the online surveys, 119 tenants/tenant representatives and 118 property owners and their representatives provided their feedback. Further City staff solicited feedback from affordable housing developers regarding the topics of Rent Stabilization and Just Cause for Eviction. While attendees at both meetings provided a wide range of feedback and developers responded based on their experiences, the key points expressed by each group are summarized below.

Tenan
t Feedback:

In summary, tenants in Concord are severely rent burdened and report feeling insecure about their ability to continue to be able to afford their current rents in Concord. Many express fear of being evicted, having no legal recourse/representation, having to relocate out of Concord, having to stay with friends/family, or becoming homeless.

Tenants provide that a limit on annual rent increases of 60% of AMI and capped at 3% would help them remain in their rental homes. Tenants report wanting greater enforcement of the just cause for eviction provisions, with longer noticing requirements and greater relocation assistance, especially for vulnerable households1.

Tenan
t feedback regarding rent stabilization included:
• Tenants in Concord are rent burdened , contributing over 50% of their income to housing expenses.
• This is mainly due to increased costs of living and stagnant wages. • If tenants are no longer able to afford their rent in Concord, many of them would be forced to leave the City or the region. This would have a significant impact on the financial and social support systems that they heavily rely on as they would also be leaving their jobs, families /friends, schools, and communities behind.

Tenants also expressed fear of having to take on multiple jobs, becoming homeless or having to double up with nearby family (which can contribute to overcrowding issues).
• It is difficult to move in Concord due to the limited availability of affordable rental housing, high security deposits and other costs.
• A rent stabilization ordinance would not only help tenants afford rent but also allow them to afford other necessities such as food, clothing, medical bills, etc. 1 The joint letter received from tenant representatives on August 18, 2023 from Monument Impact, EBASE, Todos Santos Tenant Union, and Rising Juntos (Attachment 4), define Vulnerable Populations as “seniors, people with disabilities or terminal illnesses, educators, parents with school-aged children, and low-income households”.

Attachment 3
• Tenants would like to see annual rent increases based on 60% of CPI per year but capped at 3%.
• Tenants would like a rent stabilization ordinance to cover more housing types such as affordable housing.
• Tenants are not in support of rent banking.

Tenant feedback regarding just cause evictions:
• Tenants have expressed the need for stronger enforcement of just cause protections to ensure that owners are unable to circumvent the law. • Tenants are particularly concerned about the no-fault evictions under AB 1482 and have expressed the need to strengthen the requirements around substantial renovations, owner move- ins, or penalties for owners who do not follow through with the reasons for these evictions (i.e. not competing renovations before re- renting the unit).
• Tenants would like the right of first refusal and the option to return to their unit at the same rental rate after substantial renovations have been completed. • Tenants feel that the relocation assistance is not enough to cover all the costs associated with finding new housing and moving in Concord. They would like relocation assistance to be $10,000 per tenant with a cap of $30,000. • Tenants want there to be special protections for vulnerable populations: seniors, terminally ill, and educators or parents with children. • Tenants would like longer noticing requirements for evictions, such as 6 months. • Tenants would like for the just cause eviction protections to be effective immediately upon move in, instead of after 12 months as with AB 1482.

Property Owner Feedback
In summary, property owners in Concord do not feel they are receiving their fair return on their investment as allowed by State law or able to recoup the costs of any capital improvements to their properties. This is mainly due to the increase in the cost of living in the Bay Area, expenses associated with utilities, supplies & materials, labor, insurance, etc. without being able to raise already low rents in Concord to the point at which they rents would cover these increasing costs. Not being able to collect past due rent has also been expressed as an issue. Property owners also feel it is difficult and thereby costly to evict destructive and harmful tenants. Concord also has older homes that require more frequent maintenance/remediation, which also drives up costs.

Property owner feedback regarding rent stabilization:
• Property owners are generally opposed to greater regulation of the rental housing market beyond what is already established in AB 1482.
• Owners feel that the idea of a “fair rate of return” is highly subjective and dependent on the individual portfolio and goals of the owner. It would be difficult to come up with a one-size-fits-all calculation of fair return.

Attachment 3
• Owners want an ordinance that does not create burdens for small “mom and pop” owners such as exempting smaller buildings2.
• It is costly for owners to maintain their properties, and owners would like to ensure that all of their costs and fees are taken into consideration when establishing a fair rate of return, including future policies that impact costs such as electrification. • Owners are not in support of rent banking. Some mention that it is hard to track and there is trouble implementing.
• Owners would like the city to use means testing as part of the proposed ordinance to ensure that it actually protects the renters who need it most and not tenants who can afford market rents.

Pr
operty owner feedback regarding just cause eviction:
• Owners want the effective period of just cause protections to remain 12 months as in AB 1482. This provides time for the property owner to ensure the renter is a good fit and helps protect their properties against on- going criminal activity, for example.
• Owners would like the relocation assistance to be the lower of two months’ rent or $5,000, with special hardship exemptions for owners that are financially struggling. • Concord has older building stock and it is important for owners to have the flexibility to renovate, and perform capital improvements to maintain the dignity and safety of their properties. To do so, they need to be able to pass all of the costs of capital improvements onto the tenants.
• Longer noticing periods may create burdens for some owners, or the families of owners in certain situations.
• Owner move-ins need to be protected for the small owners who are most likely to need this option.

Af
fordable housing developer feedback regarding rent stabilization:
• Rent Stabilization should not cover affordable housing properties • Affordable housing properties already have affordability covenants recorded against them and are heavily regulated by federal and state rules • HUD and/or the State sets annual increases that are similar to consumer price index adjustments or are determined by “rent burden” on the tenants whose income qualifies them for a particular rent increase
• Regulating rents on these affordable properties may pose barriers to housing developers obtaining financing for new developments
Af
fordable housing developer feedback regarding just cause for eviction:
• Generally there are State regulations that govern just causes for eviction or non- renewal of previously qualified residents
2 The National Association of Realtors defines “Mom and Pop” property owners as those that privately own small rental properties, typically 1-4 units, and locally own 1-3 properti es. Out of the 618 total multifamily properties, Concord has 348 properties that are 1-4 units; 339 of Concord’s property owners own 1-3 properties.

Tenant Survey Results

1 16
11 21
14 1
0 5
10 15
20 25
94517 94518 94519 94520 94521 94553
Number of Responses
Zip Codes
Number of Responses by Zip Code
No
3%
Yes
97%
Are you a tenant in Concord,
CA?
No
Yes
67%
12%
4%
17%
Are you a tenant living in an
affordable housing unit?
No
Yes
Not Sure
No Response
*Tenant from 94553
excluded from
calculation
*One tenant moved
out of Concord due to
inability to afford rent

Yes
84%
No
16%
Yes
No
Would a limit on annual rent increases help you stay in your rental home? (All Results)
94%
6%
94518
Yes No
82%
18%
94519
Yes No
97%
3%
94520
Yes No
60%
40%
94521
Yes No
*Tenants from 94517 & 94553 excluded from zip code charts above

*Tenants from 94517 & 94553 excluded from zip code charts above 24 10
19 9 10
0 5
10 15
20 25
30 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
On a scale of 1-5 how secure do you feel that you will be able to continue to afford their current rent in Concord?
(All Results)
0 2
4 6
8 10
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
94518
0 2
4 6
8 10
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
94519
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
94520
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
94521

*Tenants from 94517 & 94553 excluded from zip code charts above 1 5
6 6
9 16
11 1
6 8
4 0
2 4
6 8
10 12
14 16
18 0-10% 10-19% 20-29% 30-39% 40-49% 50-59% 60-69% 70-79% 80-89% 90-100% No response
Number of Responses
% of Income Spent on Housing
How much do you spend of your total income on housing?
(All Results)
0 1
0 0
2 6
4 0
1 2
0 2
4 6
8 10Number of Responses
% of Income Spent on Housing
94518
0 2
1 0
2 2 2
0 1 1
0 2
4 6
8 10Number of Responses
% of Income Spent on Housing
94519
0 10
0 4
6 8
4 1
3 3
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10Number of Responses
% of Income Spent on Housing
94520
1 1
4 2
0 1
2 0
2 2
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10Number of Responses
% of Income Spent on Housing
94521

Question #1
Do you struggle to afford rent each month in Concord? What have been the two biggest challenges in finding and keeping a rental home for you or the tenants you represent? Concord is the cheapest city to live in the Bay Area.

We have been able to afford rent in Concord. I am a dual income family with no children. One of us works in tech.

No
I currently do not struggle but I am a senior and plan to retire at the end of the year. If rents continue to rise, I could possibly find myself challenged.

No, I think Concord is the lowest rental city in the Bay Area.

None, since Concord is the cheapest city to live than Moraga, Orinda, Lafayette, or walnut creek.
yes cost safety
No
The increases in rent every year and the terrible management.

Struggle is too strong a word, but we have to work at it to ensure our budget is balanced. We avoid superfluous purchases, eating out, things like that. Maybe we'll go without fixing something or replacing a worn out item if need be.

No, I have a job and work hard. Too many people are lazy and just want free stuff.

Thankfully, no.

Cost of living, especially food. We are forced to pay cable lack of leverage with landlord; uncertainty in future rent increases Irresponsible politicians and criminal homeless
i don't reallly struggle but the housing price make ot almost impossible to buy here so i'm stuck paying rent instead of building equity
Yes
The high cost of smaller units . The security/safety oh the location.

The rent goes up way too much every new year
Price and location
Not at this time, yet I am a SENIOR whoose income level will be 60% less within 3 years and with the rapacisious rent some are allowed to get is a huge concern. somewhat; affordable space for mobile home
Living paycheck to paycheck means budgeting carefully so I don't come up short.

Mis ingresos
El precio y los requisitos que piden para alquilar
No
We do struggle. We are paying $2200 for a two bedroom. Since 2007 our rent has increased $1000. It went up $125 last year.

Constant rent increases
Finding is difficult due to so many landlords requiring you to make 3x's the rent NET, that prices out so many single income folks.

I live in Travel Trailer, finding legal space to park.

Sometimes
Being able a single mom I have to work two jops to affordable safe neighborhood updated units for my family. I would like to move but I cannot afford new units or closer to Bart.

Do you struggle to afford rent each month in Concord? What have been the two biggest challenges in finding and keeping a rental home for you or the tenants you represent? (Continued)
It is just crazy expensive right now and rents are only going up. I get an increase every year yet alot of our "amenities" aren't usable so why do they need more money?? Every month is a struggle as a one income family as I am disabled and only my husband can work. Our rent has gone up about $500 a month in 3 years. It's not much to some people but it sucks when you have to choose between paying rent or getting groceries. Section 8 is a joke I've been on the wait list for over 5 years.

Rent goes up
The rent as gone up over $100 monthly. I got food stamps during the COVID epidemic now the amount is now $25 monthly and yesterday I had to ask family for money. Then at the store later I had to return more than half of my food because I get SSI on next Wednesday and didn’t have enough money to pay for the groceries.

Yes I struggle a bit. Even though I live in a subsizied unit, 50% of my income goes towards rent which causes me to rely on credit cards often and fall further into debt and rent increases happen often at my complex.

We make just enough to live paycheck to paycheck, even though I am a college graduate with a city job. If one of us lost lost our job it would be disastrous.

The biggest challenges is that landlord is asking advance payment, at high deposit. Also finding place that close to school.

Being a senior, I hope that my rent stays the same because the cost of living is greater but my income is not.

Physical health affecting ability to work
no
Los dos mayores desafíos son el que el dueño pueda poner la propiedad en venta cuando el quiera y la otra que los nuevos contratos exigen hasta lo equivalente a tres meses de renta al principio del contrato.

I have 3 jobs just to make rent and be able to live.

1. Rent just keeps going up each year. It’s rediculous. We need rent control.

2. With low minimum wage it’s hard to live.

Paying rent and utilities
No I don't struggle to afford rent as we have 4 incomes in our household, but it's getting there.

We would love to move into a house, as we live in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment, but the requirements to get into a house are a bit ridiculous. I don't have $7000-$10000 just to move into a rental house. First and last months rent plus deposit and you have to make 3 times the amount they are asking for rent, it's ridiculous
Yes
Yes
My monthly rent is about two-thirds of my monthly income. Right now I am dipping into my savings to pay my rent, but obviously that can only go on so long.

Money
"Investment" properties should be flat out ILLEGAL. NOBODY should own multiple homes while so many are homeless. Landlords are NOT entitled to charge "Whatever the market will bear". That's a carte blanche excuse for greed. PEOPLES HOMES ARE NOT PROFIT ENGINES. Equity firms need to be ENTIRELY BANNED from managing properties. My biggest issue in Concord has been dealing with these HIGHLY UNETHICAL companies that have ZERO BUSINESS being involved in peoples homes.

Do you struggle to afford rent each month in Concord? What have been the two biggest challenges in finding and keeping a rental home for you or the tenants you represent? (Continued)
Documentación y la cantidad que piden
1) Los altos costo an aumentado mucho. 2) Piden muchos requisitos y mucho de depósito Finding a place in a good area that I can afford
Si, cada vez estan mas caros los productos basicos. Por lo que es cada dia mas dificil cubrir el pago del alquiler.

Yes, this month we had to take a loan out to pay our rent. Rising prices on food, supplies, and gas cuts into our budget.
rent increases
It is definitely a struggle to afford rent in Concord. I have to make a decision every month to either pay towards rent or buy food and to keep up with the bills that keep adding up. A one bedroom now is over 2000 and keeps going up. There is no way to keep up with this and the living conditions are not good.

Yes, I barely have food in the fridge, I use 3/4 of my monthly income on my rent bills and bills.

Por el sueldo de uno no alcansa
Yes. Rent prices go up every year and landlords do not maintain or repair the houses they rent out.

Aveces tenemos que gastar menos para poder pagar la renta Yes, I was renting in Concord and had to move 5 months ago due to my rent increased $400/mo in two years
Yes. Lack of affordability and property availability.

Yes
rent increases
Los precios están muy altos
si dificultades para pagar mi renta, y uno de los mayores desafios es que el estres, y lo que esta causando en mi cuerpo, y ahora tengo gastos medicos y no puedo trabajar algunos dias, y estoy de organizaciones que me ayudan a pagar mis utilidades. El segundo desafio es el de no tener el tiempo de estar con mi familia.Y muchas veces tengo que tener roomates y no conozco y me causa mucho estres muchas veces causan estrajos con mis hijas.

Si tengo dificultades para pagar la renta, no poder pagar mi renta y encontrar un roomate, tiene que tener 2 empleos para pagar la renta y mi hija tuvo que dejar de estudiar para trabajar y asi ayudarme a pagar la renta.

Desde aber 3 o 4 ingresos para poder pagar la renta ... y el que todo esta muy caro y el sueldo sigue igual
Notal ves pido ayuda
Si tengo dificultades para pagar mi renta, soy persona major pensionada y no me alcanza, .

Unos de los desafios es le piden hacer 3 veces la renta, la renta es muy alta en caso que quiera buscar otro apartamento.Tengo que hacer limitaciones, como no compra comida, o manejar lejos por que la gasolina esta muy alta.

Yes, rent is a struggle. Affordability of housing is the biggest factor in finding and keeping a residence.

Question #2
If you could no longer afford rent in Concord, what would their options be? I can move to San Ramon or Pleasanton where the city government is not insane and rental advocate driven like concord. Please make concord more welcoming for businesses and investors as opposed to making this a priority that never needed to be addressed to begin with. It is obvious that it is not the tenants you care about but your re-election that is driving this.

Because we may not want to spend what it costs to buy, long term we may move to Texas, where I am from. My partner is from Walnut Creek.

Probably moving due to low rental stock.

Possibly move in with my daughter and her family
Live in another vibrant city like Walnut Creek.

Concord is very affordable and I like living here with the exception of politicians like city of Concord getting involved that does not need their attention at all. Please work of fixing the crime, homeless problems, drugs, and fix your streets for Christ Sake. leave
Brentwood
Don't know - homelessness?
Move elsewhere.

I would move to a more affordable area. Did a kindergartner prepare these questions? Buy a house that I would not want or move into a smaller place because I do not want to move east of Concord, which is not as safe and further from work.

The street
moving in with my niece in eureka
rent further away from work? become homeless??
Whine to politicians
die in antioch
Don't know
Move away or house share
I’m not sure
Move to somewhere cheaper and less safe (eg: Antioch)
Senior Low Income -Veterans
leave CA
Move in with a friend outside of Concord.

Mover me a otra ciudad más barata
Mudarme o moverme a otra ciudad
Unsure
We would have to leave the city. Well, the Bay Area.

1. Move to a cheaper city

2. Take in a roommate
I'm not sure. It keeps me up at night.
homeless
Move to lower priced housing maybe in a cheaper town or state.

I would have to move to Vallejo, Benica- or further out in the east bay like Antioch, Bay Point.

But I would rather not its too far from work and schools my family attends.

Move out to the valley or Sacramento
Streets
Limited

If you could no longer afford rent in Concord, what would their options be? (Continued) My only option would be to move me and my children into my parents home (we have had to do that before). Unfortunately my 2 sisters and nephew already live there because they could no longer afford rent. There have been times when all of our family members (10 total) have had to live in my parents home because we couldn't find an affordable place to rent. I make nearly $80k and we still can barely afford to live here. My kids are our 4th generation to live in concord and we have seriously contemplated leaving not only concord but california, it's impossible to have a good life here.

I no longer have family to help me. Maybe you can tell me.

To avoid homeless need to move in different cities that have a lower cost of living.

I would become homeless or have to move out of the state. I have never lived anywhere but in California.

Move out of state to lower cost of living area
I realy don't know
No tengo idea
Move somewhere i can afford
Move out of state or homelessness
Look for assistance
I'm looking to move out of state as it is just getting to be to much to live in California, let alone Concord. It is unsafe, police don't do anything to people breaking the law, making it dangerous for those of us trying to just live or lives. This includes letting people speed down the middle turning lane of Monument Blvd. Just so they can get in front of other cars.

Not sure
Move
I guess I would have to move someplace cheaper, but as an older adult I really don't want to start over in a new place. I don't have any family I could move in with.

Live some place else
La desesperación
War, anarchy, nothing good.

Pues prácticamente la calle no veo otra obcecación
To find a roommate or move out of state
Tendriamos que movernos de Ciudad.

Unsure. We just pray every month.
move out of California
May need to move out of Concord or be homeless for a while until I find a place. But even that is hard due to needing so many requests to get another place and the cycle continues Homeless
Buscar otra ciudad
Move out of state
Que nos diera como dar en pagos
Moved to Martinez, slightly lower
Homelessness
Homeless again
Irme de homeless
Irme a vivir en mi coche con mis hijos.

No tengo opciones, es irme a la calle unirme a las personas sin hogar.

El sumarnos alas miles de personas que viven en las calles y carros... El tener que quitarnos la comida de la voca para poder tener un techo donde vivir

If you could no longer afford rent in Concord, what would their options be? (Continued) No hay opciones porq el nudarse a otra ciudad implica más gastos y tiempo la única opción es sumarse a las miles de personas q viven en la calle o en sus autos irme a los rios en casas de canpana
Buscar lugar varato
Move to a more affordable state.

Irme a vivir con un familiar o un amigo por un par de meses. Y conseguir dinero para poder pagar la renta.

Live with family or friends (hopefully) until our household could get back on its feet

Question #3
What do you hope a Rent Stabilization Ordinance will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Pass Throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
It will make it worse. A clear example is San Francisco. What good has rent control ordinance done there? In fact it has the opposite affect on the rental market and rents beyond average working class's reach.

I am not sure I understand the question. I do support tenants but also understand property owners are likely facing increase taxes and need to make their mortgage payments as well That it will provide reasonably stable communities where children and working families do not have the constant existential fear that they will have to grievously disrupt their lives to satisfy property owners desire for rapacious profits.

Maximum allowable rent cap
absolutely nothing but to force out all mom and pop businesses and corporations take over.

Absolutely nothing but to drive rents up or Concord will be forced to become like shit hold Oakland/Berkeley.

A
It will make less housing available because landlords will run away from here and sell all houses to othered that would no want to become landlords in this area.

All of the above.

I'm deeply concerned that proliferating rent control will reduce liquidity and supply, and therefore increase rents, contrary to the intent, but concordant with well-established Economic analysis of rent control statutes.

Rental stabilization will create a blighted area and drive down property values and create a further mess. Sure there are people that really need help but mostly this free stuff just provides refuge for drug use and criminal behavior. Once again the government is trying to pay everybody to stay home and live for free.
b - certainty in future housing costs so we can adequately(?) budget and/or move out (i.e., be forced out but have some time to plan for it); just cause evictions. e - ability to report code violations/get enforcement without fear of reprisal

What do you hope a Rent Stabilization Ordinance will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Pass Throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
(Continued)
I think renting is supposed to be temporary so one can eventually buy a home. So, I would like Rent Stabilization Ordinance help with renters reach that goal. Also, reward those responsible renters with credit in the bank. Putting a cap or demanding limits on the landlords will not help because there will be loopholes that will be taken advantage. So, I know helping the renters with knowledge, goals, etiquettecy, discipline and building positive relationships with landlords, etc… will be more effective.

I do not understand what these are
b
I think this will only limit and eliminate available housingv keep good renters in, move bad renters out. the problem will be that they will use this to stay in places they can't afford and shouldn't have qualified for and will likely drive down the value of housing around them
Covered units and maximum rent caps.
e. Enforcement mechanism
B
B
a,b,e,f
b
B and E
Todas esas
C
B
B. I think 2 to 8 percent is too high every year. Especially since my landlord at Cowell Terrace leans towards the 8% each year.

The ordinance should mirror SF County: There should be a limit on yearly rent increases. all of the above
question makes no sense. Please take this seriously.

B
rent caps
B
All the above
b, e
A,B,C.

Whereas this would be a good step, rent is simply just too high so regardless it will be difficult to live here. Additionally, qualifying for a rental is very difficult and the money required to get it is typically too high for most people to afford. The entire system is broken and most people have given up on home ownership all together as it is simply unattainable at this point and realize that we will all be life long renters.

