Update by the edhat staff
April 23, 2025
The Santa Barbara City Council passed significant amendments to the existing tenant protection ordinance with a vote of 4-2 on Tuesday. The amendments specifically target “renovictions”—a term that refers to evictions resulting from various types of renovations—which some renters in the community view as an unfair tactic used by landlords to evict them and subsequently raise rents.
The newly approved provisions add three layers of protection under the tenant protection ordinance enacted last year. These measures are designed to prevent landlords from using the guise of unverified renovations as grounds for evicting tenants.
Voting in favor of the amendments were Councilmembers Meagan Harman and Oscar Gutierrez, who participated virtually, and their colleagues Wendy Santamaria and Kristen Snedden, who attended in-person. Santamaria stated the intent is to close a loophole that prevents unverified claims of renovations to evict tenants.
Conversely, Mayor Randy Rowse expressed disagreement, voicing his concern that the amendments might have unintended negative consequences on the rental market. Councilmember Mike Jordan also cast a dissenting vote. Councilmember Eric Friedman was absent due to his health.
The new provisions include requirements allowing tenants to retrieve their possessions prior to the completion of renovations and a clause stating that if certain parts of the plan are deemed unconstitutional, other sections of the ordinance will remain unaffected. Additionally, the council has clarified that the ordinance does not necessitate an environmental review.
The newly approved ordinance will:
- Cap rents charged to tenants who exercise their right to return following an eviction due to a substantial remodel
- Require landlords to obtain independent verification that a proposed substantial remodel requires eviction of the tenant
- Require a new owner of a rental property having 5 or more units to wait one year before initiating evictions to demolish or substantially remodel the units.
As part of the approved amendments, the council has also directed staff to investigate the possibility of creating an appeals process, the details of which will be presented at a future meeting.
Santa Barbara City Council to Consider Additional Tenant Protections
By the City of Santa Barbara
On Tuesday, April 22, the City Council will consider an ordinance to bolster the City’s existing tenant protections related to evictions due to substantial remodels by adding three provisions initially recommended by the Ordinance Committee in 2023, but not included in the ordinance adopted in January 2024.
In-person and virtual participation options. Spanish translation and interpretation provided.
We anticipate this item being discussed by Mayor and Council beginning no earlier than 5 p.m.
Review the Agenda Report Amending Chapter 26.50 Regarding Tenant Protection and Proposed Ordinance.
The proposed ordinance would:
- Cap rents charged to tenants who exercise their right to return following an eviction due to a substantial remodel
- Require landlords to obtain independent verification that a proposed substantial remodel requires eviction of the tenant
- Require a new owner of a rental property having 5 or more units to wait one year before initiating evictions to demolish or substantially remodel the units.
City Council Meeting
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Starts at 2:00 p.m.
Agenda
ATTEND IN-PERSON:
City Hall, 2nd Floor
735 Anacapa St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
PARTICIPATE VIRTUALLY VIA ZOOM:
Members of the public wishing to speak must “raise their hand” in the Zoom platform when their item is called.
WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENT:
Email Clerk@SantaBarbaraCA.
Watch live on Channel 18 or our YouTube channel. The recording will be available after the meeting.
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The only complainers are landlords who A) have not already kept their properties in decent shape, and/or B) foolishly purchased a property THEY COULD NOT AFFORD except to COLLECT RENT. Try this for a change: DON’T GET INTO THE RENTAL BUSINESS IF YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY FOR YOUR OWN MORTGAGES. Quit demanding that renters subsidize your extra mortgage(s). And if you do buy an income property, fix it before renting it out. Stop crying and start contributing positively to your community.
A homeowner has a lot of responsibilities and very high costs for maintenance that have increased significantly every year due to climate change and inflation. It already makes no sense to rent to someone given the low return on investment, then come taxes and liabilities and ever changing rentlaws and more hostile environments towards small homeowners. So now we should be forced to take people back after a renovation, because despite all the cost and responsibilities we shoulder, not we the homeowners, but the city should be in charge of who lives on our property!?! Are you kidding me! This is beyond absurd. Who on the city council is seriously considering this. Why would anyone want to remodel then ever again, why would anyone even want a renter? All this will do is create less affordable rentals in Santa Barbara and less options for renters. Who came up with this nonsense? What the hell is going on with our city council that this is even a consideration. Time to have a good look at who is trying to push small homeowners out and destroy the last remaining middle class and decades long homeowners and hence the last bit that made Santa Barbara a kind and unique place! Remember the times before the Mid 2010’s? How much of that charm is left now? How much longer until most residents will be driven out of town. Atbthe current rate, it wont take long. Many of us a barely holding on and rely on reasonable rent conditions to make it after we worked all of our lives. This is beyond any reason and common sense. Have fun becoming slaves to large corporations…
Welcome to the Republican Party, ain’t life a hoot
Is a lobotomy still a requirement?
