The Brief

The Los Angeles city council voted Tuesday to let landlords increase rents in the city’s rent-controlled apartments up to 6% for the first time since March 2020.

The proposal will allow rent hikes of 4% beginning on Feb. 1 with additional 2% increases permitted for landlords who cover their tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The 10-2 decision came after fierce debate among council members, caught between pleas from tenants to keep low-income residents housed by continuing the pandemic-era ban on rent hikes and demands from landlords to end a nearly four-year rent freeze that blocked increased maintenance costs from being passed on to renters.

If the council hadn’t taken action, the city’s existing rules would have allowed landlords with rent-controlled properties to increase rents by 7% to 9% starting on Feb. 1.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who voted in support of the lower limits, said, “If we increase rent, people are going to get evicted, and we’re not going to stop this eviction-to-homelessness pipeline.”

Traci Park, one of the council members who voted against lowering the rent increases allowed on Feb. 1, said, “We’ve already asked an awful lot of our mom-and-pop landlords, and I just can’t imagine how much more we’re going to continue to expect them to give.”

Councilmember John Lee joined Park in voting no. Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Curren Price recused themselves from the vote because they are landlords. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy was absent from the vote.

The proposal will now move to the city attorney’s office for drafting and return to the council for another vote before it is finalized.

The backstory to L.A.’s rent freeze

By the time increases resume in February, L.A. will have banned rent hikes in most of the city’s apartments for just shy of four years, far longer than other parts of the country.

The ongoing rent freeze started when COVID-19 public health restrictions first began. City lawmakers saw the ban as a way to protect renters facing financial and personal hardships caused by the pandemic.

The policy applies to nearly 600,000 apartments covered by the city’s rent control law, which generally includes apartment buildings built before October 1978. These older buildings make up nearly three-quarters of the city’s apartment stock. Newer buildings are subject to state law, which currently allows rent increases in L.A. and Orange counties of up to 8.8% annually.

The city’s rent freeze has helped many L.A. tenants — who tend to pay rents that exceed 30% of their income — balance their household budgets during a period when inflation surged. Housing researchers say even small rent increases have been shown to increase homelessness among the lowest-income renters.

The ongoing ban on rent hikes has enraged many of the city’s landlords, who think it should have ended years ago. They’ve long said that rising utility and maintenance costs, coupled with the inability to raise rents, have created financial hardships.

How the council came to this decision 

Last month, councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez moved to extend the rent freeze until August 2024. Landlords quickly mobilized to strike down that proposal.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield instead suggested allowing rent hikes to return on Feb. 1 as planned, but at increases of 4% to 6%. His proposal cleared the council’s housing committee, but a vote scheduled last week in the full city council was delayed in his absence.

During Tuesday’s meeting, council members proposed dueling amendments to alter the rules on rent hikes moving forward.

• Councilmember Tim McOsker moved to allow small landlords with 12 units or fewer to raise rents 7% to 9%, while preserving the lower 4% to 6% limit for larger landlords. 
• Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez moved to keep the 4% limit in place for all landlords, with no additional 2% for landlords who cover utilities. 

Neither amendment received enough votes to pass.

Landlords say repairs will have to wait

Landlords were happy to see the six-month rent freeze extension rejected, but many had hoped for higher allowable increases.

Daniel Bleiberg with L.A. property management company G-B Investment Services said that by not allowing landlords to keep up with rising costs for years through modest rent increases, city leaders have worked against their own affordable housing goals.

“Rental property needs to be a viable business or it’s only going to get worse,” Bleiberg said, adding that some owners have already asked him if they’d be better off selling their property to a developer. “The more [city council members] don't make it a viable business, they're just going to lose more and more of this housing.”

Geza Tokes owns and manages 18 rent-controlled apartments in the city of L.A.

“When the rent freeze started, we had no problem with that,” Tokes said. “It was shaky times and it made sense.”

But Tokes questioned the city’s decision to keep the ban on rent hikes in place for years. He said stagnant rents make it difficult to keep up with rising maintenance costs for gardening, pest control and plumbing. Until the rent freeze lifts in February, he said larger repairs are on hold.

“I’ve got to put a roof on a property in Echo Park — it's $14,000,” Tokes said. “Last winter's rains got us. It's leaking, and we put a Band-Aid on that … I want to take the roof off and get permits and do it legit. But I can't throw $14,000 down right now.”

Tenants say they’re already living on the edge

Many tenants say they can’t afford to see L.A.’s already high rents climb even higher.

Studio City renter Cindy Sanders said, as a retiree, Social Security is her main source of income, and there isn’t much left after she pays rent. She said an increase of up to 6% could spell the difference between staying in her apartment of nearly 30 years, or having to move out.

“With Social Security raises not being high … it's going to really have an effect,” Sanders said. She said she could not afford a similarly sized apartment in L.A. if she’s forced to move.

Delia Cardona said most of her income from cleaning homes and offices goes straight to rent for the Koreatown studio apartment she shares with her two sons. With her budget already strained, she said any increase will force her to cut back on basic necessities.

“Obviously it would affect me and make it harder to buy food and pay my bills,” Cardona said through a Spanish interpreter. She has organized with the Los Angeles Tenants Union to advocate for continuing the city’s rent freeze.

What comes next 

Now, city officials will have to spread the word about the new rent increase rules. The L.A. Housing Department has already told landlords that rent increases of 7% to 9% will be allowed on Feb. 1. Officials will now have to contact them again to note the change to lower limits.

