Culver City Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells and Culver City (credit: Antonio Wu via Flickr)
Culver City has become the latest Los Angeles-area city to adopt new rent control measures.
The city council voted 4-1 to adopt a temporary 3 percent annual cap on rent hikes and tenant protections in the early morning hours on Tuesday after a five-hour discussion, according to the L.A. Times.
The rent cap will be in effect for one year and applies to buildings built before February 1995. That cutoff was determined by the state’s Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, which bars rent control on any buildings built after that year.
The city also adopted just-cause eviction measures, requiring landlords to prove tenants meet certain criteria in order to lawfully evict them, such as nonpayment of rent.
The measure is likely a precursor to a permanent measure. Lawmakers said the temporary measures ensure that landlords can’t clear out their buildings or hike rents while the city debates a permanent measure.
“We need to have the freeze in order to have the conversation because the conversation causes displacement,” Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells told the Times before the vote.
State lawmakers are currently weighing their own statewide rent control measures, backed by Governor Gavin Newsom, and a number of jurisdictions in the L.A. area have adopted measures similar to those in Culver City.
Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach have all adopted new tenant protection measures but left out a rent cap.
Inglewood adopted a permanent measure in June, and L.A. County adopted protections earlier this year. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch