CONCORD — Maria Verduzco has two more weeks to move out of the three-bedroom house she and her three children have called home since 2021.
In late January, she received a 60-day notice that her landlord planned to terminate her tenancy by April 1 — without any listed reason. She said she had never missed any of her monthly $1,700 rent payments and never had any disputes with the property owner.
While searching for a new residence that’s within her family’s budget is already stressful, Verduzco said it’s even more challenging while she is currently on disability, living on a fixed income while coping with depression as a survivor of domestic violence.
“This feels like the end of the world,” Verduzco said, fearing the possible fallout if she is not able to find another stable and affordable place, especially for her children. “Everywhere I’ve been looking, apartments are listed for $2,000 or more. Even if the rent is low, requirements to pay the first month’s rent and a security deposit still make (moving) hard.”
Last month, the Concord City Council approved a tenant protections ordinance that increased “just cause” eviction protections to most of the city’s tenants and established rent stabilization for roughly half its rental stock — intended to help ease the exact anxieties and financial hardships facing renters like Verduzco.
The rules dictating what landlords can and cannot do — as well as how renters can respond — are complex and are not applied in the same way across all homes. (The full 30-page ordinance and broad summaries are posted on www.cityofconcord.org.)
For example, the new rules cap rent increases for multifamily rental units built before February 1, 1995, at 3% or 60% of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Additionally, landlords would be required to pay relocation assistance for “no-fault” evictions of most rental units in Concord; for single-family homes and condos, that sum is equal to two months of the tenant’s current rent, plus a $2,000 moving stipend.
Unfortunately for Verduzco, that “just cause” protection and financial assistance is too little, too late, as the law was initially slated to be implemented three days after her scheduled eviction.
Moreover, the ordinance is currently in legal limbo for at least another few months — potentially leaving even more people facing similar housing predicaments in the lurch.
The effort to update the city’s rental policies has been underway since 2016, including seven marathon meetings and dozens of hours of public comment since January 2023. Still, some homeowners, landlords and real estate agents are opposed to the final result.
Jo Sciarroni, a real estate broker and property manager who’s lived in Concord for decades, decided to put her frustration to paper. She turned in a referendum petition to the city clerk three days after the ordinance’s approval, requesting that voters be allowed to weigh in during the November general election.
“Sitting back, doing nothing and allowing four people (on the City Council) to make a decision that affects 130,000 people in Concord — tenants, landlords and property owners — is just unconscionable in my mind,” Sciarroni said, questioning why the council opted against putting the ordinance directly on residents’ ballots. “I just did not believe that the council was doing the right thing. (Tenant organizers) may have won the battle, but the war is not over.”
As a result, that law has now been suspended while she and other residents are working to collect 7,204 signatures within 30 days. If they succeed, those signatures will be counted and verified by Contra Costa County officials after the April 13 deadline.
Assuming that the registrar verifies the signature count, the City Council will have two choices: either repeal the ordinance, since it can no longer be edited, or place the question on ballots later this year. An answer should materialize by mid-May or June, and an election could cost upwards of $200,000 if it successfully qualifies for November ballots, according to city staff.
Despite the time commitment and sticker price, Sciarroni said she felt that the City Council improperly dismissed her and others’ concerns that private property rights were being kicked to the curb. A referendum, she said, is the best way to get a final tally of opinions in the community.
As written, the ordinance impacts roughly 18,100 residential rental units within Concord; notably, single-family homes would only be covered by “just cause” protections, but not rent stabilization. Neither of the proposed provisions apply to accessory dwelling units and duplexes where the owner lives in one of the units.
These policies are still relatively rare — of the 538 cities and counties in California, only 26 have enacted rent stabilization policies, while 43 include just cause for eviction policies beyond state law. Concord’s ordinance does align with similar efforts in Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond. In the South Bay, officials in San Jose, Los Gatos and East Palo Alto have also written various tenant protections into their municipal laws.
Kristi Laughlin, deputy director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, said it was “heart-wrenching” to learn that the future of Concord’s law remains uncertain after eight years of advocacy — largely sparked by the recent debate over the ordinance’s inclusion of single-family homes.
“In that time, we’ve seen people being displaced and impoverished by escalating rents, which is why people fought so long and hard for this ordinance,” said Laughlin, adding that 40% of the city’s residents are tenants. “I want to trust that the public in Concord can understand that when we have more affordable rents — so families can stay housed, and our teachers can live in the community they teach in — this benefits all of us.”
But representatives of the rental housing industry, including the California Apartment Association, have consistently opposed rent control ordinances. They argue that city-specific rules are unnecessary with existing state laws for rental units.
They also say that such regulations are punitive toward housing providers — potentially creating financial hardships for small landlords, which could discourage maintenance and investment in rental properties.
Sciarroni said if the ordinance becomes law as written, it will further exacerbate Concord’s housing challenges.
“The government is overstepping, and somebody’s got to do something to bring that back into line,” Sciarroni said. “We’re all looking for protection, safety and whatnot, but we have to be protected fairly.”
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