Any help is good help! I wish we could lower rent.

What do you hope a Rent Stabilization Ordinance will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Pass Throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
(Continued)
All rental units, individual houses, and etc. Rent 3% cap Peace of mind, planning for the future, being able to sleep at night. I would like to see a rent cap of at least 3% and including single family homes because I am still working.

Limit rent increases to a more sustainable rate for tenants, slower increase in rents.

Todos los mencionados, beneficiando los interesados y a misma ciudad.

B
B
B
I would hope that it stops the slum lords from charging so much for a cess pool they pass off as an apartment
Not sure
B
I don't see why my landlord should be able to raise my rent just because he would like to make even more income than he makes already. So, a rent cap is key.

B
B
Eliminate private equity firms from managing properties PERIOD. Rental limit caps for SURE.

Income based rent requirements ACROSS THE BOARD. Forced divestiture of all investment properties. You need to completely reset the board.

Poder seguir viviendo dignamente y que no me falte los demás recursos para mi familia como comida ropa erected
a. Covered Units
Que se establezca un control de renta de no mas del 3%. Que se incluyan los edificios de bajos ingresos. Que sea retroactivo a enero 2022.

Not sure how it all works but we can't be the only one in this situation. We make too much for aid but too little to feel secure.
b
It would help so much if we get the 3% instead or 10%. It would families and individuals the opportunity to mande their income to support there needs like food, cloths, water, electricity, and medications. Concord would be keeping there residents in the community and more would feel secure to have a roof over their heads. We also need to fix the apartments that have the RUBS currently. Also paying for parking spot, on top of renters insurance, garbage, and now water. Please help Concord keep families in there home.

Lower costs. The average 1 bedroom goes for $1900, that’s insane B
Maximum allowed rent cap
All
Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
Rent control

What do you hope a Rent Stabilization Ordinance will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Pass Throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
(Continued)
B
Vivir un poco mejor sin estres
Los residentes con bajos ingresos de viviendas económicas deben tener las mismas protecciones que los inquilinos de otros edificios de apartamentos. Me gustaría tener una comisión de rentas como un mecanismo para hacer cumplir la ley. Quiero que los inquilinos tomen estas decisiones.

Unidades cubiertas. .. Y límite máximo de alquiler permitido Todas las unidades estén cubiertas ,Acumulación de alquiles que limiten los aumentos de aumento de renta
B
Queremos tener el dinero suficiente para comprar alimentos, servicios públicos, medicinas y otras necesidades básicas.

Expand covered units to include all rented properties, not just multi unit 12 dwellings or those built before 1995. Reduce maximum allowable rent increases to assist with affordability. If landlords can show they are struggling with a fair return then there should be a fund available to assist tenants in finding other affordable housing so that they don’t have to leave the entire area (and commute an hour and a half to get to their workplace that was just down the street, for example).

Question #4
What are your biggest concerns under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? I don't know this policy
That it is not sufficiently protective of tenants, especially vulnerable populations, given the general economic disparity between the sides.

I presently have no concerns
being asked to leave so they can raise rate higher
The tighter and more difficult you make for landlords the less housing will be available. Who should want to be a landlord in the unfavorable environment like this. You are going to make it wors for tenants. It will decrease amount of available housing.

Landlords and management can lie and there is no recourse to those lies.

That we are sliding into a situation like in neighboring jurisdictions, such as Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, in which awful tenants are virtually impossible to evict.

You should be able to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent or property damage. You should also be able to evict if too many people live in one unit.

I do not know what it is.

I do not know this policy
Fairness

What are your biggest concerns under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued) none
There's no burden of proof for the landlord. They can just evict. ignorant on this issue...

Relocation assistance seems a big deal because many can't deal with the extra costs of having to move and find a new place when they are just barely getting by.

Que me suban la renta
Desalojo sin aviso y sin respaldo económico.

Eviction not for just cause, but to bring in another tenant at a higher rent.

Don't know what our just cause policy is.

That I could be evicted without cause even though I have never been late on rent for the 5+ years or had issues with other tenants.

It only helps some of us
It seems to take years to evict tenants for example who was a hoarder and caused me to have a huge problem with cockroaches.

I was previously evicted because the owner wanted to remodel our units and charge higher rents. Because of this my family came very close to being homeless. I got every agency I could think of involved and was told that the owner had every right to evict me. This has caused me to be constantly worried about my family's housing situation, having previously experienced being kicked out on the street because of greed with no recourse. It is terrifying to think about.

Everything is still in favor of the landlord, which means they could probably make up something to report.

There is no tenant protection.

I don't think there is just cause policy in Concord. I have never heard of one.

Que los dueños que necesitan a sus inquilinos parecen estar en contra unos de otros en lugar de llegar a acuerdos justos.

Being evicted if the rent is paid one week late
Not sure
Living life
N/A
That it will not be implemented k
I'm afraid my landlord might decide to kick me out by claiming that he's going to let a relative live here. That would probably be a lie, but who would check? By the time the lie was discovered I would have already had to leave town.

Los alquileres
I don't have enough information on this topic.

Pienso que los dueńos hacen lo que quieren sin importarle el inquilino solo sus intereses propios
Think it needs some tweaking
Se necesitan mas protecciones. Que se proporcione $10,000 por cada desalojo injustificado.

We would feel a little bit safer since we have been here since 2020 and we don't cause problems.
that tenants do not have adequate ability to contest an eviction - ultimately, all the cards are in the landlords' hands

What are your biggest concerns under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued) We need to protect our families who are experiencing evictions without cuase. Allowing intents to return back to there home when repairs are complete and they should be given a temporary place to stay while providing them with voucher for food.

Nothing
Que mis hijos estudian acá en concord y cambiaría seria algo drástico para eyos Rental market is shrinking and prices going up as landlords selling and moving out of state Que su ban de renta o que nos desalojen con nuestros hijos esos nuestros mayores preocupaciones
More people forced to live unhoused
Property owners lack of accountability. The city is lacking the capacity and capability to effectively monitor the implementation.

No rent control
no concerns
Que necesitamos causa justa y control de renta
Yo la conozco y si hay no la estan implementado
Cual? No la he visto, si la hay no la han puesto en practica El que aya desalojos infustificados
Los aumento y los desalojos
que no se controle el aumento de todo lo basico y no lo pueda pagar Na
De cual politica de cuasa justa estan hablando?
The “substantial remodeling” portion of just cause infections, is extremely loosely applied by landlords and often times only includes a coat of paint and repair of a doorway or a stairwell.

This is completely unacceptable and should never been allowed as a just cause. I have heard of 10 stories of this happening in the area within the last five years.

Family move in is also often misused as a way to displace tenants, and in fact, I’ve been a victim of this. The landlord should have to produced documentation of an intent to occupy and follow ups concurrent with state law that the actual landlord or family member is occupying the unit within the two-year period after displacing a tenant. If the landlords cannot document this information, they need to pay tenants directly for moving costs, potential deposit increases and additional rent tenants have to pay for having to moving to a comparable unit unit versus what they might’ve been paying before.

Question #5
What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
Please leave it alone. Do not be fooled by the bad actors and rental advocates who get their kicks and funding from the state and oblivious politicians like you.

I don't know
Reasonable profits for landlords, protection of basic rights for tenants.

Nothing. Just leave it alone since AB 1482 already took care of it and stop harassing small land lords and housing providers.

None.
b
Nothing
All of the above.

What is JCO? This should be an open rental market that should exclude this corrupt political entity from burdening our property owners with its overzealous actions. We should look closely at the grand jury’s findings and think twice about the political motivations by these elected representatives.

I am not aware of the “just cause” eviction policy but I know there needs to always be a contract and if it’s breached, the renter and/or landlord has the legal right for demand.

I do not know...maybe enforcement
b
d. currently, by raising rents faster than real wages, landlords are effectively contributing to the homelessness crisis in Concord (and beyond) and thereby offloading those costs onto municipalities. (See studies showing relationship between lack of affordable housing and homelessness rates)
Impeachments
notices and timelines
Mediation, relocation benefits
e. Mediation
D
a thru e
b, a,
Ask of the above seem important.

Todos los componentes antes mencionado
Consideración con niños, madres embarazadas y ancianos
B
C. Notification requirements
What a halfassed waste of time. Get a clue. This survey shows there is currently no hope.

D
a, c, d, e
D
All
d

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
Be prompt in dealing with rogue renters. Additionally show compassion towards these clearly mentally disturbed people but using community volunteers to clear place but allowing tenant to return under strict supervision rules.

I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to do, however, rent control with no increases and easier, less expensive ways to get into rentals would be a good start. I know that my rent will increase yearly and continue to do so. I am already at a point where it is nearly unaffordable for me to keep my unit so eventually I will have to leave. Again rent IS TOO HIGH! Unless is starts to go down, a lot of people will inevitably have no other choice but to move out.

Relocation benefits might make me feel a little safer. But any help is good help.

All of the above
Fairness and being able to live life. I would like to see special protections for seniors because we are vulnerable.

Todas las ideas se puedan lograr civilizadamente para el bienestar de todos. Se ha experimentado que los dueños de las propiedades tengan el derecho de hacer y rentar a quienes quieran. Los inquilinos también deben tener protección porque cuando se han tenido que cambiar de dirección ha sido detrimental para la familia. Sin embargo la ciudad (consejales) se asume han apoyado a los dueños de las
propiedades aunque el lema de Concord se ha dicho es; “familias primero “.

B
D

B, C,, & D
N/A
B
I think if my landlord tried to evict me for no fault of my own, I would need to be able to notify an authority that would look into the situation and evaluate if the landlord is telling the truth.

D
Do not have enough info.

Deberán de ser efectivos al momento de moverse , que aya protección si me muevo por renovaciones pueda regresar sin ningún problema efectivo inmediatamente cuando uno se mueve, que cubra todas las unidades, tener protecciones cuando hacen renovaciones substantivas como el tener asistencia de reubicación de $10k, tener primera oportunidad de regresar, y agregar protecciones sobre Ellis Act, como protecciones especiales para educadores y niños en la escuelas
d. Mediation
Que la proteccion sea inmediara al momento que se haga el contrato de renta. Que cubra todas las unidades y que se proporcione alojo temporal a los inquilinos durante las renovaciones.

I do not know how to answer this question.

More residents will not be homeless. But able to live in clean and secure home.

Relocation benefits
Mediacion
Noticing requirements

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
Que ya no suban de renta para poder nosotros vivir sin estres All
Noticing requirements, Relocation benefits, and Mediation Rent control
Peticiones y control de renta
que las casas multifamiliares esten protegidas bajo esta ley y que los duenos pagen $10,000 por persona de reubicacion.

Todos los inquilinos de Concord necesitan protección contra los desalojos injustos y sin causa. Esto incluye viviendas unifamiliares, condominios, casas adosadas, casas móviles, etc. Necesitamos 10.000 dólares para gastos de realojamiento, 5.000 no son suficientes.

Exigimos un preaviso de al menos 6 meses para los desalojos sin causa Que allá beneficios de reubicasion
El tope del 3% máximo q sea retroactivo desde enero 2022 y q todas las viviendas estén incluidas
que bajen los presios en general
Peticin
B
que cubra todas las unidades de renta edificios de bajos recursos y casas multifamiliares Enforcement mechanisms need serious beefing up, which means that state and local governments will actually have to do their jobs and follow through on their commitments to the citizens of California. Relocation benefits need to be a large focus, otherwise, the state of California and the city of Concord and surrounding areas in particular, are going to find themselves without a capable workforce due to the lack of housing affordability.

Property Owner Survey Results

23%*
77%
Do you own rental property in Concord, CA?
No
Yes
26 13
27 27
0 5
10 15
20 25
30 94518 94519 94520 94521
Number of Responses
Zip Code
What is the zip code of your rental property?
Other Zip Codes
Included in Responses
Outside of Concord
(# of responses)

91502 Burbank, CA (1)
92024 Encinitas, CA (1)
94525 Crockett, CA (1)
94546 Castro Valley, CA (1)
94551 Livermore, CA (1)
94553 Martinez, CA (1)
94598 Walnut Creek, CA (2)
94607 Oakland, CA (1)
94612 Oakland, CA (1)
94803 Richmond, CA (2)
94806 Richmond, CA (1)
95420 Caspar, CA (1)
95520 France (1)

*Some responses were from
property management or
other owner representatives.

Others have removed their
homes from the rental
market due to cost

22 36
30 12 10
0 5
10 15
20 25
30 35
40 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
1 (Not Secure) to 5 (Very Secure)
How secure do you feel that you are currently able to get a fair return on your rental property?
8 7
5 2 2
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
(1) Not Secure to (5) Secure
94518
2 4
3 3
1 0
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
(1) Not Secure to (5) Secure
94519
3 8
9 4
2 1
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10Number of Responses
(1) Not Secure to (5) Secure
94520
2 10
8 2
5 0
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Responses
(1) Not Secure to (5) Secure
94521

70%
9%
21%
Struggle to Recoup Capital
Improvement Costs
Yes No No Opinion
9 31
2 2
42 29
0 5
10 15
20 25
30 35
40 45
Less than 10% 10% or AB1482 20% CPI/Inflation No restrictions No opinion provided
Acceptable Rent Limit Increase
Fees/Taxes
13%
Low rents
18%Lack of
Quality
Tenants
13%
Non
Payment of
Rents
9%
Maintenance
Costs/Inflation
18%
Laws
(Local/State) on
Evictions & Rent
Control
29%
Biggest Challenges

Question #1
Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return on their properties? Is there a limit on rent increases that you would find acceptable? we are in agreement with the state of Calif law SB1482 , this is fair , however anymore restrictions or laws on rent control will make it not a positive business venture to continue to be a housing provider in Concord
Yes
no struggle
annual tied to inflation
I always price my rental a bit below market to attract quality tenants. Rents need to go up with the general inflation rate. A bit more during the boom times, a bit less when the economy is weak. Rent increases should be limited to once a year, but rent increase amounts cannot be capped. If the landlord needs to raise rent more than 10%, at least 3 months notice should be given to the tenant.

I have not struggles to get a fair return. A max 10% increase is acceptable to me.

No, would not approve of a cap on rent increases. This is too progressive and socialist.

I charge a rent lower than my monthly mortgage/tax/insurance burden which is difficult. Even more so since renters have been allowed to stay without paying.

No limits
I have not had difficulty getting a fair return. I generally only increase rent between tenants.

No. Rent control is government theft.
5%-8% increase will be acceptable per year
Yes. No limit on rent increases; let the free market determine. This allows for economic condition changes as well.

Beginning 2023 I am unable to get a fair return on my rental properties due to costs that are beyond my control such as property insurance. 2023 premiums went up 200% and are expected to increase at renewal in 2024 as many insurance carriers are limiting coverage.

I have long-term tenants with 50% below market rent. 10% annual rent increase is reasonable.

The market is what it is.

If you want low income housing, make the people who offer it bring their rents down to a reasonable level for the qualifying incomes.

If you insist that you are going to regulate rent increases, is that supposed to be a fixed percentage regardless of how high or low general inflation is, never mind the fluctuations that effect real estate--like interest rates and home prices. Some years 3% might be totally appropriate. I was renting to be near family about a year ago and an 8% annual increase seemed appropriate based on the increased costs of doing business that year.

People who have never been and never plan to be anything but a tenant probably think 1% is totally fair.

But, they still want a maintenance.
10%
Yes. It's difficult to make any profit. Real estate prices make it impossible to charge enough to pay for mortgage, taxes, maintenance, etc and make any profit.

No struggle. AB1482 allows a fair adjustment and investment return. yes
Our property is under market value by hundreds of dollars for the area. Cost of living raises alone are nearly the max rate we can raise rent. City rent policies will soon cause us to sell the property and most likely remove it from the rental market.
10% per year
Yes, I am well below FMV and am stymied to ever bring my rent up to FMV due to current laws.

Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return on their properties? Is there a limit on rent increases that you would find acceptable? (Continued) Keep rents on lower end to keep good tenants and avoid costly turnovers and vacancies - feel 5% plus cpi is fair as inflation has driven repair costs out of sight - 2 sides to rentals as owners have to have sufficient finds for repairs
Yes
Ca State rent control is acceptable. Anything further is going to change the city, reduce investment, reduce supply and drive up rents. Horrible idea.

Yes
Yes. We have struggled to get adequate cash flow on our property.

Yes. The cost for property taxes, insurance, repairs, city inspection fees and permits, etc, is outpacing the ability to raise the rent with the state imposed rent control A free market system lets supply and demand determine rental rates and vacancies. N o limit on rental rates. If rents are too high, renters will look elsewhere. Landlord will be forced to lower rental rates to become competitive and attract new applicants.

Yes, tenant feel entitled and expect immediate service for every trivial issue. Yet it is ok if rent is short and late.
yes, struggle to collect enough rent to get a fair return on the properties. At least 20% increase to cover the expense to maintain the property to get a fair return. Homeowner insurance increase more than 30% each year, Maintenace service calls fee doubles, from $200 per visit to easily $500 each time. if you got three clogged toilet or sink, the whole month rent is gone. water bills increase is insane, and tenants don't care whether we in drought and in need to cut down on water usage because they not seeing the bill and are not the one who paying for it.

Rent amount is agreed-upon by a renter and landlord. Landlord should be able to set any amount, if the tenant(s) don't agree they need to find a landlord that they agree with. no--we do not need government interfering in businesses and market forces. when has this worked? small business owners are taking their money and going elsewhere. the neighboring communities do not interfer with landlord-tenAnt affairs. swe are down tol 1 property and may sell it soon going out of the concord rental business entirely. results from coast to coast show that this is a failed experiment and only benefits some tenants some of the time leaving a special class of a few at the expense of the many. stop and desist from interference is business decisions.

The free rental market clearly communicates if a property is listed at too high of a rental rate.

If a property is listed at a rental rate that is too high, there will be no interest from potential residents, and the property owner will have to reduce their asking rate. There is no need for a limit on rent increases, since the State of California already has one in place.

Yes, costs are going up and after 2 years of COVID where tenants did not have to let us in, the property had so many damages that we are still recovering from. The rent already barely covered expenses and now vendor prices have tripled. 10% is reasonable.

Yes, 10%
Depends on costs such as insurance and taxes
Staying aligned with the state’s provision would Beneficial. The housing stock in Concord is old and required maintainance.

No
yes, NO.

Rent control only restricts development of new housing and does not solve the issue. Placing more restrictions on property managers and property owners only deters quality property management.

Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return on their properties? Is there a limit on rent increases that you would find acceptable? (Continued) Increasing repair cost, real estate tax, and insurance premiums minimizes the return on investment.

Tenants often do not return the property in decent condition. Excess repairs makes it less profitable.

The rent control is a counterproductive policy as it discourages investors to own rental properties. The demand exceeds supply will drive the market rent to increase for new tenants. A 5 to 7 percent ren increase cap is an acceptable rent control.

Rent control is unfair. Operating expenses are not capped thus our return is generally in decline when rents are capped and the incentive to improve the property is gone.

At least 5%
Yes. 10% a year
Yes, struggling to make any money. There should be no restrictions. The market will self adjust without interference
5 Percent
If you want to protect people, follow the State's example and give them time to respond without impoverishing property owners. If you just want to hurt landlords, do what Oakland has been doing. 10% minimum in order to make ends meet and maintain our property.

No.

Yes, but no one seems to care.

Yes I lose money every month on my property. I cannot charge high enough rent to break even with my mortgage and HOA fees.

I feel we should be allowed to increase our rent as we see fit with no limit.

Yes, 10% + CPI (as a maximum)
Yes, it is difficult to get fair return on rental properties, given the facts that huge increase in property insurance and so high material/labor costs to maintain/repair real properties. 6%
Market rate increase
Not a great return but covers cost. AB1482 is a good compromise No struggle, but our rents are way below market. 10% limit Yes
No limitation would be acceptable.

Rent increases should be determined by the market. The owner cannot pay their mortgage or keep the house in good condition if they cannot raise rents especially as the cost of everything has increased so much. The owner needs as much protection as the tenant. 5% of current rent + CPI
I feel that AB 1482 has proven to be a reasonable compromise for landlords and tenants. To be any more restrictive on rent increases is going to place an unreasonable burden on landlords.

I can live with 5% annual increase max
no struggle to collect rent; There should not be a limit on rent increases I think if owners deliver more value they should be able to petition to deliver increases that exceed the current ceilings. We have been delivering 3-5 percent annually Market will set the price. If Govt wants to set prices, they can pay the difference Yes we have had struggles 10% increase help.

High repair costs. Covid w tenants not paying
The current rent increase limits are acceptable and allow us to collect a fair rent.

We have struggled to get a fair return on our rent especially through COVID. What city officials do not account for are big ticket turnovers and ongoing maintenance items which add up.

Yes, tennants stall and do not pay

Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return on their properties? Is there a limit on rent increases that you would find acceptable?(Continued) We have not struggled drastically but that is much more related to the financing currently on the property than it is due to the limited rent increases we have been allowed.

If you factor in the several million dollars of upgrades which were financed by the owners,not the property, the return would be minimal if not negative. The ownership is a long term owner and not looking to sell, however, that is unique to this property and other properties are more affected on a day to day basis.

A limit on how low an allowable rent increase would be acceptable is a hard question to answer.BTW, what other industry in the US is limited on their profitability? Add to that the cost assessed against the property to monitor the rent control and you have limited profit and more importantly VALUE. 10%
Yes. I have a highly rent controlled property in oakland and cannot make necessary improvements to the property because of the severely limited income. A cap of 5% plus inflation is a fair limit 10% per year maximum
No
I would think that the rent cap / increase would be determined in relation to inflation. I do not think that we need a rent cap there are plenty of tenants that are willing and able to pay today's market rates. rental rates should be set by the market, not anyone else. 6%
yes
No, a landlord should be able to set the price at what the market will allow. If you’re too high, people won’t rent, and a landlord will have to adjust pricing. It’s a business, and they should be able to run it as they see fit, as long as there is no discrimination.

