Local Housing Providers Plan to File Initiative on 2026 Ballot

On Tuesday, local housing providers announced they are working to bring an initiative to the 2026 city ballot to restructure the governance of Pasadena’s Rental Housing Board.

“We know the process, we have spoken with experts and we have a political consultant on our team,” said Simon Gibbons, who represents Pasadena Housing Providers. The nonprofit represents landlords and family investors in multi-family housing units in the city. “We have to have the initiative ready to go by the middle of 2025. We have the concept and part of a team.”

Gibbons said the initiative will not be about rent control, but oversight.

According to Gibbons, the initiative is being brought forth due to the Board’s consistent rejection of input from the landlords they regulate. He said the initiative would restore balanced decision-making and ensure that key regulatory decisions are made by elected Councilmembers, not by what he characterized as unelected activists.

“We have been insulted and the City Council has refused to listen to our proposals and we have had actual literal threats. It is hard to take this group seriously when they talk about fair and equitable housing,” Gibbons told Pasadena Now.

Currently, just one landlord sits on the 13-member Board.

Gibbons stopped short of saying the group would run candidates for City Council seats in 2026 when seats 3, 5, and 7 are decided. Those seats are currently held by Justin Jones, Vice Mayor Jess Rivas, and Jason Lyon. Gibbons, however, said the group will make endorsements.

“We will be making recommendations,” he said. “We look forward to talking to all of the City Councilmembers and meaningful candidates.”

Gibbons is part of a lawsuit seeking to overturn Measure H. The California Apartment Association filed an appeal seeking to overturn Measure H after a judge ruled against them. Gibbons is a plaintiff in that lawsuit.

The California Apartment Association claims that Measure H goes beyond an amendment by significantly altering Pasadena’s governance structure, requiring a more thorough revision process. The brief also argues that Measure H’s tenant-majority Rent Board and landlord exclusion violate constitutional protections and that specific provisions of Measure H, including relocation assistance and extended eviction notice requirements, are alleged to conflict with state laws like the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

Tenants have hailed Measure H and told Pasadena Now in April, 18 months after the rent control measure passed, that they can now live without fear of retaliation from landlords. Others praised the initiative, which rolled back rents and limited increases.

Some landlords said they regretted investing in Pasadena and would probably sell their properties.

Although the lawsuit seeks to overturn Measure H, Pasadena Housing Providers say they support the need for affordable housing in Pasadena and will not be proposing any change to the current rent control formula which restricts rent increases to 75% of the rate of inflation.

The statement further describes rental housing as a “large and important part of Pasadena’s overall housing market,” and property owners deserve a voice in making sure that it remains viable and healthy.

“The structure of the Pasadena Rental Housing Board was already intended, unfairly, to exclude landlords from key decisions but the hijacking of the appointment process by extremists has led to a situation with only one landlord on a Board of thirteen people. Naturally, this leads to unbalanced decisions due to a lack of relevant knowledge.”

Although landlords were largely excluded from the group, the appointments were made by the City Council, which regularly appoints local residents to advisory bodies.

In order to qualify for the ballot, the group must collect the required number of signatures and hit certain deadlines.

“The real estate lobby has lost at the ballot box and in the courts,” said Liberty McCoy, a Board member with Affordable Pasadena. “They can try to bring their tremendous monetary resources, thanks to the rent they collect every month, to run a campaign to weaken the enforcement of Measure H if they want to. But to be clear, this would be a campaign to remove protections from Pasadena tenants and weaken enforcement mechanisms for landlord accountability. That’s going to be a tough sell given how popular Measure H is across the city. Tenants make up the heart of the city: they’re teachers, small business owners, seniors, families with school age children. They’re also around 60 percent of the population. This attempted rollback is just another way for landlords who often do not live or vote in Pasadena to strengthen their power and profits. Tenants will once again work together to reject this.”