Rent Board Holds Off on Fining Landlords, Citing Staffing Costs and Rare Use Elsewhere

Pasadena’s Rental Housing Board on Thursday held off on deciding whether to fine landlords who violate the city’s rent control charter, after staff reported that most rent-control jurisdictions they surveyed rarely use such penalties and that a citation program covering an expansive list of violations could require three to five additional employees.

No vote was taken. After most of the members who spoke said the effort was not worth the cost, Chair Allison Henry directed staff to return only if a pattern of violations emerges and to add more detail about enforcement problems, particularly harassment, to the Rent Stabilization Department’s quarterly reports.

“No, we don’t need a motion for that tonight,” Henry said. “It’s just direction to staff.”

Measure H, the charter amendment voters approved in November 2022, authorizes the board to establish a schedule of fines for violations, provided the amounts are reasonable and consistent with applicable law, according to the section quoted in the staff report. Nearly four years later, the board has not adopted one for violations other than failing to register units.

Staff contacted more than 30 jurisdictions and heard back from 18, program coordinator Stanko Zovko told the board. Eleven, including Berkeley and West Hollywood, have no penalty structure beyond late registration charges, he said, and most of the rest told staff their citation authority sees little or no use.

In Los Angeles, a City Controller audit of the city’s tenant anti-harassment ordinance found that of more than 11,000 harassment complaints filed as of July 2024, 23 were referred to the city attorney and four citations were issued, all to a single landlord.

State law, the Petris Act, also bars penalties against a landlord in “substantial compliance” with a rent control law that requires registration of rents — meaning a good-faith attempt to comply, with any deficiency cured in a timely manner after the local agency gives notice.

Managing a citation process is “highly time and labor-intensive,” the staff report said. Henry said the three-to-five-position estimate was “a lot of staff” for violations the board has seen “glimpses of one or two” of in its cases.

Board member Ryan Bell said city civil litigation in select cases against landlords who endanger or unjustly evict tenants was probably time better spent than trying to “chase down $500 here, $250 there.” Based on his recollection, he said, fine revenue would go to the city’s general fund while the department footed the bill for salaries.

“It’s an unwieldy tool and there are already remedies for a lot of these things,” said board member Emily Wernberg, who added that she did not know how fines would be collected unless they were tied to the registration process. “It feels like we’re looking for a solution that we don’t know what the problems are right now,” said board member Emanuel Najera, who said the board should wait for more data.

The one member who argued for proceeding was alternate member Claudia De Anda, who sat in for the absent Paul Goyne. “It’s better to be proactive than reactive,” she said, naming illegal rent increases and harassment or retaliation as her priorities.

Henry said she was “somewhat sympathetic” to De Anda’s question of “what are we doing here if we have no teeth?” But the board’s regulations currently state that no administrative remedy exists for harassment or retaliation, according to the staff report, and several members said harassment is hard to define and prove. Zovko said staff contact landlords whose conduct “may appear like harassment on first blush” and have met with the city attorney’s office several times about potential harassment cases.

The department collects affidavits from landlords who evict tenants to move in themselves, but has no standardized yearly check that they stay the required 36 months, Zovko said. “That is probably next on my to-do list,” he said, adding that owners’ registration updates provide some verification.

Overpayments owed to tenants are not paid with interest — “but it probably should be,” Zovko said — and landlords found to be three years behind on overcharged rent owe only the overpayment, with no fine, he said. “By and large, I will say our landlords are willfully compliant,” he added.

Board member Deborah Dunlop described a tenant who she said has waited nearly four years for an $11,000 second installment of relocation assistance in a case that arose just before the charter was approved. Alternate member Peter Dreier said, “From what I know, the city attorney hasn’t brought one case.” Zovko said staff have been meeting regularly with the city prosecutor’s office to review potential cases.

In public comment, Pasadena resident Gary Hampton Maat-Hotep said the penalties would become a “cash cow” for the city’s general budget, while a caller who said she was speaking as both an advocate and a tenant urged the board to adopt citations, saying tenants who report problems “become targets for retaliation.”

Tenants and landlords with questions about the charter can contact the Rent Stabilization Department at (626) 744-7999 or rentalboard@cityofpasadena.net.

Zovko offered quarterly reports with more detail about the enforcement issues staff are seeing. Henry welcomed the offer, noting that the board’s quarterly reports go to the City Council. “So that’s another piece of leverage,” she said.