I should be able to increase rent up to 10%. Many of the properties we manage are under market in terms of the rent we charge.

Yes, it is difficult. Especially since property taxes, utilities, repairs, and other costs keep going up. I think the state already has some of the most stringent rental increase policies in the country, and it is only hurting long-term housing to keep increasing these burdens on landlords. 10 percent rent increase
Yes - We had one tenant not pay rent all during Covid and we had 2 tenants move- out leaving our apartments in horrible condition that have required major repairs.

Yes, after all the expenses and hassles of owning rental properties, I have never felt I was getting a good return. I think the open market is the best way to set what the rent should be, so I am not in favor of any rent control. That having been said, I care about my tenants and most years I do not raise the rent, and when I do it has never exceeded 3%.

We have struggled to collect rent. A limit on rent increases is not acceptable! No
Yes. A limit of 10% a year would be fine
CPI + a small percentage 2-4% would be acceptable. CPI is not enough because costs for repairs are going up much faster than cpi
20%
It should be similar to inflation plus 5%
6% with 30 day notice 11% with 60 day notice
Yes, it is difficult to get a fair rent
yes. There should be no limit on rent increases. the city government should not be involved in rent control. it should be left to the market. let the free market determine rent. the city government, as well as the,state government, will only worsen the housing shortages.

Market forces should determine rent increase rate - not government

Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return on their properties? Is there a limit on rent increases that you would find acceptable? (Continued) CPI plus 5%.

No, all rent caps/restrictions do is cause rents to be higher and keep tenants from moving because it is capped. SF is a prime example. We have helped at least 5 people from Sf through our office to buy in East Bay BUT keep their property they rent in SF because it is so cheap because of rent control. So those units never become available- thus causing rents on other properties to continually go up because of shortage of available properties.
no
In cases where the tenants continually damage the property it is hard to cover expenses. I would find increases to the limit on rent increases above what the State already places to onerous we already have rent control with AB 1482 and the city's own regulations. we dont need more. We need to let tenants know these laws exist. most landlords, like me, dont always raise rents or charge the full rent increase we can. we work with our tenants.

Do not want rent control in Concord.

Now that interest rates are higher, implementing a rent control policy will prevent landlords from making any money (and therefore buildings will become dilapidated, values will drop, and tenants will have to live in substandard housing).

The recent State rent restrictions limited some of our long term plans for units that have very old and low rent leases.

I believe the current California Law that states 5% + cpu works well. Not perfect but balanced. We do not increase to that level unless there are significant property problems, like deck, roof work etc.

I am a landlord attorney. I am helping my client Ellis Act and take properties off the market due to inability to make a profit on investing in rental housing in Concord.

Question #2
Have you struggled to recoup costs for capital improvements? How do they currently address issues at their properties that need improvements? to date we don't have issues working with owners or residents on capital improvements Yes
bad question However improvements are costly and part of the cost of ownership N/A
No, can do capital improvements without an ordinance. Having a capital improvement ordinance will cause problems for you as well as a rent stabilization ordinance.

I lose 10-15 thousand per year all in. 2-3k of that is repairs, improvement and fixing stuff tenants destroy/steal
Yes, it is a struggle. Only way is to save, before the project.

I haven't been able to make as many improvements as I would like but have been able to cover the cost of needed improvements.

Capital improvements must be carefully planned to recoup costs. everything is so expensive and there is no way to re-coup the cost Yes
Improvements and upgrades are done once tenants move out and new tenants rent is reflective of recouping a percentage of costs based on how long I expect the tenant to remain in the unit.

Yes. It is impossible to recoup major renovations required for older properties.

Destructive tenants....

Have you struggled to recoup costs for capital improvements? How do they currently address issues at their properties that need improvements? (Continued) Everything (supplies, equipment, tools, and services) has become increasingly expensive and recouping any costs on improvements has been slow to negligible. Due to high costs on goods repairs take longer to resolve (to aquire funds).

We have not attempted to recoup capital improvement costs.

Good luck on this one
Yes. They make investment less desirable
I am robbing Peter to pay Paul, that’s how. If a major costs is incurred on the near future, I cannot cover it at all. I basically squeak by from month to month right now.

Cannot afford large improvements - small property owners Yes. Tough to do with escalating cost of material And labor Market rent is the only way to get landlords to maintain their property. Rent control will only disincetivize landlords to invest.

Yes
Yes we have struggled with cash flow on our property. While we improve the property, the cash flow is not adequate.

Yes. The cost of capital improvements on older buildings is making it difficult to make any kind of profit on the rental property
Have not passed on these costs. I am a considerate and fair landlord offering affordable housing to responsible tenants. If rents are capped, I will be forced to pass costs on.

We have top notch properties- well maintained but it takes effort. When we do the work ourselves, tenants fell it is free. They object when there is a rent increase to cover maintenance and improvements.

Yet they expect every service call to be executed and prompt. But at no cost to them in rent increase. yes, the cost of materials and labor increase a lot. address the issues with minimal and trying to use the lower quality of materials, however that increase frequency of breakdown.

Its a problem, thats why not a rental.
yes--we have changed the HVAC and added electric charging for "EVs and it is a waste of our capital.

I haven't passed capital improvement costs on to my residents. I choose to keep rents reasonable, so that residents will want to stay, which reduces our turnover costs.

We take care of our properties but not all tenants are cooperative to report issues or to assist in giving access to tradespeople. I want them to care as much about the property as we do. Again, prices for plumbers have tripled and a single faucet that leaks can turn into a disaster when tenants do not report things. Strengthen the laws on tenants turning in information and penalties when they don't support owners trying to repair.

Yes, make the improvements.

Just longer recoup time with high labor costs
As a landlord I have struggled to get things repairs such as a/c based on my current asking rent.

No
yes
Yes. Rising construction costs outweigh the potential increase and return on investment, and typically result in a loss.

The security deposit is not sufficient to recoup the repair cost when tenants moved out. Tenants do not pay for the cost of repairs in excess of the security deposit. The legal cost and collection of the judgment for an uncollectible debt is not a good use of the money. To see and hear state, counties, and cities pass law to make it more difficult to operate rental business is stressful and discouraging for individual investors.

Very selectively improvements are made, generally only when absolutely have to given the limitations on rents and constant attack on property owners rights.

Yes, cost of repair and upkeep have skyrocketed.

Have you struggled to recoup costs for capital improvements? How do they currently address issues at their properties that need improvements? (Continued) Yes. Just improve it
Yes. Tenants keep trashing up the property
capital improvements come off .y current income. Even before rent control, my income is impacted.

The process in Oakland exists to make it very costly to recoup costs. If there must be a process, make is simple. Some pictures and some receipts. Hearings exist to give hearing examiners a job.

Yes, constantly. The city increased its fees by more than 50% without any justification and yet we can only increase our rents to 5% plus CPI. Our PG&E had quadrupled, water bills continue to increase, garbage bills continue to increase more than 10%-15% yet they city is so oblivious to its action or inactions?
Sell since the city does not care.

Cannot address them since the city is being dictated by tenant advocates who know nothing about maintaining a habitable building or environment.

N/A
Yes. To address issues requiring improvements, we would need to plan for them through a budget process or wait for proper cash flow to address.

Yes, difficult to recoup the costs. Have to delay the major repair which could cost more in future.

Don’t understand the question
Yes
Yes, no further improvements would be made if rent cannot recoup cost which go up with inflation Yes, balance over $225k on balcony/paint improvements made 2019. Case by case and calendared according to rent income.

With the cost of Gov fees and the time it takes to go through planning process it is hard to build Apartments in Ca because your cost goes up 30 % from when you start planning process.

Yes
Yes. Particularly in multi family units. Rents are stagnant and expenses continue to rise.

It is a struggle. Owners must have cash to make repairs otherwise loans are too expensive and rents are not keeping up.

The cap ex applications are so much work and take so much time for an uncertain outcome that I haven’t bothered. I have slowed my maintenance and improvement schedule so that current rents can be saved to cover them
As we feel we owe it to both the City of Concord and to our tenants to maintain a quality property, we are currently in the middle of a $9 million rehab of our 208 unit community. Attempting to recoup this investment in the midst of AB 1482 is already going to be tough. Implementing even more restrictive controls will certainly make me question whether we did the right thing in providing the City with the beauty of a high quality property. Recouping this investment will prove futile.

I have owned long enough that I have adequate reserves for improvements no
Property owners accept way more liability and responsibility owning these assets. We have major replacement dollars that have to be forecasted and budgeted for.most of the time 45 percent of our rents go to operating expenses. Then another 25 percent for our loan. We budget 8 percent for average replacement. Another 2 percent for reserves. In theory 20 percent of the rents are distributable but owners most of the time have large projects to split their rates of return with big projects. Things like sb 721. insurance companies forcing us to replace main electrical panels, major projects like asphalt replacement building painting etc. It sounds like we make a lot of money on these to the tenant but we don't and there always budget busters that present themselves every year. I think tenants need to understand that property owners have way more on the line than they do and sometimes we have to commit to scheduled increases even when we don't want to to keep up with rising cost .

Have you struggled to recoup costs for capital improvements? How do they currently address issues at their properties that need improvements? (Continued) Prioritize projects and save for them where we can otherwise immediate repairs need to be done right away and we suffer the loss of money to do these projects Repair costs and tenant negligence is very real and huge expenses property owners save monthly for capital improvements or large unexpected expenses. when the residents pay what they are contracted to pay monthly, the property owners expect to pay for capital improvements without putting the burden on current residents.

Costs (labor 2x’s) have gone up and rents have not caught up with these increases. Our rents for the last 2-3 years have hardly increased because we do not want to lose tenants.

Yes, tennants want to destroy property and leave the property with more damage than their dep osit.

This property has recently replaced all roofs, replaced all single pane windows with dual panels, redone entire parking lot, replaced copper piping throughout, and painted entire property. If this property was completely reliant on cash flow generated by rent increases many of those huge capital expenses would not have been done!
keep up with repairs as needed
Yes. We need to do major projects like roof replacements that are very expensive.

Everything is so expensive & We cannot increase the rent to recoup No
I pay for improvements. You just need to shop around to get the best price. And regular maintenance is very important as well.

Fix things as necessary.

Tenant calls me when repairs or improvements need to be done. I have never charged the tenants for repairs or improvements.
unable tore recoup costs for new heating/AC, new refrigerator, new painting, tree trimming.

These are out of pocket, usually happens when there is a tenant turnover, so a new rental amount helps.

Inflation has driven capital improvements through the roof. All vendors are charging more than before now. These proposed rent control figures do not cover the increases that we are experiencing in maintaining the properties.

Yes, I'll need a new roof for at least 20K soon.

I struggle to recoup costs for capital improvement
Yes - right now, we're renovating 2 apartments that the tenants left in horrible condition, so our outstanding debt is very high.

Yes. I try to improve my properties every time they come vacant and at that time attempt to get the top rent the market will allow. When the market allows me to rent at a higher rate that helps pay for the improvements to the property.

I have struggled to recoup cost for capital improvements.

No
I’ve struggled to collect money on improvements. We are subject to unbelievable amount of inspections from the city. It was just supposed to be for blighted properties, but they go way overboard and make us have multiple re-inspections and do repairs that have nothing to do with blighted properties. It’s getting more and more difficult to do business in Conct. No more regulations. No more increases.

Currently I am incentivized to invest in my property in order to be able to reasonably increase the rents that tenants pay in exchange for increased living standards (for example adding AC, new cabinets, new flooring
Yes
A high capital expenditure is difficult to recoup if rents are capped Yes, increase annual taxes &n sewer rate fees, increase of 8+% in garage service,15 % increase in PGE fees all services included in rent to tenant. Operating expense jumped to 20% in 2022/2023

Have you struggled to recoup costs for capital improvements? How do they currently address issues at their properties that need improvements? (Continued) Yes, it is difficult to recoup the cost, given the fact of rent control, high insurance cost, and high material/labor cost of property maintenance and repair
there is no money for improvement. The rent I collect is not even enough to pay for mortgage, property taxes and homeowners association fees.

Yes. Between high property and income taxes, if there's a large capital improvement, that can wipe out any profits for the year
Yes
The cost of improvements on properties is very high now due to cost of materials and labor. We are paying close to twice as much on improvements now than just a couple of years ago. yes
yes I make improvements as needed to protect my substantial investment in these properties. With the cost of real estate in Northern CA, all landlords have substantial investments in their properties I plan for improvements but with limits on rent increases I have to plan more and if there is an emergency like a flood or unexpected issue, I might have to delay a planned value add improvement to address the emergency because of limits in place on rent increases already in place Capital improvement is fine. Allright as long as there is no rent control.

We've been able to recoup costs of capital improvements by raising rent. If we can't do that, then we won't be able to invest in the property nor capital improvements.

Most of us are locked into HOA dues and they determine capital improvements budgets. In the last two years special assessments were mandatory. This creates great pressure on us and tenants. But safety improvements by the city or state take president like over hanging decks needing replacements due to dry rot.

I can not recoup,costs for capital improvements. Market dictates how much I can raise the rent to recoup some of the cost.

My clients cannot make enough money to keep up and improve their Concord investments. Property taxes, insurance due to frivolous tenant lawsuits, salary for staff, mortgages that did not have 2 year Cov19 moratoriums for the owners, are substantive carrying costs. When a city ignorantly restricts rents, they restrict improvements most owners would otherwise make to upgrade their assets. A rental property is an investment. The landlord is not going to clear $100 every month and stay in business. As an investment, the roofs need replacing, buildings need repainting, siding needs updating, and most owners want to update water heaters (energy saving), HVAC systems, windows, etc. They are not able to set aside and spend this money without raising rents. Empathetic Concord or Contra Costa landlords have existed the rental market. 30% of our Concord clients are foreigners living abroad. This NEVER benefits the local community.

Question #3
What have been the two biggest challenges you face in being able to achieve a fair return?
Fees , the city of concord over the years has made it more difficult to run a positive business .as well any further laws or restrictions the city and state impose . Concord has always been a terrific city to be a housing provider . Good residents and affordable homes. Concord has been one of the lowest cost of living cities in the Bay Area , lets try to keep it that way .

Tenants have too many rights over landlords
fair and equitiable increase My rent is low and increasing it reasonably keeps it low

What have been the two biggest challenges you face in being able to achieve a fair return? (Continued)
Quality tenants are the key. Must avoid those tenants who won’t pay rent, smoke, have aggressive dogs, live in filth, etc.

None
No problem as long as Concord does not do a rent stabilization ordinance. Cannot get a fair return of investment with a rent stabilization ordinance. It would be like Oakland with high crime and dangerous.

Nonpayment of rent and bad tenants
The building is 50+ years old. The current rents do not justify the cost.

Market conditions over time. Taxes and government fees. tenants cannot afford the fair market value and the maximum rent increase restriction Tenant-favoring laws and poor credit quality of propective tenants which increases landlord risk that market rates cannot accommodate.

1.)Unanticipated rapid increase of expenses I cannot control 2.)Cost of improvements and repairs Evictions moratorium would put me in financial crisis.

Difficult to evict when needed.

My biggest fear is the regulations that will be imposed on landlords. Specially if I can not vacate a tenant who would not pay the rent or who will damage the house, does not comply with the rental agreement.

The high cost of goods/supplies to maintain property, unable to charge enough rent to cover costs, and high costs for real estate.

We have been reluctant to increase rents as much as allowed or needed.

Eviction laws, enforcement of current laws
Constant taxes and fees from city of concord and other government agencies Tenant”s Rights Act and tenant perception that I run a subsidized rental property and, therefore, their rent should never increase or stay very low.

Keep rents up with inflation and not run property at a loss and subsidize tenants Inflation, finding good tenants
Inability to terminate a lease. Failure to allow rent increases will be unfair to landlords trying to keep up with inflation and cost of living.

Repair costs and Property Tax increases
Inability to raise rents during Covid, willow pass and army base redevelopment or lack there of.. 10% plus pass throughs
Rent control and city inspection fees/permit
I keep my rental rates far below market, and have not had a problem getting, what I consider, to be a fair return. I am not greedy. Perhaps the big corporations are.........

Getting tenant to pay increase. They do not honor increases but pay old rent. They feel evictions will not happen sin Concord
Daily maintenance and utilities fees. the tenants tend not care to maintenance the property and conserve the utilities because they don't see the bills. if the law can make the tenant more responsible for their behaviors, the cost of rental will be much lower or lot more stable. if the landlord spends thousands on repair and maintain the property, then the rent will be increase on the next renewal term.
keeping government out of business decision and complying with the many burden that consume time and resources foir compliance that should be directed to productive activities that benefit tenants and owners. what benefit to me do you provide? i have yet to experience any positive return from your many and continuously-added burdens on my business.

I keep my rental rates below market rent to encourage responsible residents to stay, and have not had a problem achieving what I consider to be a fair return.

What have been the two biggest challenges you face in being able to achieve a fair return? (Continued)
Insurance has gone up or leaving CA and price of vendors to fix issues. We want to keep rent low but how can we when a basic faucet install is cost nearly a 1/4 of a lower rent Rent control advocates, rent control advocates.

Deadbeat tenants who use trickery to not pay
I personally charge a little below market, however if a major expense occurs I would need to have the option to raise rent accordingly to make the repairs.

None
Marker
Residents not paying their rent for the past 3 years and not being able to evict definitely don't help.

Further restrictions from councilmembers that have no idea what is involved in managing a property are an absolute challenge.

Secure long term good tenants.
1482’s limitations and how it caused tenants to never sign term leases Decent rent increase, market increase
Getting rid of problem tenants. Sheriff and courts taking too long.

Repairs and eviction costs for non paying tenants
High cost of : insurance, labor and materials for repairs, and tax.

The Oakland City Council and the Alameda Board of Supervisors. I am presently housing people who have jobs but do not wish to pay me. Oakland's laws encourage this behavior. And the tax base reflects the Government mismanagement/abuse.

City Counsel's constant enslavement/enforcement of idiotic rules proposed by rental advocates who do not even reside in Concord to begin with. The city's unfair rental registration and building inspection fees burdened by housing providers with continues increases with no end at sit e.

City council and rental advocates unrealistic expectation and socialism enforcement and enslavement of housing providers. Where is our slavery re-payments? The city council and the moron rental advocates and their bad actors.

1. Low market rent prices.

2. High HOA fees.

Rents in the market being lower than prior years, more supply in the area, Less regulation is better
Don’t know
high living standards in Bay Area require luxurious amenities to be competitive in the market place such as washer & dryer in units, outdoor living space, pets that cause damages, not being able to remove bad tenants in an expeditious way which creates a high risk environment where up to 6 or more months rent could be missing after an eviction. Evictions are not fun and are used only as a last resort to gain possession. Further complicating the process would lead to additional cost while diminishing the returns while the system would further reward bad tenants, encourage them to be worse.

Because we have been below market rental rate for so long, the 7-8% does not cover increase costs to do business nor save for improvements. We still have the loan to pay for improvements made in 2019.

Government involvement do
Cost of repairs/maintenance. Frequent turn over post Covid.

Cost of labor and improvements, tenants paying rent on time, being able to take increases as needed The inability to raise rents even to the rate of the consumer price index and rising costs, especially property taxes

What have been the two biggest challenges you face in being able to achieve a fair return? (Continued)
1) A poor tenant profile that comes from already AB 1482 restricted rents. Despite our best efforts at enforcing landlord rights, tenants too often opt not to pay.; 2) Section 8 challenges.

Tenants who do not pay as agreed.
finding good tenants, rent control
Water bill in contra costa and utilities. Comparatively to other markets we work in . we pay almost three times for the same trash refuse. We pay about double for the same unit count for water. The sewer bill on our parcel tax keeps going up . Increases in these areas and surcharges like a drought charge need to be curtailed here .

Govt interference
Collection of rents not paid from Covid. And, being restricted on rent increases allowed.

Repair expense w vendors and materials. Tenant abuse to property far exceeding security deposits Current residents that are below the market rent and owners cannot increase their rent to get them to market rents. Residents who won't or can't pay rent increases and then it is very difficult for landlords to evict them if needed.

Costs of maintaining the property have gone up far more than we’ve been able to raise rents. tennants paying their rent, tennants damaging property
Continual cost increases that outstrip income increases and a slowed down occupancy rate. constant increase in property taxes and increase of city fees Long time tenants and high costs for everything here (utilities, services, goods).

Increase in insurance, prop tax, interest rate, capital improvement etc much higher than inc rease in rent
None really. The market has allowed me to triple my rental income Sorting through applications.

Eviction moratoriums and the city.

If a tenant always pays rent on time and takes good care of my property I do not increase the rent but, the city, utilities etc keep increasing fees. Since I am no longer getting a fair return, I am now going to start increasing rent every year. Or I may have to sell my properties and that will take them off the rental market.

Free of tenant not paying any rent
Rising property taxes and sewer fees
Vendor costs have gone up. Utility costs have gone up.

Property taxes keep increasing and process to remove a bad tenant or recoup damage is horrendous here, as everything is in favor of the tenant, even when there is malice. Most tenants are good, but the bad one's can abuse the CA laws easily and frivolously. higher maintenance material and labour costs, not able to transfer these costs to tenant Covid and tenants who had drug issues and left our apartments in very bad condition. Not being able to do anything about it all during the moratorium, which affected the living experiences of the other non-drug using tenants.

The market (competition) limits how much rent you can ask for. Subsequently you can't find tenants that will pay higher than the "market rent".

Rent is too low for the property cost and repair cost is too high.

City of concord
Rent control
Getting rid of bad tenants quickly. Cooperation from city. Parsley in building department is petty a not flexible. Mandatory inspections at a huge cost. Let market decide rents CA rent control maxed out at 10%. The building I run has rents about half of market rent. That makes it hard to do necessary repairs when I can only catch up to market rent 10% / year. Imposing a lower limit for concord would make this even harder

What have been the two biggest challenges you face in being able to achieve a fair return?
Law suit thread
Finding proper tenants
City expenses in inspections, paper work on privacy of tents on unit data requested by city We didn't increase rent during Covid time. But now we cannot increase rent to the fair value.