What does the republican Party have to do with renoviction laws?
Boo Hoo. You wouldn’t be worried if you took care of your rental properly in the first place.
as a kind and generous landlord who allows pets, I think making things harder and harder for landlords is a lousy idea. makes me want to sell rather than ever rent anything out again. want to see more rentals disappear? do this crap.
So why don’t you sell? Leave rentals to corporations with legal staff, and ability to add balance by asserting private property ownership rights.,
Someone else will buy your house and rent it out.
As someone who manages rental properties, both residential and commercial, this is a backwards step. City Council has ideas to “protect tenants” as a part of their campaign messaging. This may help a few people in the short term to stay in their cheap undermarket apartments as they continue to deteriorate, however nobody wants to buy or build rental housing in this town because it’s impossible to make money AND it’s not worth the headaches of dealing with bad tenants. So many people seem to preach that housing is a basic human right and should not be a commodity where people make money, however they also want more housing. Laws like this (and so many other similar) continue to kill any remaining motivation for people to build more rental units, and people who own apartment buildings will never be able to keep up with exploding maintenance and insurance costs.
Yep, terrible move by the City Council, but hardly a surprise. Good luck renters. Can you say delayed maintenance? And hey, let’s penalize the landlords! Absurd. The City Council majority has gone completely socialist. Next thing they’ll float a prop to levy a tax on landlords to subsidize their own tenants’ rents.
And Basic805, after a requirement for rent reductions, these communist 4 reps will pursue Rep Oscar’s rent registry to require and ensure that every vacant bedroom in your SF home be rented out. WATCH OUT homeowners: your property is on their radar .
Always surprising how many politicians think they can manipulate the free market without unintended consequences. Consequence #1, deteriorating rental stock. Consequence #2, Landlords will now raise the rent the maximum amount each year (5% plus inflation, not more than 10%) to force the resident to voluntarily move out through higher rents. It may take a little longer to get control of the apartment the landlord owns but they will eventually get the opportunity to renovate and re-lease, just now without paying any relocation costs and not required to offer renovated apartment to any previous tenants.
The only answer is to build more apartments. Build 2,000 units throughout the south coast and rents will moderate on their own. This exact scenario is playing out through the county right now. Rents are down in Austin, Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Colorado Springs because too many apartments have been added to the existing stock of apartments.
Anyone who mentions free markets as though such a thing actually exists displays a lack of knowledge of economics.
Feel free to refute the actual merits of the comment instead of ripping comments that don’t add to the discussion
Um…But that was a reflection on the merits of that comment.
How so? Please elaborate if you know better!
So macpuzl, please enlighten us! We’re waiting. Otherwise, you’re just ranting and providing absolutely nothing of substance.
Mike920: our SB City Council foursome (D1,3,4,6 reps) have no idea of free markets. These four reps are math and fiscally illiterate. Talk 1:1 with each who may be at a 5th grade level of financial literacy. Two were recently re-elected. The other two, D4 Sneddon and D6 Harmon, are termed out. 2026 is a critical election year. Find qualified candidates to support and elect!.
“Free markets” have gotten us where we are today. This is why the reps vote the way they do. Homeowners (myself included), for decades, have voted for Prop 13, slow/ no growth, NIMBY, and so here we are.
I agree Mike however 2,000 units will do nothing to moderate rents as SB is a desirable place to live. The only way to reduce rents is to turn this into a hell hole like Los Angeles.
Check out Noozhawk’s article today too. Wendy Santamaria seems to be fulfilling her campaign promise to advocate for this stuff and basking in it. Social engineering at its worst. Good luck Wendy. Sneddon and Harmon also voted for it. Yes, you’ll get a bunch o’ renter’s votes around here, and then it’ll be game over for you and your agenda once the laws of real world economics kick in. Hashtag deferred maintenance. Why make improvements ever? This makes zero sense, unless you support giving handouts to renters who can’t afford their places.
To say that the City Council’s decision is hard to stomach is an understatement. Anyone who watches the video of the Council meeting will be totally appalled. After decades of working two, at times three, jobs, saving every penny and not going on vacations to finally be able to purchase in Santa Barbara, and then to get back stabbed like this is demoralizing at best. Wendy Santamaria is completely self absorbed and dishonest. She ran her campaign promising she would have the back of single family homeowners and renters and now she backstabs both of them with this ordinance. If you are a renter, good rents will be gone forever. It will be impossible to rent in Santa Barbara under even the best of circumstances with these laws in place.
