Anaheim Rent Control: Council must pass AB 1482 as a City Ordinance so it can be ENFORCED!


Let’s cut to the chase here, as this is URGENT, and we’ll show its urgency below, but HERE is the proposal:

Mayor Ashleigh Aitken has said that Anaheim doesn’t need rent control because our tenants are already protected by the 2019 state law AB 1482, which gives some eviction protections and keeps annual rent hikes to a maximum of CPI plus 5% with a limit of 10%. (Which last year, in Anaheim, was 8.8%.) And most of the current Council seems to agree with the Mayor on this: AB 1482 is GOOD, and SUFFICIENT. (They say.)

BUT one of the biggest problems with AB 1482 is it has no ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM, so its various provisions including the rent cap and eviction protections are FREQUENTLY BROKEN, without consequence. SOME other cities dedicate staff, or a whole department, to enforcing tenants’ rights – but not Anaheim. Tenants, in this majority-renter city,

  1. don’t know if or when their landlord is breaking the law;
  2. don’t know what to do about it if they are;
  3. are afraid of retaliation, eviction, or even more if they are undocumented.

Anaheim tenants who suffer illegally excessive rent hikes or unjust evictions have nowhere to go but the understaffed, underfunded, and epically overworked Public Law Center.

Mayor Aitken, who is famously a former federal prosecutor, knows full well that an unenforced, unenforceable law isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. But we have figured out a solution to this impasse:

If the Anaheim City Council passes, as soon as possible, an ordinance identical or similar to AB 1482, our mighty City Attorney’s office will be able to enforce its provisions. And this needs to be done quickly, like, this month.

The URGENCY, pts 1 & 2

I am publishing this NOW, on Sunday, to get the proposal out there, but Monday and Tuesday I’ll be adding to this:

  1. Numerous examples of how both the rent cap and unjust eviction provisions of AB 1482 have been regularly violated throughout the city in the four years since the law passed; and
  2. Reasons the Council SHOULD CARE about this, and ACT QUICKLY.

We’d like to think this is a no-brainer. And we take you at your word that you care about Anaheim’s renters, who are more than 55% of the city, more than 60% in some districts.

Vern out, for now.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.