The eviction policy is the worst. America is heading towards communism. there never should be a time when anyone can live in someone else's house for free. would you let some stranger move into your guest room and stay there for 2 years for free?
Not facing challenges at this time.

Rent increase. Capital pass through.
getting paid by the renters. finding renters with good credit

1. The inability to evict tenants who do not take care of the property and who continually cause damages to the property. 2. The continual threat of government intervention on behalf of tenants with onerous laws
why isn't the city regulating restaurants, clothing stores, grocery stores, gas stations on their prices and asking them what is a fair return.

None , as long as their is no rent control there is a fair rate of return.

Ambulance chaser, free attorneys that tell tenants to not pay the rent increase, which prevents landlords from making money and therefore investing in the property.

City of Concord over regulation. Any kind of rent board / stabilization , the small owner has only one choice to sell and or walk out of Concord. Small owners create relationships with great tenants and all sides care about happiness for everyone's benefits and success. It is extremely rare for any owner to kick someone out, so, if this happens it is normally non payment of rent, or conflict at the property, drugs etc. Very few tenants are landlords and are bad people. My guess is 2%, who needs them or wants them in Concord. If 98% or so are good and supportive do we really need more regulations and the costs to the City for this?
Rent Control in Concord, undue regulations, easier to invest capital out of state. With the tenant protection act, Concord's rent ordinance was unnecessary. I have many clients with SFRs who are pulling them all off of the rental market. It is easier to sell on the high market right now, than deal with aggressive, entitled tenants. Cov19 was the death knell for private investment in rental housing

Question #4
Have you encountered any challenges regarding the rent registry? What recommendations do you have to improve the rent registry process to make it more accessible/ easier to complete for your landlords while still providing a way for the City collect data on rental units?
it is very cumbersome, and expensive for landlords .
never used own one single family home in Concord and another in Antioch Not applicable
N/A I have not used the rent registry as I do not have a 4+ unit property.

The rent registry needs to be removed. It is a waste of the city's money. We have bigger problems with tenant attorneys that are against the owners. They are wreaking havoc with our city and city council.

Don’t know what this is. Maybe property manager deals with it.

I find it invasive. I don't feel it benefits the city, it only feeds you data to controll the owners.

The Concord rent registry violates contract and privacy laws.

Not applicable.

Have you encountered any challenges regarding the rent registry? What recommendations do you have to improve the rent registry process to make it more accessible/ easier to complete for your landlords while still providing a way for the City collect data on rental units?
No Comment
If restrictions make it too difficult to keep rental properties, then I would be forced to sell my rental properties which would impact my 13 year and 30 year tenants.

Does not apply.

No.

No challenge.
enforce current ones
They are non responsive. They don’t send paper bills. They double bill. The have no customer service I have not had problems
N/a
No
Rent Registry is a terrible violation of privacy for both landlord and residents. Unnecessary to achieve compliance.

Encourage easy online renewals
This has not been a challenge
No challenges with rent registry. However, all of these new rules/inspections/etc. require the landlord to pay more fees. Comes out of our fair market rent, and causes more work. Landlords alr eady have enough work, even though outsiders think it looks easy.

Cities should stay out of managing rental properties. Market forces will drive rents and returns.

Landlords like me are selling out sbd getting out of rental business in concord. Neighboring cities are better business models than Concord. We sold and have one property left in concord none
Unfamiliar with the registry, sounds like another rental 'fire hoop', one more reason to not have a rental. the registry should be unconstitutional and we should vote the council out of office I haven't experienced any challenges with the rent registry. The only negative part of the rent registry process is the fees that it costs the property owner.
no answer
No problems, Non multifamily
I use a property management company
I did not know about this
No
yes, it's awful and just makes it more difficult to conduct business in an unfriendly business town.

Do away with it. Partner with the major software companies such as Realpage and Yardi for them to provide data.

I am not aware of the rent registry and how the system works.

What information does the city need? Complete your physical inspections if concerned about poor physical conditions. What else does the city need?
Yes. Hire a new company.

There should be no registry
N/A
Simple. Do not have a rent registry. If you can not do the simple thing, then at least make allow PO Boxes and Property Managers to act on behalf of owners. This entire process seems to serve no purpose other than to allow tenants to dox property owners that they have a disagreement with. The fact of the matter is that housing is an emotional issue for almost everyone and emotional people make bad decisions. Rent Registries have the ability to take bad decisions and turn them into tragedies.

Have you encountered any challenges regarding the rent registry? What recommendations do you have to improve the rent registry process to make it more accessible/ easier to complete for your landlords while still providing a way for the City collect data on rental units? (Continued)
It is the most useless and privacy violation of tenant;s information that violates 4th and 5th amendments of US Constitution but the city does not really care. It is another way the city oversteps its boundaries and passes the cost to housing providers, why? It is the stupid and money making policy for the city at the expense of the land lords. The folks working at the rental registry are incompetent.

Stupid idea, stupid people working there who cannot do simple math.

N/A
na
No need to have rent registry
City government should stay away from the rental market.

No rent registry
Only additional burden for the owner that does not help the rental process.

I find the process intrusive.

Do away with rent registration
No challenges.

The city should collect as little information as possible. Rent amounts. Not renters contact information (this should be gotten directly from renters if at all), not size of units or number of amenities or anything additional to monthly payments. The registry might include whether or not the renters are actually paying the full amount and how much they are in arrears Other than it being a cumbersome process with a web site that doesn't allow for the saving of data for intermitting work on the registry, I don't have any major problems with it.

No problems
I do not see see the benefit of the registry
Yes . Their office is not responsive . please call us and make sure we are in compliance please No real problems. I’m not in agreement to have a rent registry.

Ability to petition rent
It is expensive. It is extremely detailed and time consuming to complete. I like to attach the rent roll to the registry. This is fairly simple to provide and it gives the rent and any other income. As the property manager, it was difficult to work with the City and get the registry coming to us and getting all the log in information so that we can complete it online.

Once we worked thru that, the online process works fairly well.

I am not sure if this fits here, but the City's property review and certification process is also very expensive and not clear. The fines for 'missed' appointments are much to high. Especially when required in person meetings are not made clear. In many areas of Concord, it is very hard and expensive for the landlord to keep ahead of the illegal dumping on the property. Then, the landlord is fined for the debris. Illegal activity is a constant battle and the City does not help good landlords who keep their properties in good condition for their residents.

It’s fine
The rent registry is a royal pain. It is extremely poorly designed and takes of ton of staff time to complete. What is the real reason for it? So the City Council has information?

1. You can easily get busy when inputting information and then get Timed Out and have to start again.

That is a stupid design

2. You can only do a year's worth of changes once a year....why not be able to input information monthly? That would be far less interfering with staff time. we do not understand why its processed and has to be done in FRESNO instead of CONCORD.

I don't remember
No issue
Yes
What? I have no idea what you're asking for
na.

I could not get the rent registry people to have my property titled the same as what I have had it listed with the City of Concord. So I noticed it is now what the registry people named it.

I do not care for the company that you are dealing with. no
Na
Concord charges for self inspections which is ridiculous.

It seems that everywhere you look, taxes are increasing and someone is trying to get your money with fees or extra costs. If the city simply wants to collect date, they shouldn't charge landlords to do so.

Landlords are more than willing to join a rent registry if there's no added costs. challenges
I am not familiar with "the rent registry".

NO
Government should get out of our business we own the property we should be able to rent it for what we want unless you wanna pay our taxes and mortgage maintenance Horribly run. Does not send out paper bills. Not responsive. Too much government interference Just make it online and streamlined with a phone number to reach a real human being in case of issues.

Yes my tenants are shocked that their units data is in the Concord system where it can be hacked by scammers and others
Never heard
it is horrible to adopt rent registry. who came up with this disastrous idea? Why don't they vacate their big houses and move into a,small apt and let others with 10 children move in? Registrys should not be allowed - its invasive
It is fine.

The city of Concord should abolish registry. Why? This leads to more regulation and ordinances so the city is vulnerable to lawsuits from tenants and owners.

Other than it being an intrusion, no.

Is a rent registry really needed? Will this become like Berkeley and San Francisco bureaucracy? Why not have every tenant register and monthly showing they paid rent per month so they can also help in this process?
Yes. Our clients left Berkeley, SF and Oakland due to rent control. They will not invest further in rental markets were they cannot afford roofs, to paint, to upgrade interiors, and so forth

Question #5
What policies would you hope to see included in a Rent Stabilization Ordinance adopted by the City? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Rent Pass throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
g. Rent Registry and Fees
you have plenty , no need for more rules . enforce the laws and rules that are on the books A not include individuals who own 2 or fewer rental in Concord Should focus only on larger apartment buildings. Limit rent increases to one year snd require 3 months notice for any rent increase greater than 10%. That is fair.

Absolutely NO rent stabilization or just cause legislation in Concord. We will end up like the rest of bad cities like Richmond, Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco.

Free market works best. If tenters can’t afford it, they go elsewhere and I lose money. If the city says I must lose money, I shut down the rental and they move elsewhere. Costs are high and we can’t all live where we want. I had to move multiple times in my life to afford a place (or pay for but not afford).

The city chargers a lot for fees. Rental caps only hurt the owners. Caps vs to cost of living, don't equal a just compensation.

Rent control has unintended consequences. It will reduce property values and force small landlords our of the real estate investment market. As it has in other areas.

My ideal outcome is to let open market economics prevail. Ordinances that pass set up loopholes that require more legislation and legal fees.

Rent control should be means tested only. Pass throughs need to be as close to 100% as possible otherwise there is no incentive to maintain property at a dignified level for tenants, wait until you are ready to sell to beautify the property; this is how a city ordinance can create blight and encour age poor living conditions. Max rent should remain at state levels.

No fees. I sold a Pleasant Hill rental because they charged annual licensing fee.

Hah! Lose landlords. Lose rental homes.

G
No. Just want to make enough to be able to support my family with a single income.

Following the policies and limitations included in AB1482 seem reasonable. Allowing generous banking helps avoid a forced annual increase. One of the unintended consequence of rent control, is that owners are forced to adopt annual rental increases to avoid being penalized with unfair limitations in the future increases.

All the above
B
Some consideration given to owners for once and not ALL skewed toward tenants.

Allow minimum increase of 5% annually plus cost of inflation, being able to evict tenants who violate house rules numerous times,
none, you are going to ruin the city with rent control. terrible Idea! Exclude separately metered and parcels units or townhouses less than 6 units 10% rent limit and 100% pass through over 5 years maximum. As buildings age they require more improvements.

I am not in favor of Concord imposing any kind of Rent Stabilization Ordinance. This would hamper landlords ability to keep up with repairs/improvement and make any kind of profit on the property.

What policies would you hope to see included in a Rent Stabilization Ordinance adopted by the City? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Rent Pass throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
g. Rent Registry and Fees
(Continued)
Covered units should be 5+ units in complex. We already have rent caps and eviction controls through the state of California. Why does the city of concord feel compelled to get involved. Enough is enough.

Let us run our business, just like the owners of 7-11, etc.

City gets out of the rental business entirely and let market forces dictate rents and returns. #C, rent pass throughs
Less 'rental fire hoops' not more.
we do not want your help in our business decisions or in the management of our rental business.

Covered units should be 5 or more units in a complex. The State of California has an annual rent cap increase of 5% plus CPI (Consumer Price Index), OR 10%, whichever is lower, which is manageable. I don't believe that the City of Concord needs to be any stricter than the existing California State Law. If the City does start with more aggressive rent caps, property managers may decide to remove their units from of the rental market, which will compound the housing shortage even more.

NO answer. Enforce evictions of tenants who don't live in a clean manner. It goes both ways. If I treat the property well, you should treat the property well.

Make a distinction between private landlords and hedge fund landlords. Us private landlords reward good tenants. Maybe “fees” for hedge fund landlords- they don’t mind they have plenty of money E
D
This is an awful survey, that has not been well thought out. Just like the Just cause for evictions.

Rent Stabilization is the worst idea ever, and does nothing to make housing more affordable.

There are bad tenants and good tenants. There are greedy landlords and reasonable landlords. The ordinances have negative impacts to reasonable landlords. Perhaps the ordinances should apply only to multiple units owned by large partnership, LLC and corporations.

Complete physical inspections and penalize bad landlords that don’t maintain their properties. 1482 has done ample damage to Landlords, the city of concord doesn’t need to inflict more pain. Take money from the multifamily tax you charge owners and use it to help tenants that need short term support.

B, c
No rent control
Ideal outcome is no interference. Free market
I am unfamiliar with these terms
You do not need to pass an ordinance. There is a perfectly good State law that is already being followed. If you feel that it is not being enforced, help enforce it. But do not add an additional layer of costs on an industry that is already extensively regulated.

None, if it is not broken do not fix it. Concord is the 4th lowest city to rent according to the city of Concord research. Leave it alone. If rent cap and control was so effective why is San Francisco the most expensive city to live at? Supply and demand is what drives the price not rent stabilization policies dictated by rental advocates and their made up stories.

What policies would you hope to see included in a Rent Stabilization Ordinance adopted by the City? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Rent Pass throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
g. Rent Registry and Fees
(Continued)
None. Concord is the 4th lowest city to rent according to the city of Concord research. Leave it alone.

If rent cap and control was so effective why is San Francisco the most expensive city to live at? Supply and demand is what drives the price not rent stabilization policies dictated by rental advocates and their made up stories.

None, if it is not broken do not fix it. Concord is the 4th lowest city to rent according to the city of Concord research. Leave it alone. If rent cap and control was so effective why is San Francisco the most expensive city to live at? Supply and demand is what drives the price not rent stabilization policies dictated by rental advocates and their made up stories.

None, I want to set my own rent prices.

Don't need this policy
City has better stayed away from rent issues
Align with state law which is strict enough.

Judge properties case by case. Income vs. Expense and projected necessary/manditory improvements on an aging property. You cannot lump all apartment properties into one group.

All of the above

A, B, F
C, D, G. Fees should apply to renters as well as housing providers or come out of the cities general funds
Minimize paperwork, exemption from Just cause for first 5 years, full COL allowed for rent increases, exemption for ADU if owner lives on same parcel.
rent pass through
Older complexes have higher expenses. intuitively you would think they should be allowed to raise rents more than newer construction. There should be pass throughs with a petition filed. All tenants should pay a proprortion of that value ad. They have options to relocate to cheaper housing that doesn't invest in their communities like we do . Registry should be free. There's not much hard cost involved with collecting/ managing data. Our property taxes should cover this cost . 5 percent plus infation is realistic. We are doing 3-5 currently year over year .

B G
Petition rent. Housing authority to pay for tenant damages I do not think that additional rent ordinances are needed, 1482 is sufficient. I think that enforcement of the current laws, and ordinances will help the situation without additional bureaucracy. The rent registry and fees should be streamlined and the fees to the landlord reduced.

California rent control laws seem to favor tenants. Why does the City of Concord feel like they need to do more?
Rent stabilization ordinance is a terrible idea. It causes units to become unavailable and unaffordable.

It causes an unbalance in the system. Look at Richmond and SF,

What policies would you hope to see included in a Rent Stabilization Ordinance adopted by the City? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Rent Pass throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
g. Rent Registry and Fees
(Continued)
Why call it a Rent Stabilization Ordinance. It's a rent control Ordinance. What properties will fall under this Ordinance? Historically, it's been older properties which BTW need the most capital improvements and due to lower market rents compounded by increase rent restrictions can't afford many necessary capital improvements so there is a deteriation of the property. Then the City inspects the property and forces the ownerships to do improvements.

Newer properties are super affected too because their cost to build is extremely high. If rent is controlled many new properties won't be built thus affecting availability.

All the fees associated with rent control also decrease profit. It's like paying someone to beat you up..

B.

Banking and easier ways to remove tenants who are harming the other residents/breaking the law Only covers landlord owning more than 4 units
B
None of the above
None.

Why don’t you put as much effort into encouraging landlords, rather than discouraging them, and driving them out of the city of Concord. You have made so many regulations that take away the landlords rights that it is difficult to continue a small landlord business. e
There should not be a policy that limits a landlord in what they can do with their property. They should not have additional restrictions burdening them.

C, G, B
As mentioned, the state has some of the most stringent rent ordinances in place on the state level in the U.S. More radical rent "stabilization" ordinances are only going to promote more conversions of units into shorter term rentals. Many landlords don't raise the rent significantly on a good tenant because they wouldn't want to lose them to the marketplace, but if I know they can't raise rents reasonably and without the city interfering, they'll either keep the unit vacant or figure out a shorter - term solution i.e. airbb.

Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
There is no need for a rent registry. California has laws in place that protect the tenants and landlords.

No additional burdens need to be placed on the landlords, especially as we're coming out of the Covid moratorium.

I don't have an opinion on this. Again, I think the open market is the best approach for everyone.

Government mandated rent control will hurt the rental market in the long run, for both property owners and tenants.

E
Drop all of this BS
Less regulation. Fair market practices. No rent control

What policies would you hope to see included in a Rent Stabilization Ordinance adopted by the City? What is your ideal outcome? Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Covered Units
b. Maximum Allowable Rent Cap
c. Rent Pass throughs
d. Banking
e. Enforcement Mechanism
f. Petitions
g. Rent Registry and Fees
(Continued)
I don’t care about banking or pass through. Those are cumbersome to track and implement. I would just want a reasonable rent cap that is some amount greater than CPI so that I can stay up with costs.

B
No rent registry or rent caps please
C,G
None
none of the above. you are wasting your resources.

I don't think the city should interfere anymore than they already have. I think all the cities are creating a situation where homeowners are bailing on being property owners in California because of the regulations and ordinances that are put in place. The tenants have all the rights and the property owners take all the risk. They are the ones who are providing housing that is needed. But every time that a city passes (or at times even talks about passing) more ordinances and laws we have property owners who tell the property managers or their agents to sell their property(ies) because they are going to take their money to a state and/or city/county that appreciates that they are providing housing. no rent control
None of these as they take away the landlord's rights of ownership. you dont need to regulate rents any further. we have state law and other tools already in place in Concord. lets make sure those laws are working, people know about them, and focus on building housing not further asking housing providers to further limit their ability to provide housing NO rent control legislation is needed.

The Tenant attorneys harrasing you for their wish list are from Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco and they are harassing you and your staff and City council. If rent control exists in Concord, then it will destroy this city just like it has in Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley.

Just make a rent registry and apply fees. If a landlord goes over the allowable increase (CPI+5%) then implement a fine. Nothing else is needed other than that.

If the city wants more units build by small landlords a fair return will have to be sought and low or not over baring rent controls like you are proposing. If not why invest in Concord when other places do not have what you are proposing? Why do I have to pass the costs to my tenant for your registry? This seems like my only choice and might not be fair to them.

If you want to attract private capital for rental housing, repeal rent control. State regs already are in place. You don't need to micromanage landlords, and it won't be tolerated. Get your hands off the landlords money.

Question #6
What are the biggest challenges that you face under the City’s current Just Cause Policy?
If an owner needs ( for what ever reason ) if they need to move a family member in or they themselves wish to move back into their own property , it is very expensive to pay the resident that is moving out.

Too hard to evict a bad tenant
n/a
Have not had to evict anyone.

None to date
AS I'm elderly I would never rent my home if I had to move due to the probability of my home being covered by this ordinance in the future. I would sell to ensure I would have the funds to pay for whatever type of living arrangement I might require. Cities that have ordinances covering rent increases are cities that soon have many fewer rental units.

No more just cause legislation.

Do not listen to the tenant attorneys. They are in Concord to make more money for their industry. The results are high crime, murders and misery like Oakland.

I’ve never evicted anyone.

Just Cause, ties our hands behind or backs. NO RECOURSE for eviction of bad tenants I haven't been affected by the policy yet.

Landlords do not terminate tenancies of good tenants. These policies make it impossible to get rid of problem tenants, drug dealers, tenants that are causing harm to property and the peaceful enjoyment of good tenants.

Legal and procedure costs including time.

Policy does not allow property owners to obtain fair market value for their home if they are unable to discontinue renting in order to sell. Appraisal documentation proves tenants in place with below market rent or limit access affects final sales price. Eviction process encourages tenants to engage in extortion with move out or relocation assistance programs.

Not sure, as I have not needed to evict.

Does not apply
Tenannat may not be honest, lies and paint different picture from the real situation.

It creating a financial hardship/expense that cannot be afforded.

It has not been problematic. I have not needed to terminate anyone’s tenancy.

Local politics
Courts and sheriff are back
Backed up months
Every situation is unique and to make a blanket policy is myopic.

Tenants want quiet enjoyment of their units - just cause is making it very difficult, costly and time consuming to make this happen -
Troublesome tenants tend to lie and can be aggressive - owners have become the victim For concord to turn into a city like Berkeley or Oakland Inability to get criminals out of our property due to unable to terminate a lease.

Forcing owners to pay for relocation costs in unavoidable or critical need for remodeling Any relocation expenses. It is hard enough to adequately cash flow when we are constantly fixing and improving the property. In 2025 balconies need to be fortified. Landlards should not have to pay relocation expenses for state mandatory laws
Evictions do not favor the landlord. I had to evict a tenant who hadn't paid the rent for 4 months and then ended up waiving the back rent and the cost of an attorney when requested a jury trial for the eviction that would have pushed his eviction out several more months We have lost our freedom to run our businesses independently.

What are the biggest challenges that you face under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued)
It is interference adding to cost and personal time to manage.

Most of time, the city official side with the tenant which make the landlords more selective on tenants, therefore, tenants with low income got stuck with not many choices where they can live. more often, if they got evict once, they will be hard to find another property to rent. concord's gpvernment is a terrible burden on owners and renting in Corcord. Some tenants do not respect property and they have the upper hand and always threaten to withhold rent if trivial services are not provided. these cost time, effort, and often add to expenses that are not recoverable. se now increase rents as often as allowed knowing that if we do not do so, we will be left behind.

