Page Mill Properties' War on East Palo Alto

East Palo Alto's rent stabilization program, established by voters in the early 1980's, was designed to help tenants know the maximum their future rent increases could be, enabling them to plan their family budgets with a measure of certainty.

But in 2005 Page Mill Properties began to buy up residences on East Palo Alto's west side, and their war on East Palo Alto began.

Repeated high rent increases, reduced maintenance service, confusing changes to lease terms and threatening "pay or quit" notices increased until many of the apartments owned and managed by Page Mill have become empty. Tenants have been forced to move while their landlord breaks the law.

In addition to driving out tenants, Page Mill Properties is paying lawyers to find loopholes in the rent stabilization ordinance to keep the city of East Palo Alto from protecting its citizens. Another legal strategy Page Mill is using is buying up a series of small complexes then establishing them as individual "mom and pop" companies, making them exempt from the ordinance. This is not in accord with the original intent of the exemption and is only one way that Page Mill exploits loopholes in the law for monetary gain.

In December of 2007, with a seemingly even greater eagerness to remove tenants in order to "flip" the property for profit, Page Mill escalated its war on East Palo Alto with more from its deadly arsenal. They issued rent increases of up to 47% to around 1300 tenants in the west side East Palo Alto. Some tenants have received 100% increases, others have seen 30 to 40% increases twice in the same year.

When the city of East Palo Alto complained that the landlord began charging a utility fee to tenants despite the fact that residents pay gas and electric bills directly to PG &E, Page Mill begrudgingly rescinded it, then congratulated themselves for making a "good faith effort". A San Mateo county judge then rejected the city's request for a temporary retraining order against increases. The court indicated that Page Mill had shown they were working with the city and that any illegal portion of rent increases could be reimbursed to tenants at a later date if need be.

Meanwhile residents unable to afford the increases are being forced to move and the entire community is in turmoil.