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It was a bit of a letdown Tuesday morning as a standing-room-only crowd packed a San Jose courtroom to see if Mountain View’s new rent control law could withstand its first major legal challenge.
But that question will have to wait for another day. After hearing arguments from both sides, Superior Court Judge William Elfving indicated he wouldn’t issue an immediate ruling, leaving the voter-approved Measure V in limbo.
“I will take this matter under submission,” Elfving announced at the April 4 hearing. “I will consider (these arguments) and do the best I can to get it right.”
The hearing focused on a request by landlord advocates for a preliminary injunction, which would continue blocking enactment of the rent-control law until a final judgment is made in the lawsuit. Up until this point, Measure V has been halted under a temporary restraining order, but that hold will be expiring soon.
For attorneys in the case, the lack of decision on Tuesday wasn’t a big surprise. Elfving had declined to issue a tentative ruling prior to the hearing, indicating he wanted more time to consider his decision, said Jannie Quinn, Mountain View’s city attorney.
In her experience, Quinn said it would probably take a week for a decision to be handed down, although the judge was certainly entitled to take longer.
The delay in ruling capped a heated round of arguments from both sides. Lawyers representing the plaintiff, the California Apartment Association, said they had found 58 deficiencies in the language of Measure V. In sum, attorney Stephen Pahl said the measure “tramples on the rights of a minority” –landlords — who would be restricted from participating in a future rental housing committee.
Measure V limits the number of landlords or real estate professionals on the five-member committee to no more than two.
“There’s a permanent underclass being created where solely by virtue of occupation you’re prohibiting them from maintaining a positions on the (rental housing committee,” he said. “While you can patch a few holes, at some point there’s so many holes that the boat will sink.”
The CAA lawyers included four declarations from landlords testifying they would suffer damages if Measure V were implemented, particularly its provision to roll back rents to 2015 rates.
Defending the measure, attorneys for the city and its allies argued that the court had a duty to exercise extreme caution in blocking Measure V, since it was a voter-approved ballot measure. Attorney James Harrison said the landlords failed to show that the text of Measure V was explicitly in conflict with established law or that it would cause irreparable harm.
“The right of initiative is one of the most precious in our democracy and the court has to jealously guard that right,” said attorney James Harrison.
“For all the criticism leveled at this measure … it was carefully drafted to control excessive rents and arbitrary eviction,” he said. “This measure is consistent with other laws that have been approved over and over and over again.”
Updates on the court case will be posted to mv-voice.com
“…argued that the court had a duty to exercise extreme caution in blocking Measure V, since it was a voter-approved ballot measure.”
So? Proposition 8 was voter-approved too, and rightly repealed. That’s why we have courts: to overturn these mob-rule measures that discriminate against minorities.
Gathering votes from the renters living in old properties and donations from the rich developers (no Rent Control possibilities) is what keeps politicians in office in Mountain View (plus parking permits for friends in OMV).
Discriminating against a few old landlords will not impede the aspirations of our elected leaders. Insert more fake hand wringing here.
You should be ashamed for calling the poor families that are down on their luck “unemployed, flat-broke illicit drugs addicts,” but I’ve seen enough of your posting here to know that’s not the case. I hope one day you have the dignity to meet those families and say it to their faces.
I respective disagree with your “facts” and “logic” because the small landlord is out and only big LLCs / corporations can deal with the fees and regulations. Through in the “not-in-my-neighborhood” mantra and you create the perfect housing crisis.
The City of Mountain View fees and regulations have more to do with the escalating cost of housing than financing. This started in the 1950s with families loosing their farms due to street assessments that has now blossomed into rent control.
Business Man, you cannot tax yourself into prosperity and/or take away the rights of others (e.g. landlords) for your benefit and short-term financial gain.
Ok, Mr “The Business Man” you are obviously clueless. You have no understanding of who or what CAA is or what it stands for. I have been a CAA member for nearly 28 years and I am not a corporate owner by any means. CAA represents all rental owners whether we own and rent out one single family home or are a large publicly traded real estate investment trust. They do not seek total corporate ownership of apartments as you mention. If that were the case, small property owners would not be part of CAA.
And, CAA has adovocated real solutons. The Tenants Coalition took the “rent control or bust” approach and are the reason we find ourselves in this situation. Had the tenants been willing to accept compromise and worked with CAA and the city, there would be no Measure V and no rent control and we’d have some tenant protections. Shame on the tenants coalition for their stubbornness and shame on them for putting V on the ballot.
This isnt CAA’s fault, they warned the tenants coalition of the legal action and followed through.