Rents will now go up because of the horrendous decision that has been made-not because of homeowners, but because of this city council. Nobody wins here and the shortsightedness of the consequences of the city council’s actions here, people we all voted in, is so shocking and beyond any common sense. Wendy Santamaria has betrayed all of us just to get voted in and now only watches out for herself, for her own benefit of pay and pensions, nothing else. We need to get her out and quick! Selfish people like her disgust me and we cannot let her abuse the public trust and long-time residents of this community!
Hey, it’s a good (sneaky) way to get voted into local politics- appeal to renters who want cheaper rents. Can’t argue with that! There’s a ton of em around here and she along with Sneddon, Gutierrez, and Harmon are all in on bottoms-up economics. Hey, they get votes. It’s a sad deal to see.
“we all” didn’t vote any of them in, their districts did. Her rent positions are what Santamaria ran and won on — no betrayal whatsoever.
Oh how I wish I could remember which of my friends/acquaintances replied to me, when I proudly announced: “We completely renovated and will rent out the studio attached to our house.” ——– “Ugh. Renters.” Hahaha. Truer words were never spoken.
If our local government (the entire county of SB) wants to ensure minimal increases in rent and/or cost of housing, then the supply needs to increase by quite a bit. Basically, the law of supply and demand….more supply of housing will decrease the demand. Goleta is doing a great job with this as they have created hundreds and hundreds of new units over the past ten years. I believe Goleta has less-stringent “rules” when it comes to building housing. Huge buildable tracts of land on the north side of Hollister on the “airport” property.(including the old drive-in and golf course). Buildable land on the south side of Hollister between Ward and Patterson. Goleta has almost unlimited space for building, much of which is already under consideration for future housing. Some of that Goleta land will need to be rezoned though, but given the current state of housing, that should not be much of a problem. I don’t like that the Glen Annie Golf Course will be replaced with hundreds of units, as well as the nearly 500 units that will be going in on South Fairview (Yardi property). Once the golf course and the Yardi housing units are built, we should start to see rents go down…at least in Goleta.
Wanna bet?
I’ll take that bet! Right now, at Hollister Village (behind Smart and Final near Glen Annie/Hollister) a 1/1 (bed/bath) at Hollister Village is $3415, a 2/2 is $4735, and a 3/2 is $5695. For sake of argument, let’s say 2,500 additional apartments were built in the Goleta area in the next couple of years. Theoretically, the prices of places like Hollister Village would come down due to the increase in supply. Of course, if the demand surpasses the supply, rental prices would not come down…and you’d win the bet. Either way, Goleta will have much more housing, which translates into more money for the city to spend on infrastructure, etc.
“Goleta has almost unlimited space for building,”
No. How about Montecito and SB pick up some of the slack? Instead of converting vacant retail buildings into hotels, put in some affordable housing downtown. Stop using Goleta as the dumping ground.
What we need is AFFORDABLE housing, not MORE housing. That’s not going to happen until CA starts subsidising more of these types of builds to entice developers who don’t want to build under market properties. What we’ll get with all this new housing is just more LA folks moving here or buying 2nd/3rd homes as rental properties. We don’t need that. The only housing we NEED is for those who work here but haven’t been able to afford living here – cops, teachers, service staff, young doctors and lawyers even. We need somewhere for our critical employees to live without having to commute from Lompoc or Ventura.
It’s easy though, but no one wants their taxes raised.
Sacjon: Sacjon: I agree with you in principle, but sadly, reality is much different. The greater Goleta a-r-e-a includes a lot of buildable land that resides in SB County. Much of that land is zoned as agricultural. Just takes a dirty backroom deal and that ag land can be rezoned for 20 pieces of silver (actually, more than that). Land in the the City of SB, Montecito, Hope Ranch, etc. is not attractive to developers because it is so darned expensive. The old Sears property is being converted to housing, and eventually the whole of La Cumbre Plaza will be converted. Same with Paseo Nuevo, but most of that housing will be sold to non-locals with spare pocket change. If the Goleta Target store fails, imagine what will go in there…a park? recreation center? BMX race track? skateboard park? Probably none of those. I’ll go with “low-cost” high-density housing that includes a smattering of “affordable” units. The amount of congestion will be off the charts.
“Much of that land is zoned as agricultural.”
Yup. Which is why it’s not “almost unlimited.”
Bends Knees classic. Start with speculation, proceed on that basis to outrage.
Anon: I suppose that is if you mean “outrage” in the classic sense and not its modern-day interpretation/manifestation.
Well, that made no sense at all.