We are not able to run our properties without government interference. A rental agreement is a contract, and both the property owner and resident have obligations to each other. If an obl igation is not met, and is not rectified in good faith within 3 days, property owners should have the right to do what is best for their property. Otherwise, what good is a rental agreement?? Why does a property owner have to keep their obligations, if a resident does not? If they are destroying the property they should leave - unsanitary conditions, not performing yard upkeep - we should be able to evict anyone that does not care for the property in a sanitary, mindful way
No burden of proof for tenants to make up sob stories
None
Losing money and unable to recoup any lost revenue due to bad tenants.

It takes way too long. Shoplifting is a crime, but stealing stealing thousands of dollars from property owners by not paying rent is okay?
It protects the bad tenants to the detriment of reasonable property owners.

Processing unlawful detainers timely for tenants that don’t pay rent or that breach their lease covenants.

Time consuming, paperwork, then we can’t get rid of tenants who aren’t paying.

Speed
Tenants can trash my property and there’s nothing I can do about it None so far
Any tenant that fails to pay their rent is going to raise Just Cause concerns when taken to court. Every property owner becomes a racist, sexist, homophobic monster when the rent is three months past due.

This is just rubbish. Every tenant facing eviction calls for a City or County inspection of their apartment. 4 months ago, I had a tenant miss a payment by two weeks and call the City to conduct an inspection.

Of course, the tenant never called me to request repairs. Six dollars later, the "problems" were solved.

If this had gone to court, their attorney would have pontificated about that nonsense for more than a few minutes.

A tenant can do whatever they want and you cannot get rid of them which borduns the housing providers with additional cost, attorney fees, etc. Just to get rid of the tenant that has become a nightmare for the entire community.

It is unjustified and treat housing providers like criminals.

A tenant can do whatever they want and you cannot get rid of them which borduns the housing providers with additional cost, attorney fees, etc. Just to get rid of the tenant that has become a nightmare for the entire community.

That is is a bullshit policy and I should always be allowed to evict and remove my tenant as I see fit when they are outside of a standard 12 month lease.
rent increase and collection
Too much beaurocrocy
no real teeth to get a bad tenant evicted.

What are the biggest challenges that you face under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued)
It's difficult enough to remove a tenant who has broken their lease, especially for non- payment of rent.

Our last eviction (rarely happens) cost approximately $12k to remove him. The emotional distress it caused the manager is never measured. Also, the eviction not only effects the bottom line of the owner, but is also unfair to the existing tenant whose future rent may be impacted due to eviction expenses.

Fairness to landlord, we take all risks.
inability to evict a tenant who is not paying, causing damage to the property, etc.

Eviction should happen when eviction is warranted. Owner needs to be protected or owners will not want to have rental housing any longer
I have to be extremely choosy about who I rent to. I cannot afford and eviction.

It is currently too difficult to remove irresponsible tenants...and there are a lot of them.

I had apts in SF and twice had to pay tenants to vacate to avoid lengthy legal process and prove which tenant is causing noise. Each tenant blames the other. My suggested solution is to require just clause only after several years of tenancy because it is unlikely that an owner would abuse when rents are close to market and if owner gets a problem tenant, it will usually be obvious within the first few years.

Just cause makes it more difficult to manage property
Pervasive violations of the rules and provisions in the communities. We end up losing our effectiveness as landlords to guranatee provisions promised in the lease. Nuisances are allowed to remain in the property longer than they should be . I'm all for making landlords prove that they are not retaliating /violating fair housing laws. However, I think you should be able to remove a tenant for lease violations more efficiently .

Too many restrictions that better serve the residents and not owners. Now a days people are too smart about how to get around legal issues and evictions.

Tenants destroying property
Property owners rights are being illegally taken away. It is very expensive and difficult to ask a tenant to move for legitimate reasons (owner or family member needed housing, selling). It is also difficult to have a Unlawful Detainer due to unpaid rent be successful. Tenants have free legal assistance, property owners do not.

It’s fine
Tennants will continue to occupy the unit and not pay rent becasue they know it will be months before the landlord is able to remove them.

We have always believed in just cause, and have never evicted a resident without it. Almost all evictions ....which we have only had a couple in the last ten years...are due to non -payment of rent.

The extent of allowable just causes is important though. Why should a property have leases and rules that specify reasons for "just cause", only to have those contractually agreed to issues negated by an Ordinance.

Anything that causes harm or harassment of another resident is a just cause but that is getting hard to use. Excessive noise that causes other residents to move, creating an unhealthy environment by filth .....I can go on and on but you get my point
We have not yet had to evict since the "just cause" became effective.

Challenges to remove tenants who are harming others on the property or breaking the law (breaking into other tenants mailboxes and stealing checks, identities, etc.) Too much protections for tenants who do not want to pay Lying tenants
Standard to evict a criminal is a much higher standard.

There are many bad tenants. You need to try to protect people that want law enforcement and feel safe in their home. If you make, it to difficult for landlords to get bad tenants out of the building or home, it affects everyone around them. There needs to be less restrictions on evictions.

What are the biggest challenges that you face under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued)
tenant not paying rent, abusing just cause policy, length of time to evict, unable to collect loss rent Can't get bad tenants out. They take advantage of the system knowing we can't get rid of them.

The city, county and State have gone way beyond tenants rights. If a tenant is not paying rent, we should be able to ask them to leave. If we have to go through the eviction process, the tenant should be responsible for those costs outside of any deposits for the condition of the house. In other words can we start looking at property managers and owners as equal status. These are properties that we have purchased and maintained. As an investment to provide housing. I feel like the tenants in some cases take advantage and that becomes quite expensive on many fronts for the homeowner. Given today's economy, and within the current legal limits and regulations, and eviction should go fast and be paid for by the tenant.

The policies are getting more and more radical, and less and less balanced. Of course there are slumlords, but most landlords are good people who want to provide safe and clean housing for their tenants. They don't want to take advantage of people. But know with increasingly radical Just Cause Policies, landlords are increasingly getting the shorter end of the stick. There are contingency attorneys lined up to represent a tenant for free, because these laws are so easily taken advantage of. Landlords are finding it harder and harder to get rid of tenants with poor morality or integrity, as they can pull out so many different stops and maneuvers to halt the process, even when they're in the wrong. Landlords and Tenants BOTH need protections, but it's increasingly skewing more in favor of tenants. Lastly, this is actually hurting tenants. How many landlords are willing to overlook criminal history, mediocre or poor credit history, etc. if they know they can't get the tenant out (or it will be VERY expensive) wh en they're not paying rent or breaching the lease somehow? You will see Concord landlords with increasingly strict requirements, as it is getting absurdly difficult to change tenancy when there is a breach.

City's current just cause policy does not help property owner at all Evicting tenants who are doing drugs/causing issues for the other tenants and not being able to remove them. Also, tenants who are violating the terms of the lease to which they agreed and not be able to do anything but give them warnings.

I have not experienced situations that were affected by the "Just Cause Policy".

Government telling us what to do
Bad judge. Too slow. Sheriff is way behind
None. It is fair.

Not been able to get my own property back
Unable to evict poor tenants
Too long to include in this response other than operating expenses increase, maintenance costs have increased beyond rent control it is time as a landowner to reevaluate staying in business or convert to condos and sell out!
Have les & less homes in rental market
I may not want to be a,landlord. I would not rent out.

Eviction
In my experience the tenants know how to use every loophole to delay things. Meanwhile you have "mom and pop" property owners who have invested and taken risk to have an income. It takes very little for them to get buried financially with rent not being paid, damage being done to the property, having to hire attorneys, etc. Meanwhile the tenants who are not paying rent, not following the rules, doing damage to the property get free attorneys who help them to slow down the process and delay the property owner getting the rightful return of their property. problem getting rid of problem renter after one year
The serious limitations - inability to evict tenants who continually damage the property then complain wanting it fixed.

What are the biggest challenges that you face under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? (Continued)
making sure I use the right forms and follow the right laws as there are now state and local laws on evictions
Currently Concord owners cannot afford the excessive relocation fees that are higher then the state relocation fees.

Having to pay terrible people, subletters, and other bad actors $5,000 for no reason other than the policy. Landlords won't kick out good people, only bad ones. 99% of what I have heard from other small landlords say the costs to evict is costly and not desired. It is by far not someones first choice! Collection of rent is most of the issues. Only one other time the tenants caused so much commotion to others living in the building do to alcohol chalanges and multiple Concord Police involvement prompted extreme action!
Selling at top of the market to new home buyers; buyers want properties empty, waiting for Ellis Act evictions can take up to 4 months. Landlords want to exit Concord now.

Question #7
What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
For starters , we are not in support of any Just Cause Ordinance. Landlords should have the right , with proper notice to the resident to ask people to move . Owners should continue to have control of their property rights We favor any law as long that it is fair to residents as well as landlords. Of course if residents are mistreated , that is not acceptable .Keep in mind that all and any ordinance should be fair and balanced.
since you gave not place for general comments I put mine here. If someone base rent is significantly below market is there away to limit rent control For example I rent a 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom for $2,200 per month my renters have been in property for over 10 years I have did not increase rent during covid years and generally have raised rent 50-100 dollars each year But if rental control is applied to single family property owners will we be able to increase rents to current market rates? using a broad brush for limiting rent increases will cause hardship for owners. It may create a increase in turnover of renter just to get a rent increase. Consider rental control if current rent is over 85% of market rent for similar homes.

Just Cause ordinances make being a landlord much more expensive/difficult. If you want to reduce the number of rentals available and increase rents, continue with “just cause” rules and rent caps. If you want the market to provide more housing at lower costs, Keep it simple and just require more advance notice of rent increases so tenants have time to move.

If more legislation occurs, it is because the tenant's attorneys will injure our reputation and cause lawsuits to the city like Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles. These cities have received multiple lawsuits from owners regarding bad rent legislation and just cause legislation thru the years.

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
The ability to get someone out if I need to and the ability to give renters the security of a multi -year lease rather than the month to month required to obtain any semblance of a timely eviction. It must be fair to both sides. I’m not doing this out of charity and I’m far from rich or even well off.

That the owners has the right to manage their property, without the cities interference.

The ideal outcome would be for government to stay out of business.

No ordinance.

Removal of relocation fee. It makes no sense.

If bias in favor of tenant, might force me to sell properties taking inventory out of Concord Just cause?
I hope it is fair to owners as it is to tenants. A living wage to support my family in Concord with a single income.

It is very important to be able to protect an environment where residents feel safe and happy. If it is too difficult to terminate tenancy of an undesirable tenant, it becomes impossible to protect the peaceful enjoyment by the majority.

All the above
B
Don’t agree with a Just Cause Ordinance for the above stated reason.

Be fair and don’t make owners carry the burden financially and emotionally and realize there are bad tenants as well as bad owners.

I was a property manager for 35 years and I’ve seen it all - there are 2 sides.

A-e
I hope just cause beyond state caps will not be voted.

Mediation
If a panel is used it needs to be fair just and consistent. Oakland's rent control board is inconsistent.

Oakland has rent control which doesn't work.

I hope the City of Concord reconsiders getting involved in private businesses. Landlords should be treated better and left alone. That way, we will want to build more housing units and continue supporting ourselves. Instilling so many new rules makes us want to stop being landlords in California.

These sentiments only hurt the rental inventory. It gets smaller and smaller, with less supply, high demand, and naturally, higher rental rates.

Get out of the rental business like the surrounding communities where city hall does not interfer in rental business.

To be fair on both side, not just so protect the tenant. More consequences for bad tenants, ex. they can fail to pay rent or damage the property after they decided to vacant, there is no recourse for them. however, if the landlord fails to comply with the law, the city can go after the landlord because the property can't move away. therefore, if the city can go after the tenants as the same way as they go after the landlords, the landlords will be more willing take more risks and less selective on their next tenant and this can translate into less homeless.

Too many special protections for renters for me.

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
get out of my business. this survey ios biased to get the answers that will keep you in business of interference in a free enterprise and will encourage sale of rental units including ours I hope the City of Concord does NOT move forward with a Just Cause Ordinance. Please read a blank Rental Agreement, and see that it protects residents and their rights. More and stricter rights to the resident at the expense of taking away rights from property owners, is unjust and unnecessary.

We should not have to pay relocation for anyone. Owners need those funds to fix up the properties when they trash them. If there were mediators to say, care for/clean up the property then maybe you can stay!
Mediation with the goal of fairness and following the terms of the rental agreement Noticing requirements and connection with organizations that offer tenant assistance when tenants are short covering rent
E
I hope the city leaves us alone and try not to make California the laughing stock of the nation.

I HOPE THIS MEASURE FAILS.

I don't have sufficient information to respond to this question.

Tenants that don’t pay, take advantage of our system that favors tenants or those that commit crimes and negatively impact other residents need to be evicted swiftly.

Mediation may be the best way to go
Speed in removal
Quick removal of bad tenants
?
Just Cause was invented so that property owners could not get around strict rent control systems. But systems similar to the State's law, which balance the interests of property owners and tenants do not have a substantial number of people trying to get around them. The best solution is to NOT pander to the interests of the professionally aggrieved "Tenants Rights Advocates" and avoid reducing Concord's business tax revenues. Do NOT implement Rent Control. Do NOT implement Just Cause.

Do NOT require rent registration.

It will achieve nothing but to make matters worse for all concerned. Is this city council this oblivious that it costs more for housing providers to get rid of tenants that do no obey by their signed lease agreement. If it costs more to litigate and protect your investment, you have to increase your rents in order to cover the costs you are forced to take due to this city councils stupidity and incompetence which will be borne by the next prospective tenant. Ultimately, it will increase the cost of rents in concord and making matters worse for the renters as well as housing providers and investors. It is obvious that it is not the tenants you care about but your re-election that is driving this. SHAME ON YOU NALL.

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
It will achieve nothing but to make matters worse for all concerned. Is this city council this oblivious that it costs more for housing providers to get rid of tenants that do no obey by their signed lease agreement. If it costs more to litigate and protect your investment, you have to increase your rents in order to cover the costs you are forced to take due to this city councils stupidity and incompetence which will be borne by the next prospective tenant. Ultimately, it will increase the cost of rents in concord and making matters worse for the renters as well as housing providers and investors. It is obvious that it is not the tenants you care about but your re-election that is driving this.

It will achieve nothing but to make matters worse for all concerned. Is this city council this oblivious that it costs more for housing providers to get rid of tenants that do no obey by their signed lease agreement. If it costs more to litigate and protect your investment, you have to increase your rents in order to cover the costs you are forced to take due to this city councils stupidity and incompetence which will be borne by the next prospective tenant. Ultimately, it will increase the cost of rents in concord and making matters worse for the renters as well as housing providers and investors.

I hope to see the city not be so retarded to enforce something that will cause owners to avoid owning property in concord because they don’t want the government controlling their private properties.

Need mediation if there is a dispute.

Do nothing
be clear about the enforcement mechanisms and requirements to notice. Mediation is done as part of the fact finding why tenants are late in their rent payments. There should be language that makes it clear for tenants that they have signed a legally binding contract and non payment of rent is breaking this contract. If rental contracts can't be enforced, they become irrelevant opening up the possibility that owners take the law in their own hand to gain possession of THEIR property which could lead to violence and unrest. Also keeping in mind that stricter tenant laws will lead to more housing shortages as owners will not be willing to rent their properties as they will lose possession, possibly forever without compensation. The better route for owners will be to sell and leave the area and/or the state like many already did where the right of possession are respected and enforced as they have a choice. Providing housing in CA is not an obligation for owners but rather an exercise of risk management. Investing in real estate across the nation has become much easier in recent years as cost effective property management services have been built to support absentee owners nationwide, leveling the playing field amongst the states.

No answer at this time.

All of the above
c
E
Only benefit is to protect tenant from eviction only to increase rent.

Just cause bad idea, Concord rents are reasonable to other cities I spend a lot of money to maintain my building
Rent control makes it more difficult

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
Sac City started a program called Tenant Protection Program. It literally is the same thing as eviction court. A violent aggressive tenant remained in the property an additional 3 months longer because a mediation program demanded to see my evidence before allowing our case to be heard by a judge or commissioner a second time. I think this is not necessary . The tenant already has a trial to defend their position when quit notices are moved forward to an unlawful detainer proceeding.I think you guys should spend money attending those hearings and collecting information from those hearings to target landlords that are not practicing fair methods with their tenants. instead of general enforcement with all landlords.I think a landlord should provide 2 months plus deposit if they want to do a no fault termination. I don't think there should be limits on removing that tenant for a small list of reasons. A landlord should be able to recover their property with a 60 day notice and 2 months of rental assistance and deposit. That gives the tenants 60 day start to find housing and extra funds to cover the cost to move and less hassle with the move out process with guranteed security deposit delivered.

B. D
No relocation benefits.

I believe the State Just Cause covers all of these items. If we just go by the State law and enforce it, many problems will be solved. Most property owners want to keep their residents. Owners need residents, and they provide decent places to live and take care of maintenance and treat residents respectfully. Enforce the law on those (both residents and owners ) who do not obey the current law.

Why do you feel like a change needed? There are already pretty stringent ‘just cause’ laws on the books? Concord is a hard rental market for leasing. It always has been and it always will be. It’s very difficult to find qualified tenants to rent to in Concord. This pushes landlords to settle for not -so- qualified tenants. Even with strict background checks a landlord rents to tenants with a hope and a prayer that the tenant will pay their rent on time and work with you on maintenance issues. Hopefully you can reconsider any changes in 3+ years since we have just come off of COVID. Honestly one more rental restriction with Concord and I’m seriously considering selling. Much easier to work with and rent to tenants in WC / Lafayette or surrounding areas.

Would be helpful if the just cause ordinance had an effective plan to remove tennants who abuse the system and the property.

Let the courts determine how just cause an eviction is. That is the correct way to do it Enforcement and mediation options
Relocation benefits should not be paid by landlords as long as enough notice is given ie 2 months B
Oh my God, stop with all of the regulations, stop with all of the red tape and stop putting more barriers up for either property owners or investors.

Why can't you guys get your s*** together and develop the land at the Concord naval station. At least 25% of it! You want to find housing do it there!
Honestly if you keep putting all these barriers in the way of property owners that would like to rent out there property, and or investors... Then they will start leaving. And the value of homes will start to go down along with the economy and along with all of the other taxes that we are being asked to pay left and right. Go find a different issue and put your energy there.

What did a just cause ordinance acheive in San Francisco?

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
Make it less restrictive for the landlords to be able to evict tenants that break laws, don’t pay rent, make other tenants or neighbors, feel unsafe, selling drugs, violence towards others. b. Please specify the exact number of months a tenant can be behind in rent before they are automatically evicted. The current laws/ordinances are open to interpretation and cost too much time and money to enforce. My rental is in Walnut Creek, but as different cities make it more difficult to collect rent, it creates a new norm. I only have one house for rent. If the renter doesn't pay the rent, I will have difficulty paying the mortgage.

If you want more housing, then make it safer for people to invest in Concord. How about the city making up for lost rent in tenant hardship cases? How about the city guaranteeing jobs for tenants who lose their jobs? Or guaranteeing income for tenants who become disabled? In other words, make it easier for tenants to pay their rent. Where is the financial protection for property owners? NA
B. D
I think it will ultimately hurt both tenants and landlords in the long run for previous reasons mentioned.

There will be more frivolous lawsuits that screw over housing providers, and allow more tenants to abuse the system. In the long run, more and more housing providers will come to the conclusion that the risk is not worth it, and will either sell their properties or change their model to something less risky i.e. short or mid-term. I don't think enough people take into consideration how much risk CA landlords are taking i.e. liability, eviction issues, etc.

Relocation benefits
Enforcement mechanisms, noticing requirements, buy out agreements, reasonable relocation benefits I don't know enough to have an opinion about this.
b
More resentment more people want to sell and own property in other cities and other states.

This city is turning into communism
Nothing. I want less regulation
B
There should be no just case eviction law
all of above
Enforcement Mechanism
none of the above. abolish this stupid will be ordinance.

See above.
just cause to be on homeowner side for once
Elimination of Just Cause and elimination of the requirement to pay a tenant to vacate when landlord needs to take the unit off the market
fairness for landlords and tenants and consistency with state law

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
All this proposed rent control legislation is horrible for Concord! We will end up looking like San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. They all have rent control and all have crime, excessive homelessness and unsafe neighborhoods. Is that what your objectives are? Do you want to end up like Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco? Just cause does nothing. It protects the bad tenants that give tenants a bad name. If you implement a rent registry, you'll be able to know very quickly if a landlord is acting in good faith or not when removing a tenant.

Mediation might be helpful
You have failed to study the housing inventory and rapid deterioration of rent controlled neighborhoods in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. You did not have a survey prepared of neighborhoods in San Francisco and Berkeley before rent control (kept up, painted, repaired) and after rent control. You have failed to perceive the shift in demographic ownership from the individual contractor who once built or fixed up a building, to Chinese syndicates buying rentals all over the bay area who invest nothing, or remodel at Ikea to last for 3 years (but it will stay in place 30 years). You have imposed liberal Democrat socialist polices to virtue signal "the City Council cares." You certainly do not care. You were unduly influence by tenants rights groups who invest ZERO in Concord's housing inventory. You sold out and made landlords in Concord feel unappreciated, just to virtue signal you cared about tenants/and or affordable housing. Affordable housing is NEVER concurrent with nice neighborhoods. You are on a track running this city into an "affordable city," but it has lost the feel of a country suburb with conservative social and political values.

You are on tract with policies such as those creating Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta and (ominously) San Francisco. There are some evil landlords in every city. There is a way the free market deals with evil landlords - tenants move. Its quite simple without government interference. Also, a state cap of 10% is and has long been in place as the maximum rent increase. You tried to squeeze the Concord landlords to virtue signal to tenants. What squeezes Concord landlords is the reality of their mortgages, property taxes, rental insurance policies (about $300k for a 100 unit building), ability to hire property managers, need to constantly upgrade a building to try to keep up and improve a neighborhood.

