The Concord City Council will take another crack at drafting an anti-tenant-harassment ordinance after residents and tenants’ rights groups expressed deep disappointment with an existing proposal.
The council was expected to vote on the new rules at its Tuesday meeting but instead voted unanimously to send a draft anti-harassment ordinance back to its Housing and Economic Development Committee and directed city staff to work with tenants’ groups on strengthening the proposal.
“I’d like to see the staff go over with the tenants’ groups their detailed issues and then make themselves available to the other side,” said Councilmember Edi Birsan.
The city has been working on the new rules for at least seven months and in the days before Tuesday’s meeting, dozens of community groups and hundreds of individuals had voiced support.
But when the draft ordinance was published last week, that support quickly turned to opposition over what critics decried as the proposal’s weak and ineffectual language.
Debra Ballinger, executive director of the Concord-based nonprofit Monument Impact, which advocates on behalf of immigrants, refugees and low-income residents, thanked the council for agreeing to rework the ordinance, which she said is “riddled with loopholes.”
She told the council that her organization has seen a sharp increase in the number of calls from tenants about harassment from landlords or property managers and that most of those calls are from women of color.
“This ordinance does not reflect the reality of your most vulnerable residents,” Ballinger said.
Of the roughly 30 members of the public who addressed the council Tuesday, several were Concord renters who described instances of harassment, intimidation and retaliation over things like requested repairs or pandemic-related rent payment delays.
Critics of the draft ordinance said it only provides protection from landlords while omitting any mention of property managers, for example, and puts the burden of proof on tenants to prove “willful” wrongdoing.
It also fails to clearly define the kinds of services landlords are required to provide and doesn’t include effective penalties for landlord violations, according to opponents.
While nearly every speaker at Tuesday’s meeting urged the council to strengthen the proposal, a representative from the California Apartment Association said there was a lot of “misinformation” about the proposed new rules in the community.
Existing law already protects renters from harassment and intimidation, said association spokesperson Rhovy Lyn Antonio.
“The community and city should be focused on educating renters on the robust protections already afforded them,” Antonio said.
The council could take up the new anti-harassment proposal as early as February.
The Concord City Council shows its lack of backbone once again as it bends to the will of a few while ignoring the many.
State Law is already in place for tenant harassment.
The City should direct people to agencies already in place to assist them.
Perhaps the Family Justice Center?
This exercise is more about getting votes than helping people.
This Council can’t even fix the roads, how can it fix anything else?
“Existing law already protects renters from harassment and intimidation, said association spokesperson Rhovy Lyn Antonio”
Why are we creating another set of laws. The advocacy groups are looking to make some type of artificial impact to show their donors their value.
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Awww… renters’ feelings being hurt?
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Pay your rents and don’t give me a bad attitude about your deadbeat tenant status.
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HOUSING IS NOT FREE.
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I screen my tenants carefully and only rent to white-collar, educated professionals… no retail/food service workers, no students, no mechanics, no trades people, and no government-assisted renters. PERIOD.
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Again – kick out all incumbent politicians!
All of them!
I agree vote out all of these career politicians But unfortunately there’s so many people on the take they keep voting for these people that give them their free money so how do you stop the parasite class from voting in the parasite enabler’s when there’s too many parasites already
You can’t. It’s too late to course correct. CA is filled with enough voters who didn’t grow up with the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights as cherished doctrines, so they don’t know they should protect them. New York is the same. Oregon and Washington are falling in line.