I did not call poor persons anything. I pointed out, among other things, that landlords are not required to rent to poor persons, grocery stores are not required to hand out food for free and you not required to take into your home poor persons or anyone else. The most basic and All-American form of “discrimination” is based on the ability to pay. Is some poster advocating the outlawing “discrimination” based on the ability to pay? If so, for what persons or purposes?
You started discussing the families being housed by the Water District and referred to them as “unemployed, flat-broke and illicit drugs addicts,” and you should be ashamed of that. I hope one day you have the dignity to meet those families and say it to their faces.
I did not refer to anyone housed by the Water District. I did refer to the proposed plan to house some persons who no business man or woman would rent to as an example of lawful “discrimination.” The Water District’s proposed plan is to discriminate in favor of homeless persons and against all other potential occupants of its 50 houses – 21 in Mountain View. I sought to illustrate that every law – every decision by government and others involves “discrimination.” Your attacks on my posts – and not posts by others – is discrimination. Do you get it yet?
You’ve alleged that the families that are proposed being housed by the Water District are “unemployed, flat-broke and illicit drug addicts.” Are you really going to deny that you posted that?
You seem to have trouble reading and do not understand the word or concept of “discrimination” or anything about houses owned by the Water District. Getting back to the article, do you even grasp that Measure V discriminates lawfully or do you imagine that all “discrimination” is or should be unlawful?
You’re falling back to your usual tactic: once you get pinned down on a point, just start dodging. I can’t tell if that makes you a really bad or a really good lawyer. The lack of shame certainly helps, I bet.
The state attorney general reminded council late last year it was not okay to discriminate against other classes of residents when handing out parking permits to single family residents only. Now we have parking permits coming to all residents in OMV that could actually walk downtown. So the city is now discriminating against all other residents outside OMV looking for street parking when they intended to reward just a few single family homeowner pals tired of parking in their driveway. Many suffer the discrimination and bear the burden of each new regulation and just a few (the connected) will benefit. Picking on a few old landlords may not be discriminatory but it is shortsighted and a morally bankrupt measure.
Parking permits, rent control, it’s all the same. It’s all about the “votes”
In this case, the residents of OMV are the windshield and the old landlords of Mountain View are the bugs.
@ @Gary (please use your own handle, much clearer on replies)
Gary was NOT actually saying anything about Water District renters. What he was referring to, rightly or wrongly, was the Water Districts recent plan to stop renting some of their properties to low income families that you are supporting, and instead start using those properties to house homeless that currently encamp along the creek. This was a very poorly stated, not at all well thought out proposal on behalf of the Water District. Gary was taking a dig at the WD for THAT. The WD has since gotten the message and dropped the proposal, which in my opinion is good news for low income families.
@Ron ( 🙂 )
I’m well aware of what Gary was referencing. He was calling the poor, homeless families that were going to be housed in the water district houses “unemployed, flat-broke and illicit drug addicts.” He has not denied this, and keeps attempting to shift the subject.
@ @Gary
Except, that the Water District was NOT going to house poor, homeless families. I spoke to the various reps, and they were quite clear that the purpose was to house homeless from the creek (to help address the Water District’s costs of creek cleanup). And representatives from the local Fire Department pointed out that there were no known families amongst that population, but they were in fact mostly single males with drug problems. After all this testimony it was decided that the WD rental houses, being too far away from any needed services by foot, were a poor choice for this purpose. Instead, they will be donating some money from the rental properties to address the issue of homelessness.
So I get what you are saying about Gary’s comments, but in fact the WD WAS planning to house a general population of troubled individuals from the creek, not families.
@Ron,
From one of the board members in the initial Voice article:
“These people do not have a place to stay, most of them are families, and unlike what most people think, they are all employed,” Estremera said. “These people get up from the creek, out of their tents, and they go to work every day and take their kids to school. That’s a majority of the people who live in our creeks.”
At best, I’d say that it’s unclear who would be housed, but I’d like to hear an actual on-the-record citation for your side of the story before accepting it as certain fact. For Gary to act as if the families being referenced were “unemployed, flat-broke and illicit drug addicts” is shameful and disgusting.
I have not seen the court papers (except the complaint filed by the CAA) and I did not watch the oral argument this morning. But if landlords are whining about being victims of “discrimination,” they are barking up the wrong tree. There is no law against “discrimination.” Every law discriminates. Every law. Name a law and I will tell you on what basis or bases it “discriminates.” A landlord with a brain would not rent to an unemployed, flat-broke illicit drug addict. Oh gee, but that “discriminates” against the unemployed, flat-broke and illicit drug addicts. Thankfully so. Maybe only the Santa Clara Valley Water District would rent to such persons.
Gary,
The problem with you point of view is that the CAA has been corrupted by REal Estate and Financial Institutions over inflation of properties. This is the root cause of the lack of affordable housing, NOT the fact that you cannot cherry pick your customers. If it were up to you, you would practice any kind of discrimination regarding apartment tenants.