You are attacking rents, want cheap rents, but you aren't paying the landlords a $1000 month subsidy per unit. That means the buildings will fall into disrepair. And like in Harlem, and Atlanta, Detroit, and St. Louis, you will have your cheap rent until the buildings fall apart and are tear downs. Then you will have no rental. Because there is no such thing as a free lunch, and robbing landlords is only going to get you fewer landlords.

What do you hope a Just Cause Ordinance in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome?
Examples include feedback on the following topics:
a. Petitions
b. Enforcement Mechanism
c. Noticing requirements
d. Relocation benefits
e. Mediation
(Continued)
You misread the market. There are some very greedy developers building like crazy in Concord, throwing up stacked housing. They will lease up and sell and never care again, nor care about what happens in Concord. Housing isn't cheap and the government cannot subsidize people's lives. If you want people to work and pay for housing, stop paying them to be homeless. The more the government entitlements went up, the more homelessness went up. Naturally, we do not hear from the council on this.

It comes down to the truth you will not face on the city council - sooner or later, you are going to run out of other people's money to spend. The city will have to take over and pay for and maintain all of the rental housing in Concord. Cancel all the pensions of the city council, you still cannot afford that.

We have a flood of illegal aliens creating a housing shortage. The problem is not the housing inventory. Its the open border. The flood of illegals, they do work, under the counter, in a shadow economy, and Concord does not have a tap root into that. Nor does the state. Just stand in a Concord Safeway and observe the steady stream of customers in line handing Safeway handfuls of cash and sending money via Western Union out of Concord and back to Mexico or somewhere in Central or South America, Asia. The housing shortage, the homeless, its a symptom of a bigger problem. But open borders are not the problem you, as City Council members, have addressed in your Don Quixote fantasy charge enacting rent control. REPEAL it and lead the league of cities after the governor to close our border and support ICE throughout the state. Do not patronize the residents of Concord with your silliness that you are going to control rents in an out of control economy and out of control country to placate the strident, shrieking voices of tenant advocacy groups with a big virtue signal that shot a hole in your own private capital invested in Concord rentals.

Jane Creason
of counsel
PKS Law Group
counsel to landlords 20 years

August 18th, 2023
To: Laura Hoffmeister, Mayor
Edi Birsan, Vice Mayor
Laura Nakamura, Councilmember
Carlyn Obringer, Councilmember
Dominic Aliano, Councilmember
Cc: Sophia Huckabay, Housing Manager
Kelly Rush, Housing Program Analyst
Dear Members of the Concord City Council,
Since 2016, tenant leaders and staff members from our respective organizations have called upon the City of Concord to take meaningful action to stop the displacement of low-income renters, immigrants, and people of color by passing rent stabilization and just cause for eviction policies. Earlier this year, the City Council committed to do so by December 2023 as part of its Housing Element Update. After seven years of meetings, studies, and debates, we are now at a critical point of developing and adopting policies that will stabilize the individuals, families, and neighborhoods that form the fabric of our community.

In order to make the long-awaited promise of tenant protections meaningful, however, the City’s rent stabilization and just cause policies must be crafted in a manner that is responsive to the experiences and expertise of the tenants most impacted by the city’s affordable housing crisis. We, the undersigned organizations, present the following memo to outline a series of policy recommendations that we feel must be included to ensure that Concord’s forthcoming tenant protections are fair and effective.
1 Attachment 4

Methodology
These recommendations have been developed through years of dialogue with tenants who are directly impacted by the affordable housing crisis in Concord. At the same time, they have been strengthened via comparison to tenant protection policies in comparable cities across the Bay Area. While there are sixteen cities with rent stabilization and/or just cause in the region, not all of these cities are similar enough to Concord to serve as reasonable points of comparison for the purposes of policy development. Therefore, we have limited our comparison to the six cities that are most similar to Concord across the four social metrics that we feel are most pertinent to the matter of tenant protections and equity for renters:
● The total number of renter households
● The percentage of renter households as a share of all households ● The percentage of renter households that are cost burdened ● The percentage of residents that are people of color
This approach was meant to avoid the trap of comparing Concord to localities that are incompatible in terms of their size (San Jose), preponderance of renters/homeowners (San Francisco, Fairfax), socioeconomic characteristics (Los Gatos), and demographics (Petaluma, East Palo Alto). Instead, we calculated a dissimilarity score that accounts for all four of these metrics and selected the cities that are, statistically, most comparable to Concord: Alameda, Antioch, Berkeley, Hayward, Mountain View, and Richmond (see Appendix 1).1
The rest of this memo provides nine recommendations for how to create the strong rent stabilization and just cause policies that Concord residents need and deserve, drawing insight from tenant experiences as well as the policy and implementation measures in these six cities.
1We limited our selection of comparable cities to those with a dissimilarity score below 1.00. While San Rafael had a dissimilarity score of 0.73, we excluded it from this comparison because the city does not have rent stabilization. For the purposes of this analysis, a dissimilarity score is a measure of the percent difference between two cities for a given aspect of the population. Smaller scores indicate more similarity.

Larger scores indicate more dissimilarity. For instance, Concord has 20,093 renter households, Richmond has 18,587, and Fairfax has 1,187. So, in terms of renter households, the dissimilarity score for Concord- Richmond is 0.07 (20,093-18,587 = 7%) while the one for Concord-Fairfax is 0.94 (20,093-1,187 = 94%). 20,093 20,093
The overall dissimilarity score for each city was created by calculating the degree of difference for each of the four metrics and then adding these together. Note: this is not the same thing as thedissimilarity index, which is a common measure of residential segregation between two groups. 2Page 96 of 218
Rent Stabilization

1. Cap the Annual General Adjustment (AGA) at 3% or 60% of Consumer Price Index (CPI), Whichever Is Less, to Stabilize Communities and Families Over the last decade, Concord rents have risen at an out-of-control rate. According to the City’s Housing Element, median rents increased by 44% between 2010 and 2019, far outpacing the growth of renter incomes.2As a result, a majority of Concord renters are now forced to spend more than they can afford on housing.3This trend is creating hardships for tenants from all communities and neighborhoods. However, the growing gap between wages and rents is harming Black and Latino/e people the most.4Due to the continuing impacts of structural racism in the job and housing markets in Concord, Black and Latino/e families are almost twice as likely as White ones to rent rather than own their homes. Thus, 57% of Black households and 47% of Latino/e households are forced to pay too much for housing, while only 35% of White ones are.5And according to Zillow, rents are rising fastest in the 94520 zip code, where many of the city’s lowest- income families live.6Taken together, this reveals that Concord’s affordable housing crisis is hitting home the hardest for the people who can least afford it, perpetuating historic and ongoing inequities by race, income, and immigration status. When some members of our community are treated unfairly, we all lose. Since 2016, when renters began to warn the City about the dangers of displacement, Concord has seen a 230% increase in homelessness. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Concord saw the second-largest increase in Contra Costa after Richmond, at a time when most cities in the county saw a decrease in the number of unhoused residents.7 Alternatively, if the City implements fair and effective regulations on rent increases, all Concord residents will benefit. Rather than live with the burden of uncertainty and fear, renters will be able to plan for their futures–investing in civic activities, small businesses, health care, and education for their children–as thriving members of the community.As such, the City should stabilize rents, realigning them with incomes and the cost of other consumer goods, by setting the AGA at 3% or 60% of CPI, whichever is less.The vast majority of rent stabilization policies are tied to CPI. But the recent spike 7This analysis is based onHomelessness Point-in-Time (PIT) Countdata from Contra Costa County’s Health, Housing, and Homeless Services Division.
6According to Zillow’sObserved Rental Index, the average market rent in 94520 increased 33.1% from May 2018 to April 2023, as opposed to 28.9% in 94518, 28.8% in 94519, and 28.6% in 94521. 5Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG)/Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). April 2021. Housing Needs Data Report: Concord, pp. 27, 42. The data for cost burden by race is for owners and renters together.
4“Latine” is a gender-neutral term used to describe people of Latin American descent. It is an alternative to the more common “Latino,” which is gendered masculine. 3City of Concord, July 2023, pp. D79-80.
2City of Concord. July 2023.Draft Housing Element (2023-2031), p. B17. 3Page 97 of 218
in inflation, which reached almost 7% in Contra Costa in 2022, revealed that–without a maximum percentage–CPI-based AGAs can still allow for exorbitant rent increases at the moments when families can least afford them.8Thus, among comparable cities in the Bay Area, AGAs are capped as a percent of CPI, a maximum percent, or both. In Antioch and Richmond, the two cities in Contra Costa with rent stabilization, the AGA is set at 60% of CPI, with an absolute maximum of 3%. Given that conditions in Concord are very similar to those in Antioch and Richmond, we recommend that Concord take the same approach.

This is a matter of both equity and economic common sense. The government routinely regulates or manages prices–e.g., utilities and interest rates, which, importantly, tend to make housing costs more affordable for people who own their homes–in recognition of the fact that certain goods and services are essential to human welfare. It should be no different for rent. Doing so does not impinge upon the rights of property owners. Indeed, rent stabilization has consistently been upheld as constitutional by the courts because it ensures that landlords may still receive a fair return by petitioning for increases over the AGA under specified circumstances.

2. Cover Affordable Housing Properties to Protect the Most Vulnerable Rent stabilization is the most comprehensive, cost-effective, and quick way to create and preserve affordable housing–especially in California, where the costs of land and construction are so high.9Still, given the extent of the crisis, Concord needs a range of affordable housing solutions, including the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). As the largest source of funding for rent-regulated housing in the United States, the LIHTC program is an important tool for achieving affordable housing for all. Given that LIHTC properties must comply with federal restrictions on tenant income levels and rents, they are exempted from many–but not all–rent stabilization policies. Unfortunately, however, the rules governing LIHTC ownership and rent increases are frequently misunderstood, leading to unintentional consequences that harm low-income tenants. First, developers do not need to be mission-driven nonprofits to own or operate LIHTC properties. To the contrary, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development describes LIHTC as 9In San Francisco, there are three times as many affordable units provided through rent stabilization than government subsidies. In 2013, Berkeley’s rent program stabilized 19,000 units at a cost of $4 million. By comparison, it would have cost $20 million to provide vouchers to 2,200 low-income renter households or $220 million to rehabilitate 2,200 affordable units through a housing trust fund. PolicyLink. 2019.Our Homes, Our Future: How Rent Control Can Build Stable, Health Communities, pp. 2, 18, 20. 8U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. July 2023.Consumer Price Index, San Francisco Area–June 2023, Chart 1.
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“an incentive for private, profit motivated entities to develop affordable housing.”10In fact, many LIHTC owners are motivated by profit, not mission, and this is particularly true in Concord and Contra Costa County, where there are fewer nonprofit developers than in central Bay Area cities, such as Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco.11 Second, while maximum rent levels at LIHTC properties are capped,rent increases are not. In other words, maximum rents are set as a percent of Area Median Income (AMI).

LIHTC rents are not tied to CPI. Rather, the rent ceiling increases when AMI goes up.

However, if a tenant is not charged the maximum allowable rent for their income level and unit, then the owner can increase the rent all the way up to the maximum at once.

This makes tenants in LIHTC buildings vulnerable to unmanageable rent increases that even the wealthiest renters–whose units may be covered under AB 1482–are protected from. This was the case during the pandemic, when thousands of low-income residents of LIHTC buildings experienced exorbitant, double-digit rent increases in Contra Costa and across the state.

Still, too often, policymakers assume that LIHTC owners operate with the best interests of low-income families in mind. This has left some of Concord’s most vulnerable renters exposed to peril. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the for-profit owners of Clayton Crossing–the city’s largest LIHTC complex–announced that they intended to raise rents on low-income families at a time when many were out of work. At the time, there was a countywide emergency moratorium on rent increases, but it only applied to apartments that were covered by AB 1482. Clayton Crossing was exempt from AB 1482 as a result of its LIHTC status. So, there were no legal grounds on which to prevent this unethical and dangerously timed move, which threatened low-income people’s health and lives.

While some rent stabilization policies–including AB 1482–exempt properties like Clayton Crossing, there is nothing in state or federal law that precludes localities from regulating rents at LIHTC complexes. The vast majority of tenants who live in LIHTC apartments are extremely- or very-low income, making them the most likely to experience extreme rent burdens, displacement, and homelessness.It does not make sense to exclude the most vulnerable residents from protections provided to tenants in the private market, especially when it is clear that unscrupulous LIHTC owners have enacted 11In Concord, only 3 of 9 LIHTC properties for which data are available (33%) are owned by a nonprofit organization. This percentage is even lower than in the U.S. Assembly District 10 as a whole, where only 18 of 47 LIHTC properties (38%) are owned by a nonprofit. See Novogradac. 2020.LIHTC Properties in California’s 10th District (Mark DeSaulnier-D).
10U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. January 2004.The Low Income Housing Tax Credit for Nonprofits Developing Rural Rental Housing, p. 1. 5Page 99 of 218
exorbitant rent increases. The residents of Concord’s 1,800+ affordable housing units deserve the same security as those in other rental complexes. 12

3. Include a Comprehensive Definition of Housing Services to Prevent Landlords from Circumventing the Rent Cap through Contrived Expenses While the rent regulations included in rent stabilization are common sense consumer protections, landlords often attempt to circumvent them–and thus prop up excessive profits–by passing other costs and fees on to their tenants. For instance, a review of a sample of units in Concord’s Rent Registry discovered 18 instances in which landlords evaded the maximum rent cap under AB 1482, increasing tenant costs by more than 10% in a single year, by increasing mandatory fees.13 In order to stop this bad faith tactic, and protect the spirit of the policy, the City should include a complete list of housing services in the definition of rent. This will ensure that tenants’ actual housing costs are stabilized by the rent cap, protecting them from nonpayment and displacement by other means. This definition should cover those services that are essential to tenancy–services that no tenant should be forced to forego–including:
hot/cold water, heat/air conditioning, garbage removal, other landlord-charged utilities, maintenance, laundry, parking, use of storage and recreational areas, etc.

In addition, the City should enact regulations on Ratio Utility Billing Systems (RUBS), which allow landlords to charge tenants for utilities in a manner that is totally divorced from tenants’ actual utility usage. Using proxies for utility usage, such as the number of occupants or square footage, to divide costs, RUBS give landlords an unchecked power to charge tenants whatever they choose, since these fees cannot be compared against a meter reading. At the same time, RUBS take the power away from tenants to manage their own utility usage, consuming or conserving in accordance with their family budget.

The City should thus address the potential for abuse–which, again, can circumvent the rent cap and undermine the intent of rent stabilization–by including language that reads:
“landlord cannot charge tenants for utilities unless they are individually metered, and it is explicitly stated in the lease agreement.”
13This figure is based on an analysis of the first 1,000 units in the City’sRent Registry database. This sample represents around 15% of all units included in the database. 12As of 2019, there were an estimated 1,811 rent-regulated affordable housing units in Concord. City of Concord Housing Division. 2019.Rental Housing Data Book, p. 2. The City assumes that the tenants of some of those units receive Section 8 Vouchers, which would make rent stabilization unnecessary. But the remainder need and deserve protections against unaffordable rent increases. 6Page 100 of 218

4. Prohibit the Use of “Banking” to Undermine Rent Stabilization The purpose of rent stabilization is to promote housing affordability, provide predictability so that renters can plan for annual cost increases, and avoid catastrophic rent increases that force families from their homes. Allowing landlords to accrue unused rent increases and then use them all at once–also known as “banking”–contradicts two out of three of these goals. It is more manageable for families to be able to count on reasonable rent increases each year than to be spared increases for a couple of years only to wonder when “the other shoe is going to drop.” Indeed, banking allows landlords to act in bad faith–in the same way that many have with housing service fees–accruing unused rent increases until they can hit tenants with excessive rent hikes that force families to self- evict.The City should thus prohibit “banking” as it will undermine the core goals of rent stabilization.

5. Make the Policy Retroactive to January 2023 to Stop the Rush of Price Gouging In anticipation of rent stabilization, many landlords race to gouge renters with exorbitant rent increases. This tactic is meant to push base rents as high as possible before future increases are capped. In some cases, it can also force low-income tenants to self-evict, allowing landlords to reset the base rent at the highest amount that the market will bear.

Given that this pattern is well known, rent stabilization policies often include a “roll back” date that makes the rent cap retroactive to some point prior to when the measure was passed. Typically, this retroactivity data corresponds to whenever a reasonable landlord might have realized that their property was going to become rent stabilized. In AB 1482, for instance, the rent cap was made retroactive to March 15th, 2019, 8.5 months earlier, as this was when the law was in development, attracting widespread public attention. If a landlord raised the rent in excess of the AGA after March 15th, as many did, then they were required to reset rents to their legal limits.

In January 2023, the Concord City Council directed staff to include a program in the Housing Element that commits to passing rent stabilization and just cause for eviction policies by December 2023. This statement of intent has put many landlords on notice, prompting them to raise rents as high as possible before the end of the year.The City should thus make the rent cap retroactive to January 2023 to protect tenants from such price gouging. It should require landlords who raised rent in excess of the rent cap after the roll back date to (a) reset base rent to what it was in January 2023 and (b) refund tenants in full for the amount that they paid in excess of the proper level over the entirety of the roll back period. 7Page 101 of 218

6. Create a Strong, Self-Financing Rent Program to Enforce Policies and Provide Tenants and Landlords with High-Quality Services
It is an axiom of government that laws are only as good as their enforcement. Given the importance and complexity of rent stabilization policies, cities almost always accompany them with a dedicated implementation program. There are many vital functions to a “rent program,” including:
● Determining annual budgets and establishing fees
● Registering covered properties, determining exemptions, and collecting fees from property owners
● Collecting and analyzing rental data, identifying violations, and issuing reports ● Developing additional regulations to provide guidance to tenants and landlords on issues that may not be covered under the original ordinance (e.g., relocation and noticing requirements, “pass through” procedures for capital improvements) ● Providing legal counsel on new regulations, defending the program from legal challenges, and pursuing affirmative enforcement actions ● Creating notices and materials in multiple languages and maintaining website ● Conducting tenant and landlord outreach and education ● Adjudicating tenant and landlord petitions (e.g., illegal rent increases, capital improvement programs, rent reductions for habitability issues) ● For cities with a just cause policy, rent programs may also sponsor “know your rights” trainings and legal services, review eviction notices, manage relocation programs, and adjudicate complaints
Clearly, providing all of these services requires robust funding and staffing. Among the comparable cities in the Bay Area, the number of dedicated staff range from 3 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) in Hayward to 25 FTEs in Berkeley, averaging 11.3 FTEs.

These staff are funded by annual budgets that range from $1 million in Hayward to $6.7 million in Berkeley, with an average of $2.9 million. By design, however, rent programs are self-financedthrough annual per-unit fees paid by property owners. These range from $66 in Hayward to $290 in Berkeley, with an average of $170. Importantly, these fees represent a rare opportunity for cities to access new sources of revenue, expand staff, and enhance services without drawing on their General Fund or draining existing staff capacity.In order to enforce the law, provide high-quality services to tenants and landlords, and respect the capacity of existing staff, the City should create a fully-funded and -staffed rent program.

While almost all cities with rent stabilization in California have a dedicated rent program, they tend to diverge in terms of how those programs are managed. Some cities run their 8Page 102 of 218
rent program out of an existing department. In Alameda and Hayward, the rent program is managed by the City Attorney’s Office and the Housing Department, respectively. (In Antioch, the rent program is currently run by the City Attorney’s Office, as well. But that arrangement is provisional and may change in time.) Other cities, including Richmond and Berkeley, set up an independent governing body with its own elected or appointed officers, known as a “rent board.” (Mountain View uses a mix of these two approaches, with a five-member rent board housed under the Community Development Department.) In Concord, we believe that it is vital to have not only a robust rent program, but also one that is dedicated to the principles of equity, transparency, and the intent of these policies to protect renters. Since 2016, low-income tenants have led the campaign for a more equitable Concord for all by demonstrating the degree to which renters have been marginalized from the political process and the dangers of unregulated rental activity. In this spirit, equity demands that policies to protect tenants and regulate property owners must be overseen and informed by tenants themselves. To do otherwise would be akin to putting oil and gas companies in charge of environmental protections.

Thus, to ensure that tenants have a voice in implementing these measures, the City should set up an independent rent program governed by a rent board. The members of the rent board should be appointed by the City Council, with most positions reserved for tenants from the communities most impacted by housing insecurity and displacement, as shown in the City’s Housing Element, specifically low-income communities of color and Spanish-speaking communities. There is clear precedent for this equity-centered approach. In both Richmond and Pasadena, where rent board members are appointed by City Council, the regulations are written in such a way as to limit the number of people who own or manage rental property, or are realtors, to a numerical minority. We recommend similar stipulations for a Concord rent board to ensure that the city’s tenant protection policies are implemented and enforced effectively and equitably.

Just Cause for Eviction

1. Make Protections Effective Upon Move-In to Close the Gaps in AB 1482 Countless studies have documented the physical, psychological, and social traumas of eviction. In children, eviction has been definitively linked to deleterious health outcomes, including developmental delays, food insecurity, and academic decline.14In adults, it 14Emily A. Benfer. November 2nd, 2022. “U.S. Eviction Policy Is Harming Children: The Case for Sustainable Eviction Prevention to Promote Health Equity.”Bill of Health. 9Page 103 of 218
has been tied to high blood pressure, heart disease, emergency room visits, and a range of mental health consequences, including depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide.15Due to the widespread use of eviction screening in apartment applications, the “scarlet letter” of an eviction record makes it extremely challenging to secure new rental housing, especially in competitive markets like the Bay Area, exacerbating the risk of homelessness.

