The legislative committee struck down the rent cap rule altogether, days after the California Apartment Association launched an opposition to SB 567, a bill designed to strengthen tenant protections in California and lower the state’s annual rent cap.
The major adjustment is the result of a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday. While the council voted 9-2 to pass the bill, approval is contingent on canceling its planned rent cap reduction, The Sacramento Bee reports.
The bill seeks to lower the state’s maximum annual rent cap from 10% or 5% plus inflation, whichever is lower, to 5% or a simple inflation rate increase.
Sen. Maria Elena Durazo of California, an East Los Angeles politician who authored the bill, told the committee she was willing to change course and shift the bill’s focus to strengthen other tenant protections. Durazo’s bill seeks to upgrade an existing law, the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which includes changes designed to strengthen the law’s protections for good cause evictions.
“When we close these loopholes, it will mean a lot for people to be able to stay at home,” Durazzo, a former union official, told the paper.
Durazo’s bill has been hit in part by industry opposition. The California Apartment Association (CAA), the state’s largest landlord advocacy group, recently called on its members to oppose the effort, claiming that SB 567 would limit landlords’ ability to evict problem tenants and renovate older units.
Other landlord groups, including the Rental Housing Association of Southern California, also opposed the bill, while many nonprofit housing groups and cities including Santa Monica and West Hollywood also supported it.
At Tuesday’s hearing, CAA executive Debra Carlton argued that the new bill amounted to lawmakers trying to covertly change existing rules.
“Come here now and claim [the existing law] What needs to be fixed — more extreme eviction protections — is not supported by the data,” she said. “It violates the legislative agreement we have made in good faith under historic law. ”
After Tuesday’s hearing, the bill was sent back to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
