Eviction Threat Halts Enactment of Rent Controls

The Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday put off enactment of a new rent-control law after one of the city’s landlords served eviction notices on residents of a 496-unit apartment complex and threatened to keep the buildings vacant to protest the measure.

Tenants of Oakview apartments, many of them senior citizens, were served with 30-day eviction notices late Monday. The notices said the buildings’ owner, Standard Investments Co. of Los Angeles, would “no longer operate the project because of the city’s pending rent-control legislation.”

Lawrence Kates, a partner in the firm, said he agreed to withdraw the eviction notices after city officials said they would delay for at least six months the rent-control law that was scheduled to be given final approval Tuesday.

Mayor Alex T. Fiore called the landlord’s action a form of blackmail.

“It is ludicrous for someone to close down a 500-unit complex,” Fiore said. But he and other city officials conceded that there was little the city could do to prevent the evictions except to agree to Kates’ demand.

‘Reprehensible’ Negotiation

“That kind of negotiation is reprehensible, but it’s the only way of preserving the homes of 500 tenant families,” Councilwoman Madge Shaefer said.

Under the state Ellis Act, which became effective July 1, local governments are prohibited from blocking landlords from emptying their buildings and withdrawing from the residential rental business.

Thousand Oaks council members voted unanimously two weeks ago in favor of the new rent-control law, which would limit yearly rent increases to 7% for the more than 3,600 apartments citywide. The law would have expanded the city’s 6-year-old rent-control ordinance, which now covers about a quarter of the apartments in Thousand Oaks.

7% Cap on Increases

Unlike the existing law, the new measure provides that apartments remain under rent control even after tenants move out. The new measure would have allowed landlords to raise rents as they wish when new tenants move in, but would limit subsequent annual rent increases for those tenants to 7%.

The council Tuesday passed an emergency ordinance extending for six months the existing law, which was scheduled to expire Oct. 31. The emergency measure limits rent increases for apartments covered by the law to 3% for the six-month period.

The council also made final a new rent-control ordinance that places a 7% ceiling on annual increases in rent for the city’s 678 mobile homes.

Kates said the council’s move to extend controls to all apartments prompted his action.

“We had a tacit agreement with the city that when (units get new tenants) they would no longer be covered by rent control,” he said.

Although Kates said he agreed to keep his building occupied, “there will be certain closure” of Oakview apartments if the City Council ever passes the more extensive rent controls.

City officials said they took seriously the threat by Kates’ company, which owns two other apartment projects in Thousand Oaks with a total of 310 units, as well as many other apartment buildings around the state.

It is the second time Kates has taken a dramatic step to combat a rent-control proposal.

In 1981, when there were few vacant apartments in Thousand Oaks, Kates won significant concessions from the council on its original rent-control ordinance by keeping empty for several months 400 of his firm’s 800 units in the city.

At Oakview, 125 tenants holding an impromptu meeting in a recreation room Tuesday afternoon said they were ready to hire an attorney to fight evictions and challenge the Ellis Act.

“Anytime you give in to a terrorist, no matter how minute a concession, it’s only going to get worse and worse,” said Fran Goldstein, a tenant who is a longtime city rent-control activist.

“There’s no way I could move,” said George Brangan, 80, who has lived in the complex for 16 years. “They’re going to have to bounce me out because I’m not going to walk out of here.”