Eviction, quite simply, has the potential to ruin lives. And these harmful impacts hurt women and families of color the most. Across the United States, families with children are evicted more often than families without–often in violation of the Fair Housing Act. In fact, the risk of eviction increases with each additional child in the home. In total, 15% of children and 29% of children in families in poverty experience eviction by the time they turn 15. Nationally, Black children are twice as likely as White ones to be evicted.16 While it is not possible to obtain comprehensive and detailed eviction data for Concord, a recent in-depth study of the eviction courts in Contra Costa County revealed that 41% of defendants (tenants) were Black, even though only 16% of the renter households in Contra Costa are headed by Black people. In addition, it found that 57% of defendants were single women.17Finally, since 2019, 52% of all physical evictions in Concord have occurred in the 94520 zip code–the most racially diverse area of the city, where almost 70% of residents are people of color and 49% of them are Latino/e–even though it only contains 48% of renter households.18For the well-being and stability of the community, Concord leaders should make sure that eviction is a last resort–not a first–and that it is limited, as much as possible, to so-called “good causes” and never abused for power, profit, or discrimination.

Currently, the only protections that Concord residents have against unjust eviction and displacement are provided by state law (AB 1482). Sadly, AB 1482 includes numerous loopholes, which are not rooted in any sound policy logic. One of the most problematic loopholes is that the just cause provisions of AB 1482 only apply after all tenants have lived in the unit for at least one year, or one tenant has lived in the unit for at least two years. While just cause policies are intended to stabilize tenancies, providing certainty for tenants and landlords, this provision has the opposite effect: it encourages property owners to remove tenants and turnover units on a regular basis so as to preempt these 18This analysis is based on data received via public records request from the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff for all evictions carried out in Concord between January 2019 and April 2023. Data on race and household tenure are from the 2021 American Communities Survey. 17East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. December 2022.Unrepresented: A Report on Eviction Court Watch in Contra Costa County, p. 6.
16Emily A. Benfer, November 2nd, 2022.
15Abdullahi Tunde Aborode. October 2022. “Threats of Eviction in the USA: A Public Health Concern.” Annals of Medicine and Surgery.
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protections from taking effect. Unfair practices aside, the very fact of this postponement provision excludes a large percentage of renters in Concord. A recent analysis of 1,000 units covered by the City’s Rent Registry in 2021 found that 40% of tenants had moved into their units within the last two years, meaning they were potentially exempted from just cause under AB 1482.19Thankfully, AB 1482 does not preclude local governments from passing eviction protections that are more protective.There is no reason that a tenant should be exposed to eviction and displacement without cause, or denied protections given to their neighbors, just because they have lived in their home for less than a year. The City should close this loophole and ensure fairness by making protections effective immediately upon move-in for all covered units.

2. Cover All Rental Units, as Allowed by State Law, to Provide All Renters with the Same Protections
AB 1482 also fails to protect Concord families that live in a number of common rental units, as it exempts mobile homes; duplexes or ADUs in which the owner lives in the other unit; condos or single-family homes (unless owned by a corporate entity, like an LLC or REIT); and apartments built in the last 15 years. According to Concord’s 2019 Rental Housing Data Book, an estimated 33% of rental units in the city are single-family residences. Almost as many renters live in single-family residences as large apartment complexes.20 The exemption of single-family homes alone thus excludes as many as a third of all renting families in Concord from common sense eviction protections . There is no reason to deny these renters the same protections given to their neighbors. Indeed, the costs for the community are too grave to ignore. Between July 1st, 2021 and June 30th, 2022, 40% of all physical evictions carried out by the Sheriff occurred in buildings with 1-3 units, primarily single-family homes.21Again, AB 1482 does not preclude local governments from passing stronger protections. While the Costa-Hawkins Act prohibits regulating rents of most new construction and single-family residences, it does not apply to eviction protections.The City should therefore extend just cause protections to all rental units, to the full extent allowed by state law, including mobile homes, single-family homes, new construction, and more.
21This analysis is based on data received via public records request from the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff for all evictions carried out in Concord between July 1st, 2021 and June 30th, 2022. 20City of Concord Housing Division, 2019, p. 2.
19In Concord, owners of apartment buildings with 4 or more units were first required to register their units on July 1st, 2021. Therefore, any unit in which the tenants moved in after July 1st, 2019 was considered as potentially exempt from just cause for the purposes of this analysis, as AB 1482 only takes effect once all of the tenants in the unit have lived there for one year, or one tenant has lived there for two years. 11Page 105 of 218

3. Provide Common Sense Requirements for No-Cause Evictions, Including Substantial Renovations and Use of the Ellis Act, to Stop Illegal or Unethical Displacement
The final loophole in AB 1482 that Concord’s just cause ordinance must address is the routine abuse of substantial renovation and Ellis Act evictions. These practices allow unscrupulous landlords to circumvent rent stabilization by removing tenants under the guise of legality in order to attract tenants who can pay more in rent–in other words, to profit off displacement. Indeed, Concord tenants have seen28-unit apartment buildings cleared, renovation-drivenrent hikes of more than 55%, and spurious Ellis Act evictions used toevade the COVID-19 eviction moratorium. This deceptive displacement of rent stabilized tenants does not just hurt individual families; it hurts the entire community of current and future renters because–under Costa-Hawkins–once a unit turns over, the landlord can raise the base rent high as the market will bear. This tactic thus subverts the City’s sincere intentions and stated policies, affirmed in the Housing Element, to produce and preserve as much affordable housing as possible.22 Under existing law and legal precedent, the City must provide a way for property owners who need to conduct capital improvements to make a unit habitable and/or comply with a governmental order (substantial renovation) or exit the rental business (Ellis Act) to evict tenants. (This is known as a “no-cause” eviction, because it does not stem from any act or lease violation on the part of the tenant.)Given the prospect and record of abuse, the City should enact common sense requirements for landlords who wish to pursue no-cause evictions to ensure that the rights of property owners are balanced with the rights of renting families and the community at large.

To ensure the appropriate use of substantial renovation evictions, the ordinance should include the following requirements:
● The City must provide a strict definition of what renovations count as “substantial” and thus merit exposing the tenant to temporary or permanent displacement and rent increases in excess of the rent cap. Alameda, Antioch, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all provide such definitions. They generally require that the capital improvements be necessary, according to government order or code, to protect the health and safety of tenants. Some also require that the renovations cannot be completed in a short period, e.g., in less than 30 days. ● The landlord must receive all necessary building permits and approval from the rent program before relocating the tenant. Berkeley, Hayward, Mountain View, and Richmond require the landlord to receive building permits, while Berkeley 22See Policies 1.3, 1.5, 1.7, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1. City of Concord, July 2023, pp. 5-7. 12Page 106 of 218
and Mountain View also require them to present these permits to the rent program for approval.
● Upon receiving approval from the rent program, the landlord must provide the tenant with at least 6-months notice. In the case of the Parkside Apartments in Concord, tenants were only given 60-days notice for a renovation eviction. This was not enough time for many of the tenants to find replacement housing in the city’s competitive market. As a result, some became temporarily unhoused. ● For temporary relocation, the landlord must provide the tenant with either a unit of comparable size and quality in Concord or payment to cover hotel, food, and laundry costs. Berkeley, Hayward, Mountain View, and Richmond all require landlords to relocate tenants to comparable units, if available, or else make temporary relocation payments.
● For permanent or long-term relocation, the landlord must pay the household a base payment of $10,000, plus $5,000 per person, up to a cap of $30,000 per household.23(For instance, a one-person household would receive $10,000, a two-person household would receive $15,000, a three-person household would receive $20,000, and so on, up to a max of $30,000.) For especially vulnerable households, additional payments would apply (see below). Alameda, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all require substantial relocation payments for eviction and additional payments for vulnerable households. ● Once the renovation is complete, the landlord must provide the tenant with a right to return at the last legal rent. Failure to do so must be met with penalties severe enough to discourage abuse. Berkeley, Hayward, Mountain View, and Richmond all provide for a right to return at a regulated rent.
● For cases involving vulnerable households, the landlord must provide 12-months notice and double relocation payments. Alameda, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all include extra relocation payments for no-cause evictions involving vulnerable tenants, including seniors, people with disabilities, parents with school-aged children, and, in Richmond, low-income households. We urge the City to provide additional provisions to protect seniors, people with disabilities or terminal illnesses, educators, parents with school-aged children, and low-income households.
23The forced relocation process is extremely expensive for tenants. Searching for a new home requires them to take time away from work, resulting in lost wages. Each application, and sometimes each credit or background check, requires them to pay non-refundable fees. Once they find an apartment, they must be able to pay the first month’s rent and security deposit. Some landlords require tenants to pay the last month’s rent, as well. Other landlords increase the amount of the security deposit for tenants with low or no credit score–a condition that disproportionately hurts immigrants. Finally, the moving process requires hiring movers and/or renting a truck, paying for cleaning costs, and once again taking time off work. In the Bay Area, these costs quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars, which is far more than the average savings available to low-income tenants. Without fair and effective relocation payments, families who are evicted for no fault of their own run the risk of becoming unhoused. 13Page 107 of 218
● In order for the landlord to “pass through” the costs of capital improvements to tenants, the City must ensure that there is a fully-funded and -staffed rent board to oversee this process and make sure that it is not abused to evade the rent cap and displace tenants.Unless there is a robust rent program in place, the City should not allow pass throughs for capital improvements. Assuming there is a strong rent program to enforce the law, then the landlord must provide receipts for all qualified expenditures and request approval to recuperate those costs from their tenants. If the rent program grants approval, then those pass throughs must be amortized over the useful life of the improvement, as determined by the rent program. Even with pass throughs, however, the landlord must not raise the rent by more than 5% in a given year (including the AGA). Pass throughs should not become part of base rent. Once the costs have been recouped, then the landlord must reset the base rent to what it would have been had they only increased the rent to the rent cap. Alameda, Antioch, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all specify that pass throughs must be distributed according to an amortization schedule. Berkeley, Hayward, and Mountain View also all provide caps on rent increases with pass throughs.

To ensure the appropriate use of Ellis Act evictions, the ordinance should include the following requirements:
● The landlord must receive approval from the rent program before inaugurating use of the Ellis Act.
● Upon receiving approval from the rent program, the landlord must provide the tenant with at least 6-months notice. See above.
● The landlord must pay the household a base payment of $10,000, plus $5,000 per person, up to a cap of $30,000 per household. See above. ● For cases involving vulnerable households, the landlord must provide 12-months notice and double relocation payments. Alameda, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all provide for 12-months notice in cases involving vulnerable tenants, including seniors, people with disabilities, parents with school-aged children, and, in Richmond, low-income households. We urge the City to provide additional provisions to protect seniors, people with disabilities or terminal illnesses, educators, parents with school-aged children, and low-income households. ● The landlord must certify in writing, under penalty of perjury, each year that the property remains off of the market for 10 years. If they re-rent the property during that time, then they are liable to graduated penalties, including civil damages and a tenant right to return at the last legal rent. Alameda, Berkeley, Mountain View, and Richmond all provide for such penalties. In Richmond, for instance, if the unit is re-rented within 10 years, the tenant has the right to return at market rate; if it 14Page 108 of 218
is re-rented within 5 years, the tenant has the right to return at last legal rent without any increase; and if it is re-rented within 2 years, the tenant has the right to return at last legal rent and both the tenant and the City have the right to sue for substantial damages. We urge the City to enact similar penalties.

Conclusion
Concord is on the verge of taking a long-overdue step to demonstrate that it values all its residents, regardless of whether they rent or own their homes. It is vital that the City not only pass rent stabilization and just cause by December 2023, as required per the Housing Element, but also that it craft policies strong enough to achieve their intended aims: providing certainty to tenants and landlords and protecting vulnerable community members from displacement and homelessness. The recommendations outlined in this memo are derived both from the expertise of impacted tenants and the common sense policies implemented by comparable cities in the Bay Area. In the interest of creating equitable, intelligent, and legally sound policies, we implore you to implement these recommendations. We are available to discuss each of these items in further detail.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Alex Werth, Research & Policy Advisor, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy Jennifer Morales, Community Engagement Organizing Manager, Monument Impact Rhea Elina Laughlin, Executive Director, Rising Juntos (formerly known as CCRG) Betty Gabaldon, President, Todos Santos Tenants Union
15Page 109 of 218
16

Attachment 5
Responses from Affordable Housing Developers
Summary of Feedback from Affordable Housing Developers
Affordable housing developer feedback regarding rent stabilization:
• Rent Stabilization should not cover affordable housing properties • Affordable housing properties already have affordability covenants recorded against them and are heavily regulated by federal and state rules
• Certain funding sources for affordable housing, such as Contra Costa County, already impose rent increase limitation of no more than 5% over the previous year’s rent. • HUD and/or the State sets annual increases that based on indexes similar to that of the consumer price index adjustments and/or are determined by “rent burden” on the tenants whose income qualifies them for a particular rent increase. • Already operating under tight budgets and highly competitive funding markets, greater rent restrictions would make it increasingly difficult to meet current debt obligations and/or for the financing to come together to allow a new affordable housing development to be constructed.

Affordable housing developer feedback regarding just cause for eviction:
• Generally there are State regulations that govern just causes for eviction or non-renewal of previously qualified residents

Response #1 – Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) Rent Stabilization

1. How would rent stabilization impact your affordable properties? a. Do you feel that the current affordability restrictions and agreements on your units are sufficient to keeping these units affordable for your tenants? Yes, our affordable properties are already restricted and monitored by other agencies. b. How would a rent cap affect current restrictions and agreements already imposed on AH units? Rent caps and rent stabilization would be an increased administrative burden to non-profit affordable housing providers that are already short-staffed and swamped with external reporting requirements.

2. Would implementing a rent stabilization program make it more or less likely that you would be interested in developing within the City? Or would this not affect your decision to build/acquire affordable units? If local ordinance were in conflict with State or federal funding requirements, it could deter from building/acquiring new units. For example, State loan programs prohibit “overhousing” so if household size declines over time (e.g. b/c children grow up and move out), we are required to move the household to a smaller unit if one becomes available. This type of transfer to comply with public funding programs should be exempted from the ordinance.

3. Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return? Yes, sometimes. a. How do you address improvement needs on affordable housing units/properties? We generally have reserve accounts.

4. What policies would you hope to be included in an RSO for the City? Should AH units be covered by the local ordinance? Examples include feedback on the following topics:

Attachment 5
a. Units covered- affordable units with rent restricted under a regulatory agreement should be exempt.
b. Maximum allowable rent cap- should be based on TCAC or HUD rent limits for consistency.
c. Enforcement Mechanism (civil, rent registry, rent board, hearing officer) d. Petitions Allowed -yes

Just Cause for Eviction

1. Do the affordable housing funding sources that you utilize require you to provide just cause when non-renewing or evicting a tenant? Yes, always.

2. Concord’s current Just Cause for Eviction policy follows State AB 1482. What are your biggest concerns under the City’s current Just Cause Policy?

3. What do you hope a JCO in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? Just Cause and Rent Stabilization are important components in addressing the housing crisis in California and we support them.

Response #2 – Tableau Development
Rent Stabilization

5. How would rent stabilization impact your affordable properties? We currently do not have affordable properties in Concord but are proposing to the City to build some. We don’t think a rent stabilization regulation should be applied to any affordable rental properties that already have affordability covenants recorded against them (for example, low income housing tax credit projects). A rent stabilization regulation isn’t necessary for these properties.
a. Do you feel that the current affordability restrictions and agreements on your units are sufficient to keeping these units affordable for your tenants? Yes, absolutely b. How would a rent cap affect current restrictions and agreements already imposed on AH units? Rent increases in at our affordable properties are set annually by HUD and/or the State and increases are restricted to annual increases that are similar to CPI adjustments.

6. Would implementing a rent stabilization program make it more or less likely that you would be interested in developing within the City? Or would this not affect your decision to build/acquire affordable units? It would make us less likely to be interested in building affordable projects in Concord if the rent stabilization restricted rent growth to less than what current State and federal programs allow, because this could hurt the underlying economic feasibility of the project

7. Have you struggled to collect enough rent to get a fair return? No a. How do you address improvement needs on affordable housing units/properties?

8. What policies would you hope to be included in an RSO for the City? Should AH units be covered by the local ordinance? No, a RSO should not cover AH units for reasons discussed above Examples include feedback on the following topics:
e. Units covered
f. Maximum allowable rent cap At least tied to annual CPI increases plus adjustments for certain capital improvements
g. Enforcement Mechanism (civil, rent registry, rent board, hearing officer)

Attachment 5
h. Petitions Allowed

Just Cause for Eviction

4. Do the affordable housing funding sources that you utilize require you to provide just cause when non-renewing or evicting a tenant? Generally, yes, and we follow State regulations governing non- renewal of previously qualified residents

5. Concord’s current Just Cause for Eviction policy follows State AB 1482. What are your biggest concerns under the City’s current Just Cause Policy? No opinion

6. What do you hope a JCO in Concord will achieve? What is your ideal outcome? No opinion

Response #3 – Resources for Community Development (RCD) Thank you for the opportunity to provide early input on Concord’s new housing policies. RCD shares the City’s goals of protecting rental affordability, stopping displacement, and preventing homelessness, and I wanted to offer some general thoughts to inform your work developing these new ordinances.

As you know, affordable housing properties are heavily regulated by federal and state rules, as well as by the regulatory agreements associated with local and state funding programs. These regulations already reasonably limit allowable rent increases in affordable housing. Notably, Contra Costa County already imposes a rent increase limitation of no more than 5% over the previous year’s rent within their regulatory restriction for affordable housing projects funded by the County.

Even under existing regulatory restrictions, there are times when operating expenses, especially payroll, insurance, and maintenance, can increase at a pace greater than restricted rent increases. This leads to a shortfall in revenue compared to ever increasing expenses and can constrain the property’s ability to maintain a quality living environment for the residents.

Sharing here some additional considerations that we hope are helpful in shaping the conversation:

• Standard practices in the affordable housing market: Many affordable housing developers have their own internal policies regarding rent increases to ensure that actions taken to increase rent align with the mission of keeping people stably housed. Commonly, rent increases are scaled based on a household’s current “rent burden” (the percentage of their income they pay each month in rent). For example, a household with a 10% rent burden may receive a larger rent increase so that a household with a 35% rent burden does not receive any increase. This is an equity centered approach that channels support to those who need it the most. A low rent increase limitation may also have the effect of requiring affordable housing owners and managers to levy annual rent increases on all tenants, regardless of their rent burden, instead of using a more tenant-based approach.
• Need for flexibility to support financing structures: In the case of loss of rental assistance (i.e., Section 8 subsidy), TCAC and HCD programs allow for a change in AMI targeting for a unit. These

Attachment 5
“float up” provisions are critical to inducing private lending and investment in affordable housing developments and we recommend they not be subject to a rent stabilization policy.

Ultimately, adoption of such policies on affordable housing developers at the local level could pose as barriers to financing new affordable housing developments in Concord.

• Continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: Communities of color and low-income residents—such as residents living in affordable housing— were the most impacted by job, learning, and wealth loss related to the pandemic, and many affordable housing residents accrued substantial rental debt. The structure and narrow margins on affordable housing development deals mean that consistent rental income is essential for meeting debt obligations and sustaining properties. Addressing rental arrears is an ongoing challenge for affordable housing owners and managers. Rent increases are one tool that properties can implement, when appropriate, to stabilize buildings. It’s critical that our buildings have the operating income necessary to maintain them as safe, beautiful, well-maintained, service enriched, and sustainable resources for our tenants and the surrounding community.

Again, thank you for this opportunity to provide initial input. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

From: Kevin Schaefer <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 10:40 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent control
org
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

The survey NEVER asks if I was in favor of more rent control. I am not. That was the most biased survey I have ever seen.

Sincerely
Kevin Schaefer
Sent from my iPhone
Attachment 6

From: Wei Kang <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 10:38 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Oppose proposal to adopt local rent control and "just cause" for eviction ordinance in Concord Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,
Wei Kang

From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 10:38 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>
Subject: Concord - Study Session on Rent Control & Just Cause Eviction Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

As a local housing provider, I oppose the current direction the City Council is taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord. The proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies will and do affect both new housing and existing housing.

The city has not provided evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. The city’s residential rent registry report from October 2022 shows that rent increases, on average, fell below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non- payment of rent. This data suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control, and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,
Mary Beall-Neighbor

From: Kevin Schaefer <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 10:40 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent control
org
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

The survey NEVER asks if I was in favor of more rent control. I am not. That was the most biased survey I have ever seen.

Sincerely
Kevin Schaefer
Sent from my iPhone

From: Benjamin Lenz <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2023 3:27 PM
To: Concord City Council Email <[email protected]> Subject: Ab 1482
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,
Ben Lenz

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2023 4:28 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]> Subject: Letter Regarding Rent Control
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

As a local housing provider, I oppose the current direction the City Council is taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord. The proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies will and do affect both new housing and existing housing.

The city has not provided evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. The city’s residential rent registry report from October 2022 shows that rent increases, on average, fell below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This data suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control, and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Alternatively, I would like to propose that we look for ways to enforce existing laws such as our anti-harassment law and assist tenants in understanding their rights under CA civil codes 1941 & 17920.3 which allows tenants to withhold money from rent to pay for health and safety related issues.

I sat through the city council meeting where we heard from tenants, brought in by non-profits to discuss the need for rent control and JCE. what I heard more was the need for tenants to have an advocate to fix health and safety issues in a timely manner and not be retaliated against or evicted as a result. There are existing laws for this, as noted above.

A lot of residents don’t know that they can use our city building inspectors to look at these health and safety violations to properly document these issues before addressing them, and bringing them to the attention of their landlords. Why not send Concord tenants a mailer highlighting these resources and rights?
In light of the fact that 3/5 of you are likely in favor of rent control, and Costa-Hawkins will likely be repealed on the ballot next year anyways, in favor of a stricter statewide rent control. I encourage you to consider a different approach, that will actually help folks who are having a difficult time, at the expense of a shorter-term policy win in the form of new local rent control laws.

Thank you for the hard work that each of you put into this role, and for reading my long email!

