As Santa Ana prepares to create a new rental housing board and require landlords to register their apartments in a database, the Apartment Association of Orange County filed a lawsuit against the city.
Santa Ana’s new ordinance establishing local rent control and just cause eviction rules is illegal and unconstitutional, alleges a lawsuit filed on Feb. 14 in Orange County Superior Court.
The association, AAOC, seeks to halt the new law, adopted in 2021 and amended in October, that creates a seven-member board to oversee a new rentals registry and serve as a sounding board for both tenants and landlords. Parts of the law, like rent control, are already in place, while others, including the creation of a rental housing board, are still in the works.
The lawsuit alleges the new housing board “is by design imbalanced in favor of tenants and tenant interests” because it will include only two landlords but three tenants — as well as two at-large members with no financial interest in the matter. The ordinance, the lawsuit alleges, restricts the ability of property owners to receive a fair return on their investments and provide a safe environment to tenants.
Santa Ana’s ordinance — the first citywide rent control law in Orange County — caps rent increases to 3% annually or 80% of inflation, whichever is less, for buildings built on or before Feb. 1, 1995, and for mobile home parks established before 1990. The law also limits when landlords can evict tenants, calling for “just cause evictions” if a tenant has broken the rental agreement, including by failing to pay rent or committing a nuisance or criminal activity on the property.
Association officials said they sought to negotiate with city representatives.
“We tried repeatedly to work with the city to address these concerns prior to adoption, but the city refused to meet with us,” John Tomlinson, the group’s president, said.
Santa Ana spokesman Paul Eakins declined to comment on the…
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