In a meeting where political theatrics eclipsed the final outcome, the Santa Barbara City Council voted 6-1 to pass a just-cause eviction-protection ordinance, the details of which will be hammered out at a later date. Tenants’ rights advocates and landlords packed the chambers in what was a momentous debate. For organizers with CAUSE, who’ve been campaigning three years for such an ordinance, the outcome — hardly preordained — constituted a huge victory.
Tuesday’s vote marks the first major tenants’ protection measure passed by City Hall in many years and reflects the daunting economic realities imposed on working families by Santa Barbara’s unforgiving rental market. The new ordinance does nothing, however, to limit what rents landlords can charge; instead, it precludes landlords from evicting renters unless they have violated one of a list of specified violations, such as not paying rent. In addition, the council voted to require that all landlords — with only a few exceptions — offer their tenants one-year leases. While leases won’t prevent rent hikes, they will restrict when such rent hikes can occur, thus providing a modicum of additional economic stability for tenants.
The vote suggests there was council agreement, when in fact, it was — and will likely remain — a deeply divisive issue. Most striking was Councilmember Eric Friedman’s passionately conflicted soliloquy in which he laid out compelling arguments in favor of adopting recommendations made by a special task force three years ago that explored possible tenant protections. Made up of landlords and tenants, the task force met frequently for the better part of a year. Ultimately, it voted unanimously to require landlords to offer their tenants leases and to require them to pay relocation assistance for some tenants displaced by gentrification and mass evictions. That task force rejected just-cause eviction, however.