Sincerely,
Robert Ring

From: Anne Shafizadeh <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2023 6:33:01 PM
To: Kelly Rush <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: City Council Meeting September 5, 2023: Rent Stabilization and Just Cause for Eviction

the involvement of so much government in housing issues has left Concord behind.

Some of the worse schools are in Concord. No one with children wants to live in concord unless they go to one of the private schools and no one is championing better education to raise the socio-economic level of its residents. until Concord lets free market forces lead without interfering in business decisions and development, Concord will remain where it is while the cities around it blossom and bloom. We have sold and have one remaining property which, thank God, has been exempt from your meddling and control. Some of the worse kept properties are in Concord. you certainly have worse school than the surrounding communities. instead of working to meddle in housing other than public housing, you will not improve the quality of life and your surrounding cities will benefit from your meddling and interferring. how is it that Pleasant Hill, Martinez and Walnut Creek are superior cities and have no government interference yet manage to do well?

From: Jean-Pierre Maeder <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 9:54 AM
To: Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Concord City Council Email <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control and just cause eviction more stringent than AB 1482??? Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord by increasing the number of rental units while eliminating rental restrictions for units that belong to an HOA (Homeowners Association). There are numerous units currently not available for rent in Concord as their HOA has adopted arbitrary restrictions for owners to rent their units. This forces housing providers such as myself to sell their units instead of keeping them as affordable rental units thereby removing already available rental housing stock.

Sincerely,
Jean-Pierre (JP) Maeder
p: 415-997-3680
p: 925-465-5141
f: 888-464-6508
DRE: 02034080
This email is confidential and may contain information that is privileged or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message from your system. Thank you.

From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 12:06 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rental Control
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,
Mark Vanderpool

From: Jamie Tyrrell <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 12:20 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control and Just Cause: 9/5 Meeting
Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,
Your Name
Jamie Tyrrell
RentalZebra.com
[email protected]
(888) 851-6583 x4
CA Lic 01880112

From: Judith Herman <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 3:07 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Item 4a on agenda for September 5, 2023

Dear City Council,

I appreciate the Council's plan to workshop tenant protections at tom orrow's m eeting. I understand that no decision will be m ade at that tim e and all factors will be considered. After reviewing the docum ents provided by staff, I do want to point out one issue for your consideration. One of the issues that staff believed could push landlord ex penses above the Consum er Price Index was increased property tax . We live in California. Consequently, property tax is not assessed based on property value. Reassessment of rental property at the time of sale can even be avoided if the sale is carefully structured. Basically, property tax goes up a mere 2% a year.

I was a renter when Proposition 13 passed and G overnor Brown asked landlords to refund som e of their savings to their tenants. My landlords did do that. That was about 45 years ago and I doubt landlords have done that since.

The second issue related to the consum er price index in regard to rent stabilization is that housing is an im portant factor in the equation. If the rental property does not change hands, the landlord is not ex periencing an increase in the cost of the property, just like a hom eowner. is not im pacted by the increase in the cost of housing in the sam e way som eone new to the housing m arket would be. In fact, the landlord would benefit from increased housing costs as she/he would be able to raise rents on new tenants as he/she ex periences turnover. So while the consumer price index m ay not capture all of a landlord's ex penses, it captures ex penses that are not passed on to the landlord.

Thank you for your consideration.

Judi Herman

CCA Member

Benched Correspondence
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 5, 2023

From: Anthony Freddie <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 3, 2023 7:18 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Concord rent control and “just cause” for eviction ordinance.

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Anthony

From: Alicia Hansel <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2023 4:01 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Alicia Hansel

From: John Vander Meulen <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 2, 2023 8:18 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control and Just Cause Policies

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City C ouncil,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

J
ohn D. Vander Meulen
(Concord resident and property owner)

From: Hugo Ramirez <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, September 2, 2023 12:48 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Huckabay, Sophia <[email protected]>; Kelly Rush <[email protected]>
Subject: Public comment re: 9/5 City Council meeting agenda item 4a Importance: High

Dear City Council and Staff,

My name is Hugo Ramirez and I am a homeowner in the neighborhood near Woodside Elementary with plans to build an ADU in my backyard to provide more affordable housing in our city.

I support a robust rent stabilization program and just cause protections. Please find the courage to do the right thing.

Research shows that rent stabilization and just cause are effective tools to k eep people housed and
to stabilize our housing affordability crisis.

I am a subject matter expert in Bay Area anti-di splacement, eviction/homelessness prevention, and housing stabilization. I have worked in this space in local government for almost twenty years. Rent stabilization and just cause are sensible policies; hardly "over-regulation." Landlords who own properties in cities with rent stabilization generate sufficient revenue to keep up their assets and to continue to grow their wealth.

Your real estate and landlord constituents do not offer solutions to this crisis - they favor status quo. Status quo is what got us into this crisis in the first place.

A robust rent stabilization program can easily be designed to be self-sustaining through modest fees. These programs are designed to be neutral arbiters of the local ordinance. These programs are as a helpful a resource to tenants as they are to landlords.

I urge you to craft policies that are as expansive and as protective as possible and not rely on the limited protections of AB 1482. You will discover that some necessary protections would be preempted by state law (such as Costa-Hawkins), which is why I urge you to go to the limits of what's possible under state law.

I
would be happy to offer my expertise to you at any time.

Respectfully,
Hugo Ramirez

[I had planned to give my comment in person but will be traveling internationally.]

From: Wallace Freddie <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:49 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]> Subject: Local rent control and “just cause” for eviction ordinance.

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Wallace Freddie

From: Janet Fedaie <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:53 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Local rent control and “just cause” for eviction ordinance

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This m eans the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Janet Fedaie

From: Rahila Fedaie <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:55 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Local rent control and “just cause” for eviction ordinance.

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to jus tify adopting policies s tricter than those in the s tatewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Rahila Fedaie

From: Anthony Freddie <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 3, 2023 7:00 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Concord local rent control and “just cause” for eviction ordinance.

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies s tricter than those in the s tatewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

We have only raised our rent by 5% although the county of Contra Costa allows 5% plus CPI which is about 8.5% ever since the end of m oratorium . Meanwhile, the city of Concord has increased its building inspection fees by m ore than 50% with no justification whatsoever.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and jus t cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Anthony Freddie

Hi Joelle,

Alex is correct in that the CPI for Richmond has been updated as of September 1 to 60% of CPI capped at 3%. I will be sure to point this out during Council tonight.

Thanks,

Sophia Huckabay (She/Her/Hers)
Housing Manager

City of Concord | Website: www.cityofconcord.org
 (925) 671-3387 |  [email protected]
1950 Parkside Drive, MS/10A, Concord, CA 94519

www.cityofconcord.org | www.concordfirst.com

Pl ease take a moment to fi l l out our customer service survey, click here.

From: Alex Werth <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 9:26 AM
To: Huckabay, Sophia <[email protected]> Cc: Kristi Laughlin <[email protected]>
Subject: Information on Rent Caps in Comparable Cities Hello Sophia,
I'm making my way through the staff report for tonight's workshop. Thank you for all of the tremendous work that has gone into this! I just wanted to report that there's a factual error on p. 15 of Appendix 1. The information on rent caps in nearby cities fails to mention that Richmond votes changed the rent cap there to 3% or 60% of CPI. Please see the asterisk on this page ( text reproduced below).

"
*Due to the passage of Measure P during the 2022 General Election, the AGA is no longer calculated at 100% CPI but rather, 60% of CPI or 3%, whichever is lower."

Would it be possible to point out this discrepancy in your presentation to Council tonight? This feels like an important place to be as accurate as possible.

With gratitude,
Alex

Policy, Research, and Campaign Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/a lexwerthphd/
Pronouns: He/Him/His

From: Patrick Sullivan <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 9:54 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject : Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,
I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking towards rent control in the City of Concord. As an owner of a fifty-year-old building I spend a lot of money on maintenance and upgrades for this property. To compete I replace kitchen cabinets , appliances, and flooring throughout the units. I am paying today's high prices for these maintenance and upgrades and yet your asking me to charge old out dated prices.

Please reconside r your position on this.

Thanks
Pat Sullivan

From: Alex Werth <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 10:32 AM
To: Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>; Huckabay, Sophia <[email protected]> Subject: Comment Re: Item 4a - Concerns About Concord Rent Registry Data

Dear Members of the Concord City Council,

The agenda report for tonight's City Council Workshop on Rent Stabilization and Just Cause reveals that many property owners have submitted form letters in advance of the meeting that echo talking points pr
ovided by the California Apartment Association (CAA). Citing data from the City of Concord's 2022 Rent Registry Report, these letters purport to show that local tenant protection policies are not needed in Concord. However, these claims are based on a problematic and deliberate misreading of the available data, as I explain in detail in the attached letter.

P
lease do not allow these mendacious arguments to distract from the testimony of vulnerable tenants and deter from a meaningful and honest debate on community stabilization measures in Concord.

Thank you for your consideration,

Alex Werth
Policy and Research Advisor
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy

September 5th, 2023
Re: Data from Concord’s Rent Registry
Dear Concord City Councilmembers,
I am writing to address misinformation promoted by the California Apartment Association (CAA) to derail the conversation about creating meaningful rent stabilization and just cause eviction policies in Concord, and thus affirmatively further fair housing as required by state law. In a recent article posted online and sent to its membership, the CAA claims, misleadingly, that data from the City of Concord’s Rent Registry shows that rent stabilization and just cause measures are unnecessary.1 Many CAA members have since sent form letters to the City Council reiterating these claims. But before you take them at face value, I hope that you will examine these numbers more closely:

1. First, the CAA claims that the 2022 Rent Registry Report shows that “the rate of rent increases in the city falls below the state-imposed cap,” thus implying that the statewide rent cap imposed by AB 1482 is sufficient to promote housing stability in Concord. This argument is a red herring. According to the Report, the average rent increase across the city between July 2021 and June 2022 was 9%. 2 The CAA’s statement thus focuses on the fact that landlords appear to be abiding by state law by not raising rents in excess of 5% + CPI or 10%. But the real question that must be considered is not whether landlords are following AB 1482; it is whether AB 1482 is sufficient to address the affordable housing and displacement crisis in Concord. On this matter, the Housing Element Update process revealed, conclusively, that AB 1482 has not done enough to protect low-income renters, immigrants, and people of color from disparate housing cost-burdens, displacement, and homelessness, in violation of the City’s legal mandate to affirmatively further fair housing.

Beyond that, however, it is not even clear that the CAA’s bare-minimum statement that local landlords are following the law is truthful. In fact, there are other data points within the Rent Registry Report that call into question precisely whether local property owners 2 City of Concord. October 31, 2022. Residential Rent Registry Report . 1 California Apartment Association. August 31, 2023. “Concord Council to Consider Rent Control, ‘Just Cause’ Eviction Policies.”

are abiding by the “state-imposed cap.” There are several places where the Report points to average increases in rent and fees in excess of 10%–the absolute maximum under AB 1482–as follows:
● The average cost for 4 bedroom apartments increased by 23% (T able 3a). ● The average cost for 1 bedroom apartments increased by 11% (T able 3a). ● The average cost at large complexes (60+ units) increased by 11% (T able 3b). ● The average cost in the Clayton Road area increased by 15% (T able 3d). ● The average cost in the Downtown area increased by 11% (T able 3d).

These increases in excess of 10% point to three possible problems. One, some landlords are violating the state-imposed rent cap. Two, landlords are abiding by the rent cap during tenancies, but jacking up rents on turnover, thus contributing to the spiraling cost of rent in Concord. Three, landlords are abiding by the rent cap, but raising fees since fees are not calculated as part of rent under AB 1482, even though they are mandatory. Indeed, as we discussed in our recent memo, a review of a sample of units in the Rent Registry (1,000) uncovered 18 instances in which landlords evaded the statewide rent cap and increased tenant costs by more than 10% by increasing non-optional fees.

2. Second, the CAA claims that the Rent Registry Report “shows a significant decline in owner-initiated tenancy terminations from 2021 to 2022.” The Report does show such a decline. But further investigation shows that the eviction data that was self-reported by landlords is deeply flawed–even preposterous. In T able 4a, the Report claims there were only two unlawful detainer actions (UDs) submitted by landlords between July 2021 and June 2022. UDs are lawsuits that are filed in order to legally evict a tenant. According to the data provided by landlords, then, property owners only pursued two legal evictions against Concord tenants over the course of an entire year. This is clearly absurd. Still, in order to vet this claim, we obtained eviction records from the Contra Costa Sheriff for the same time period. These records revealed that, from July 2021 to June 2022, the Sheriff carried out 33 physical evictions at apartments located in 4+ unit properties in Concord. (31 were in properties for which the landlord had completed the Rent Registry in 2022. The other two were in properties where landlords had refused to complete the Registry.) This, by itself, proves that the self-reported eviction data captured by the Rent Registry is a wholly inaccurate undercount. Further, it is well known that only a small fraction of UDs result in Sheriff evictions. So, the degree of underreporting is likely even more dramatic. 3 3 Ideally, it would be possible to obtain data on the number of UD cases filed from the Contra Costa Superior Court. However, the Court tends to deny such requests, citing privacy laws. Thus, it is not possible to compare “apples to apples”–i.e., UDs to UDs–in this case. Still, the data from the Sheriff reveals that there is a clear and substantial discrepancy between the number of UDs reported to the Rent Registry and the number actually filed with the Court.

In conclusion, the Rent Registry is not a reliable source of data on evicting practices in Concord.

If anything, when compared to more accurate data from the Sheriff, the 2022 Report indicates that many property owners have lied about UDs when registering their units. Beyond that, the CAA’s reading of the data on rent increases cherry-picks information to purportedly show that landlords are abiding by state law. This claim is not only a red herring, but one of questionable accuracy. Please do not allow these mendacious talking points to distract from the testimony of vulnerable tenants and deter from a meaningful and honest debate on community stabilization measures in Concord.

Sincerely,
Alex Werth
Policy and Research Advisor
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)

From: Stewart Florsheim <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 10:00 AM
To: Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent stabilization

Dear Council,

I'm on the Board of Directors of Jewish Family + Community Services of the East Bay.

We house many new refugees in Concord and we're seeing a crisis of affordablity in Concord.

I am glad the City is finally committed to addressing excessive rent increases that are harming and displacing so many Concord residents, like seniors on a fixed income, low-income and working families, and black and brown renters. I urge you to pass a truly meaningful ordinance that caps rents at 60% of CPI or 3% (whichever is lower). This will contribute to the social and economic health of Concord. It will benefit our whole community for parents not to have to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent. Affordable rents means parents will have more time at home with their children and families have less anxiety of being displaced. Housing affordability would also help the local economy as workers would remain living in Concord and residents would have more money to spend on food, services and other basic necessities. Affordable and predictable rents means Concord is more stable and strong.

The reality is that over 40% of Concord residents are renters and need relief from escalating and unpredictable rent increases. They deserve the same stability that most homeowners enjoy via their fixed mortgage payments. Rent stabilization is an important step toward fairness and equity.

I believe renters also deserve protection from unjust evictions. While a majority of landlords are ethical, there are unscrupulous landlords who retaliate with evictions when renters ask for repairs or raise issues of pests or mold. Concord renters should not live with fear or in unhealthy conditions.I urge you to pass a strong
Just Cause for Eviction ordinance that is effective
upon move-in and covers ALL types of units. Why should only some renters be protected based on the type of building?

Also, a rent stabilization and just cause ordinance provide essential protections from today’s rental market that has become increasingly influenced by corporate owners seeking only to maximize profits and undermining the well being of our Concord community as a whole.

I am counting on your leadership to craft strong policies that will help children, refugees, seniors and working class families remain in Concord, stop unnecessary evictions, and reduce the City’s growing homelessness.

Thank you.

Best,
Stewart Florsheim

From: Aylene Rivas <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 10:53 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>; Nakamura, Laura <[email protected]>; Birsan, Edi <[email protected]>; Aliano, Dominic <[email protected]>; Obringer, Carlyn <[email protected]>; Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>
Subject: Affordable Housing Now in Concord

Dear Council,

I work for caregivers in Concord and there is a sincere affordability crisis happening here.

I am glad the City is finally committed to addressing excessive rent increases that are harming and displacing so many Concord residents, like seniors on a fixed income, low- income and working families, and black and brown renters. I urge you to pass a truly meaningful ordinance that caps rents at 60% of CPI or 3% (whichever is lower). This will contribute to the social and economic health of Concord. Most importantly, City Council needs to pass these policies for the health of the community because this is who it is adversely impacting.. Housing affordability would also help the local economy as workers would remain living in Concord and residents would have more money to spend on food, services and other basic necessities. Affordable and predictable rents means Concord is more stable and strong.

I am counting on your leadership to craft strong policies that will help children, seniors and working class families remain in Concord, stop unnecessary evictions, and reduce the City’s growing homelessness.

Thank you.

A ylene R ivas
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
Organiz er I
SE IU L oca l 201 5
3 3 3 H egenb erger Rd . Su i t e 400
Oakland C A 9 46 21
E -mail: [email protected] rg
Mobile ( 510) 368. 2075
seiu2015.org | Facebook| Tw itter | Medium

Join our union | Become a Justice Warrior

From: Emerald Properties <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 11:02 AM
To: Hoffmeister, Laura <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Concord Proposed Rent Control
To Mayor Hoffmeister and Council Members
For over 30 years I have been a Housing Provider in Concord (Palm Lake Apartments , 300 units). We take pride in our property and our relations with your city has always been positive. Over the years, Concord rents have been much lower than rents in Walnut Creek and in other neighboring cities because of a more adequate supply. Our State AB1482 already imposes limits on rent increases, as well as providing acceptable reasons for terminating a tenancy. Concord’s rent registry findings show that rent increases fall below that State cap.

Housing Providers are suffering big time from restrictions imposed in connections with Covid-19 pandemic. Many of our tenants quit paying rent, because of loop holes – no real consequences – put in our State and local eviction moratorium ordinances and then skipped out owing huge debts. Others who owe tens of thousands of dollars – some exceeding $100,000.00 and they still live in our apartments. We borrowed funds to keep operations going.

Our policies always provided where long term residents and older residents pay much lower rents than market. In essence we provide affordable housing. Please consider how we are still suffering the effects of Government moratoriums etc. Don’t impose further restrictions. It’s not the tim e. It’s not necessary to add to our adequate State Housing Laws.

Thank you,
John Sullivan

From: Emerald Properties <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 11:22 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I'm part of management of a larger Concord apartment complex:

A) Longtime Tenants and Seniors don't get large increases. Consequently many are enjoying much lower rent than market price.

B) Older Building - We spend much more money upgrading to todays standards - new kitchens, bathrooms, hardwood floors. etc.

C) Beaten up by Covid-19 -Eviction Moratorium. Many Tenants still owe tens of thousands of dollars but we still allow them to live in our properties. We are struggling.

I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

John Sullivan

From: Bryan Taing <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 12:56 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: City of Concord Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Bryan Taing, CPM
Head of Property Management

600 Montgomery St., Ste. 1700
San Francisco, CA 94111
Direct: (650) 332-8116
Mobile: (925) 595-4865
Email: bryan.taing@prim egrp.com

From: Elif Kimyacioglu <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 12:58 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public comment: No on stricter rent control and just cause

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Elif Kimyacioglu
Senior Counsel & VP Risk Management, Prime Residential
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
600 Montgomery Street, Suite 1700, San Francisco, CA 94111 415-445-2577 (direct); 415-640-1422 (mobile)
[email protected]

From: Thai Dominguez <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:00 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Opposition to Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffm eister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This m eans the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy term inations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Thai Dom inguez

Thai Dom inguez
Com m unity Director
Rivershore Apartments

1123 Shoreview Court
Bay Point CA 94565
Office: (925) 369-0915
Email: thai.dom inguez@prim egrp.com
www.rivershoreapartments.com

From: Carmen Reyes <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:00 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control_Letter to Concord City Council

Dear Mayor Hoffm eister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This m eans the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy term inations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Carmen Reyes
Com m unity Manager

1011 Ygnacio Valley Rd
Walnut Creek CA 94598
Office: (925) 934 1133
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.reservewalnutcreek.com

From: Miriam Hernandez <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:05 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Concord City Council

Dear Mayor Hoffm eister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This m eans the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy term inations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

MIRIAM HERNANDEZ
Leasing & Experience Consultant
Prime Administration LLC
1123 Shoreview Ct
Bay Point, CA 94565
Office: 925-458-1666
Office Email: Rivers [email protected]
[email protected]

www.rivers horeapartments .com

From: Jenny Terry <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:16 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent control and just cause

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Terry
925.200.3902

From: Annette Lance <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:19 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Annette Lance

From: Benjamin Lenz <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:11 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Please consider housing providers too

Dear Mayor Hoffmeister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s commitment to removing obstacles to housing in Concord.

These policies affect both new housing and existing housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Your own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy terminations initiated by housing providers decreased. This means the statewide law is working effectively (not to mention its already one of the strictest in the country).

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy terminations in 2022, 44 were due to non-payment of rent.

This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

Ben

From: Gus Klavon <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:26 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Rent Control

Dear Mayor Hoffm eister and City Council,

I am a local housing provider and I oppose the direction you are taking to adopt rent control and just cause in Concord.

This proposal contradicts the city’s com m itm ent to rem oving obstacles to housing in Concord. These policies affect both new housing and ex isting housing.

Worse, the city still does not have evidence to justify adopting policies stricter than those in the statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482. Y our own rent registry reports show that rent increases, on the average, fall below the statewide cap and that tenancy term inations initiated by housing providers decreased. This m eans the statewide law is working effectively.

Out of the 50 owner-initiated tenancy term inations in 2022, 44 were due to non-paym ent of rent. This suggests that Concord renters need rental assistance, not new laws like rent control and just cause eviction. Please vote against the proposal and redirect your efforts to true solutions that help renters afford housing in Concord.

Sincerely,

G us Klavon
Assistant Community Director
Concord 1441

1441 Detroit Ave.

Concord, CA 94520
Office: (925) 682-1655
Email: gus.klavon@prim egrp.com
www.concord1441.com