I have been discussing the over-inflated of apartments for months. Yes I am a supporter of Measure V, but I have also tried to find solutions to the impact of the Measure. That is something the CAA refuses to do. Or it simply cannot figure out how to lobby for real affordable housing solutions that mutually benefit owners and tenants.
When you look at a website like zillow, there are 2 views you can see regarding a apartment property for sale, the real estate selling price and the actual value of it. The default is a pop up on the page which shows the asking or sold price of the property. But when that closes you can see the actual value on the map if you set it up to do so. In my apartments case, it listed the value as $1.15 Million, but the new owner paid $4.95 Million. What one pays for the property is NOT the value. This is the definition of real estate investment SPECULATION.
In California the courts have determined that since the realtor value price is an “opinion” it cannot be the basis of a civil complaint regarding fraud or deception. The courts stated in previous decisions that it is the buyer responsibility to ascertain if the property is the value it is being sold for. This creates the last one buying is underwater problem. The last buyer is stuck with a large debt, and simply wants to resell it as soon as possible to get rid of it.
That is because the realtor price is based on an “opinion” based on the paid services of a appraiser. This was the process that created the housing financial crisis of 2007-8. But the government’s fix for the problem did not include apartments. The Federal legislation excluded apartments from the remedy it made to prevent homeowners from losing their homes or apartments of no more than 4 units based on over-inflated mortgage principals. This was the birth of the Home Affordable Refinancing Program which did the following:
HARP program includes:
No underwater limits
BORROWERS WILL NOW BE ABLE TO REFINANCE REGARDLESS OF HOW FAR THEIR HOMES HAVE FALLEN IN VALUE. PREVIOUS LOAN-TO-VALUE LIMITS WERE SET AT 125 PERCENT.
No appraisals or underwriting
Most homeowners will not have to get an appraisal or have their loan underwritten, making their refinance process smoother and faster.
Modified fees
Certain risk-based fees for borrowers who refinance into shorter-term loans have been reduced.
Less paperwork
Lenders now need less paperwork for income verification, and have the option of qualifying a borrower by documenting that the borrower has at least 12 months of mortgage payments in reserve.
Program Deadline
The end date to get a HARP refinance is September 30, 2017.(Web Link)
The apartment industry should have lobbied to include it as a part of the remedy. Thus underwater investments could be corrected and the buyer can get a debt principal correction.
This overpricing started as much as 30 years ago. So it has been considered a normal business practice. But a person trained in business not depending on real estate can clearly see the disaster this would cause in the future. But the FUTURE is NOW. The industry has the opportunity to have a public policy to reduce the ownership debt on a apartment purchase if it chooses to do so. However, the CAA for example has a relationship with financial groups that do not want to see their mortgages be settled for a lower cost by a competitor or the government in order to receive inflated interest profit.
The CAA simply is a paid extension of the realty and financial groups using or in fact abusing the over-inflated property values. If the CAA or apartment owners want the government to deal with affordable housing, this is a VERY simple approach to reduce costs on the part of the apartment owners, but the CAA does not want this to happen. In fact, they want apartments to be so costly that only corporate ownership can exist in the end.
Dear anonymous poster. The article is about Measure V and a CAA lawyer’s claiming at oral argument that his client (a business entity) is the victim of “discrimination.” I am telling readerd all laws discriminate. I also pounted out that landlords rightly discriminate in choosing tenants. All persons discriminate. But you want to complain that homeless persons are being discriminated against and some of them are “famalies” that you contend should be helped (over others) by government. You remain confused.
Some new occupants would be troubled – others not. Mixed bag. But anytime you give a house (or apartment) to one person (or family) it is to the exclusion of some other person or family. Choosing is discriminating. Still don’t understand? Oh well. This is a discussion board related to items in the Voice. I suggest our anonymous poster go back and read the article instead of continuing with a tirade. But that suggestion will not likely matter.
Like I said: Some are troubled and some are not. Giving a house to one person or group of persons is to the exclusion of another person or group. Choosing is discriminating. I did not think you would go back and read the Voice article (above).
All I can say is to remind that the Proposition 8 was enforced all during the litigation to rule it unconstitutional.
This precedent means that it may take 5 years before Measure V is eventually ruled unconstitutional. That means that Measure V should be enforced all during this time.
The CAA and the apartment owners are not entitled to more constitutional rights than the LGBT citizens were regarding this situation.
They are not entitled to holding off the law until the court rules that the law is unconstitutional, it may be eventually unconstitutional, but it simply cannot be stalled for litigation sake alone. If this were true the Proposition 8 should have been also restrained or enjoined, but that cannot take place.