Friday Morning Hearing Scheduled on Measure H Rent Control Preliminary Injunction

The California Apartment Association (CAA) on Thursday filed a preliminary injunction to stall further implementation of Measure H.

The request asks the court to place the law on hold while CAA’s challenge is decided.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday morning. If a judge sides with CAA, Measure H could be stopped in its tracks during the subsequent lawsuit.

If the CAA loses the lawsuit, Measure H would roll back rents to May 2021 prices.

The City said last week it currently cannot provide assistance to tenants and landlords regarding the initiative, which is supposed to be implemented and endorsed by a rental board — and not the City Council or organizers of Measure H.
So far that board has not been established.

“The initiative entitled the ‘Pasadena Fair and Equitable Housing Charter Amendment,’ narrowly approved by the voters of Pasadena as Measure H at the November 2022 election and challenged herein, seeks to fundamentally alter this basic form of government.

“It creates a new ‘Rent Board’ that would operate entirely independently of the rest of the City government and would usurp the Council’s and City Manager’s executive and legislative powers with respect to a fundamental policy issue within the City—rental housing.

The injunction also says that among the core powers that are conferred upon the board and stripped away from the Council and City Manager are the powers to enact law to administer and enforce the rent control law, establish its own budget, free from the normal City budgeting process, in which the Mayor and City Manager propose a budget for consideration, revision and adoption by the Council, set fees, in its discretion, to support its budget and set penalties for violations of its rules, request and receive funding… from any available source including the City for its reasonable and necessary expenses, hire and fire its own staff and consultants, file or intervene in court actions and retain its own counsel.

CAA’s lawsuit, filed Dec. 16, alleges that the measure unlawfully revises Pasadena’s charter, unconstitutionally restricts which people may serve on the rent board created to administer the law, and violates the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

“The request filed today argues that an order should be issued immediately to halt further rollout of the law because CAA is likely to prevail on its claims and because failing to place the law on hold in the interim is likely to do more harm than good.”
According to a copy of the motion, the state’s constitution, dictates that Measure H is improper and invalid, “due to the breadth of its changes to Pasadena’s basic governmental structure.”

“Measure H proposes an unlawful revision to the Pasadena City Charter, which may not be enacted by voter-circulated initiative, rather than a lawful amendment, which may be enacted by voter initiative. (2) Measure H conditions the right to hold the office of Rental Housing Board member on a property qualification [and imposes such condition on a supermajority of seats on the Rental Housing Board] in violation of the California and United States Constitutions; and (3) Various provisions of Measure H conflict with, and are therefore preempted by, controlling state law, including the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act; the Ellis Act; the State’s unlawful detainer statutes and various other state law provisions governing rental housing.”

If CAA’s request for a temporary restraining order – an order to halt further implementation of the law pending a full hearing – is granted, the court will then set a follow up hearing on CAA’s request for a preliminary injunction to keep the law on hold until a final decision in the case is made.

“Moreover, implementing Measure H while this case is being litigated threatens irreparable harm to property owners in Pasadena—who cannot comply with many of the Measure’s provisions without action by the (illegally-constituted) Rent Board—and to the public. For these reasons, an injunction should issue,” the court documents state.