Letter to Rental Housing Board on Proposition 33 - Oct 2023
Sent to Pasadena Rental Housing Board, October 3, 2024
Good morning Rental Housing Board.
I encourage you to vote no on Item #2 on tonight's Board Agenda.
This evening, your board will be asked by the Chairman to endorse a Statewide ballot proposition called Proposition 33. The proposition is pretty straightforward, it repeals the statewide laws enacted in 1995 with bi-partisan support to allow cities like Pasadena to have a rent stabilization law while balancing the private property rights of homeowners of single family homes and encouraging construction of new apartments in the state. At the time, I lived in a rent controlled apartment in Santa Monica that was controlled to the point that 3 of the 8 apartments in the building were vacated because they were not allowed to rent above a price point that compensated the owners for the increased expenses. (it was under $200 per month if memory serves me correctly)
For the past decade, a man named Michael Wienstein has directed the profits from an AIDS healthcare group towards political ballot measures in California (He is originally from New York) and buying apartments in the Los Angeles area where he has become among the most notorious slumlords in the city and claims that compliance with existing laws is not possible. You can google this in about 5 seconds.
Proposition 33 will dramatically alter the impacts of Measure H in Pasadena on the day after it passes:
Every single family home and condominium in Pasadena along with all new construction will immediately be added to the restricted controls implemented by your board. (Measure H created a cap of 75% the rate of inflation)
Every single rental in the city, including every apartment, rented house, rented condominium will be covered by a stricter level of rent control called 'vacancy control' that will eliminate the ability to increase rents on vacant rentals to market rate
Every single new construction project in Pasadena will have to rework their mathematics to decide if building in this city and accepting less than market rate returns can work financially
Every rental property in the city will have to figure out how to get out of the long term trend of losing more money every year as the restrictions get tighter and tighter and allowed rents decrease in value over time at less than the rate of inflation
Pasadena will become a city with zero opportunity to find low cost rentals on the open market. Young people moving here will face the option of expensive apartments that have always been expensive and nothing else. You have one board member who rents a small apartment behind her main house. Ask her how she will change her use over time if she cannot charge a fair rent for that apartment.
The members of the board that pushed for Measure H know that this will be a catastrophic blow to rental housing as a business in Pasadena. I have shared with all of you in the past 18 months of your meetings how your current Chairman was quoted as stating that his goal is to 'socialize all rental housing' in Pasadena. This is part of that goal to destroy property values and as Peter Drier has stated, 'pick them up on the cheap'
On page 6 of your presentation material tonight, the half truths are in bright red lights. Almost every single rental property will be covered in Pasadena by a strict vacancy control and limits on rent increases below the rate of inflation. It is not just a small change, this is a GIANT change and will have far reaching impacts. Who is making the recommendation on Page 9? Is it the staff writing their own asterisk saying that they cannot recommend this? Or is that your Chairman placing that in because he knows that this is not fair to ask of your board?
Your board is in place to promote what is called the "Pasadena Fair and Equitable Housing Charter Amendment" and nowhere in that charter amendment does it encourage your board to endorse statewide laws. The personal policy goals of your individual desires and voting is your personal option and one that we all know is sacrosanct. But for your board of appointed members to make a public endorsement claiming to speak for Pasadena is a dramatic overstep of your rolls.
I would suggest questioning the City Attorney for guidance on this. Not the paid team from Goldfarb & Lippman who are enjoying the windfall of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city to enact what you are seeing in Agenda Item #1 tonight. They are not the attorneys for the city and cannot be trusted to represent the people of Pasadena in the legality of your board making a public endorsement.
Thank you,
Adam Bray-Ali
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Adam Bray-Ali
213-399-1940
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
DRE#01859026
