Oakland City Council Promotes Forced Relocation Policy

Oakland City Council Promotes Forced Relocation Policy

By Lynda Carson October 25, 2003

In a shameful attack upon the low-income renters of Oakland, a new ordinance goes into effect that promotes the forced relocation of thousands and is designed to dismantle rent control in owner occupied duplexes and triplexes across the City of Oakland.

On September 30th 2003, Oaklands City Council moved forward with the assault against rent control by a five to three majority vote in favor of the second reading and final passage of Agenda Item #18, which allows the greedy landlords unlimited rent increases.

Agenda Item #18, called the Residential Rent Arbitration Program and Evictions Ordinance by city officials, has been aptly dubbed by anti-eviction activists as the Blank Check Ordinance, because in essence it offers the landlords the option to write a blank check when it comes time to increase the rents on an annual basis.

In regards to the fiscal impact upon Oakland, a June 10, 2003 staff report concludes that if passed this new ordinance may put 3,000 low-income rental units at risk in the flatlands of Oakland, and that all major studies of cities experimenting with decontrolled rents conclude that within a year of rent de-control the rents may increase by as much as 50% in the recently decontrolled rental units.

Reportedly, Oakland currently has the fourth highest rents in the nation. According to the 2000 Census Report theres 88,301 renter-occupied housing units in Oakland, with 12.2% of Oaklands households earning less than thirtyfive thousand dollars per year, and that 19.4% of Oaklanders live in poverty. Reportedly, 38% of Oakland renters pay more than a third of their income for rent, and theres no end in sight to higher rent increases for the coming years ahead.

Adding insult to injury, the passage of this new ordinance amounts to a reduction in services for the thousands of renters no longer being allowed access to the services of the Rent Adjustment Program to fight unfair rent increases, while at the same time still being required to pay the same annual fee for the services they are now being deprived of.

In addition, with the passage of this ordinance an extra 19,000 rental units already being excluded from the protections of rent control will now have to pay the same annual fee being charged to those that are protected by rent control. This new scheme shall also apply to the Section 8 Renters now being deprived of rent control ever since the Febuary 2002 passage of the Spees/Brunner Housing Task Force proposals that then demolished Oaklands 3% rent cap.

Oaklands rent cap which is now attached to the free floating CPI/less shelter formula presently sits at 3.6% annualy, and the landlords may increase the rents as much as 22% for capital improvements. It must be noted that it is also legal for the landlords to raise the rents as high as they want so long as the renters remain silent and decline to challenge any unfair rent increases above 3.6%.

This new ordinance only targets those renters that may decide to challenge a future rent increase above the annual allowable limit in owner occupied duplexes and triplexes, and does not go into effect for at least one year after it's passage.

The council chambers smelled of money that evening as the landlords lined up like a bunch of junkies seeking their fix at a methodone clinic. They anxiously awaited their turn in line to beg the council members for the right to steal as much money as possible from any of the poor renters that may have unfortunately fallen within their grasp so as to feed their never ending cycle of greed.

Apparently, there was nothing any of the renters in opposition could possibly say that evening to persuade the councilmembers not to pass this ordinance because the deal was already made and agreed upon sometime ago in some back room of City Hall. There was nothing left but the charade of a diminished discussion going on at City Hall that evening before the formality of the votes finally took place to set the whole insidious scheme into motion.

Before the final vote took place, Steve Edrington, the owner of a four-plex apartment building at 630 Lincoln Avenue in Alameda, was feverishly prepping the crowd of landlords with what to say and was offering words of encouragement before they made their case in front of the councilmembers to call for an end to rent control in Oakland. Edrington was the first to step up to the podium that evening to claim that the landlords were too dumb to understand or follow Oaklands rent laws, that a Special Relationship exists between small property owners and their tenants, and that therefore these landlords should become exempt from complying with any of the existing rent laws that may slow down the landlords from raising the rents to unlimited levels.

Sprinkled among the landlords were the realtors lining up to strike their daggers into the heart of rent control, because they believe that rent control discourages property sales if the new owners are not allowed to have unlimited rent increases to force the renters to pay off those mortgages as quickly as possible.

Not satisfied with pushing for an end to rent control in the affected units, one of the lobbyists for the realtors that evening bitterly complained that Oaklands regulations pertaining to condo-conversions were the strictest in the bay area and needed to be stricken. Since then Councilmember Desley Brooks has already been advocating for a loosening of the regulations of condo-conversions to cater to the realestate industry.

In San Francisco alone, condo-conversions have resulted in the displacement and forced relocation of many thousands upon thousands of renters, and is one of the root causes of homelessness in the bay area.

It only took a majority of the councilmembers to pass the so-called Blank Check Ordinance to strip the renters of their rights to oppose unfair rent increases in Oakland, and they wasted no time in doing so.

When all was done and said, Councilmember Ignacio De la Fuente of 3038 Davis St, in Oakland, voted in favor of the unlimited rent increases that may result in the forced relocation of thousands. Councilmember Henry Chang of 6571 Longwalk Drive in Oakland, joined in to strip the renters of their rights to protections from rent control, as well as did Councilmember Larry Reid of 3461 Joaquin Miller Rd, in Oakland. Not to be out done by those that blatantly sold out the renters of Oakland to the interests of greedy landlords and realtors, Councilmember Desley Brooks of 4726 Redding St, in Oakland, and Councilmember Danny Wan of 350 Foothill Blvd, in Oakland, jumped into the fray to make sure that these renters shall no longer be able to defend themselves from unfair rent increases.