During the pandemic, tenants experienced confusion over the rent freeze, as well as a lack of compliance from some landlords. By early 2023, illegal rent increase complaints had eclipsed pre-pandemic levels. Some tenants also reported that “discount” rent clauses buried in their leases allowed landlords to pass on large rent increases.

With allowable increases of up to 6%, the city of L.A. will have some of the highest permissible rent hikes among all of the cities in Southern California that have local rent control. Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Santa Ana have all set allowable increases below 3%. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted last week to approve allowable rent increases of up to 4% in rent-controlled housing starting next year in unincorporated areas.

The U.S. Department of Justice has attempted to use a number of tactics in recent weeks to remove California voters they say are likely noncitizens from state voter rolls — despite the voting process having already begun.

Election security experts told LAist, however, that the federal government’s case is unlikely to succeed, and that voters should proceed filling out their ballots as normal.

“I don't think most people in the L.A. area or beyond will actually encounter any of the disruption that the administration is trying to project,” Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt said.

The backstory

Last week, Department of Justice election officials sent a list of 20,000 California voters it says it has “high confidence” are not citizens. (L.A. County election officials said they received records on a thumb drive, which they could not open for security reasons.) Two days later, the Trump administration sued California for not complying with its request to use the list to remove any noncitizens from local voter rolls.

California on Tuesday filed an extensive response to the DOJ lawsuit, saying it “borders on the absurd.”

Separately this week, the DOJ announced it had filed charges against 28 people, accusing them of registering to vote as noncitizens.

What is the DOJ claiming?

DOJ representatives said Monday they are attempting to keep U.S. citizens’ votes from being canceled out by noncitizens.

“We have an election coming up next month,” Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney, said. “Our biggest priority is to safeguard the integrity of the election.”

Essayli suggested he may prosecute election officials who knowingly process ballots “once we’ve informed them who the non-citizens are” and indicated the DOJ is working on “many more cases.”

Regarding the list sent to state and local officials, DOJ officials also said they have “high confidence” — not complete certainty — that the people on the federal government’s list are noncitizens.

“There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens,” Trent McCotter, acting deputy attorney general, said Monday. “We're not perfect, and that's why we've asked California to cooperate with us.”

In a court declaration filed today, L.A. County Assistant Registrar Monica Flores said the DOJ’s list is “unreliable.” Analyzing a sample of 200 records, she said a majority are not active voters, and nearly 40% of the records indicate the individual was born in the U.S.

The L.A. County registrar of voters said officials here did not comply with the request to use the federal list and began coordinating with state officials — a point DOJ officials stressed on Monday, with McCotter saying this is “an emergency of their own [California’s] creation.”

Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor who runs the school’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, disagreed.

“The federal government didn't produce its list of voters or its methodology to California until just a few days ago, so this is not an emergency of California's own making,” Hasen said. “It is not the federal government's job to decide who is on voting rolls. That is a job that is given to states.”

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment for this article beyond pointing to Essayli’s X social media feed.

What role will local election officials play?

In large part, Hasen and Levitt said officials will play the same role that they always have, even though more eyes will be on them. County election officials send out ballots, process and verify signatures, and reach out to voters if there are any outstanding issues. The registrar then has 13 days to report on ballots to the state, including provisional ballots and same-day registration ballots, and 30 days to finish counting them.

That said, Hasen said Essayli’s threat of possible criminal prosecution against election officials is “really dangerous” — even though he said these cases are also unlikely to succeed.

“We've got a threat of criminal prosecution against election administrators for not being aggressive enough in policing voting rolls to the Trump administration's liking,” Hasen said. “Even if they were negligent in how they policed their voting rolls, there's no criminal liability here.”

What should voters do?

Levitt, who previously worked on voting rights at the Justice Department, said he doesn’t think Trump’s DOJ is serious about the legal merits of their lawsuit against California.

“I can completely understand that people may be freaked out,” he said. “Part of what DOJ is doing is an attempt to freak people out.”

For their part, local officials have reassured voters that they should proceed to cast their ballots. In a statement, L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called the DOJ’s actions “voter intimidation and a blatant attempt to undermine trust in our midterm elections.”

Levitt recommended voting as early as possible to give voters time to check their registration and resolve any issues. If you have concerns, he recommended visiting an early voting center in person.

Hasen encouraged voters to double-check the status of their ballots to ensure they’ve been processed and counted.

“We have very good ballot tracking,” Hasen said. “California is not going to simply start throwing out ballots from people who are on an unvetted federal list of supposed noncitizen voters.”

What’s the future of this lawsuit?

Hasen and Levitt said the legal problems with the federal government’s arguments can be traced back to federal law and the Constitution.

“The Constitution gives states the power to run elections subject to Congress passing laws that can override that,” Hasen said. “There's no congressional override that would give the federal government the authority to do this.”

That makes the DOJ’s case unlikely to succeed, the professors agreed.

“It's possible that a court might not even really deal with it at all,” Levitt said.

What about the people accused of voting fraud?

The charges announced this week against 28 people accused of registering or voting as noncitizens, however, may be more successful, depending on the evidence presented in each case.

“Isolated cases of alleged voter fraud occur in red and blue states alike, and they should be prosecuted wherever they occur,” a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

But Bonta noted that the 28 people charged represent 0.0001% of California’s registered voters. The percentage is about the same in L.A. County: The 12 L.A. County residents charged this week make up roughly 0.0002% of people on the voter rolls.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing for possible “Super El Niño” storms that could damage schools and lead to closures, the district announced in a media release Tuesday.

District staff are clearing drains, trimming trees and checking roofs, windows and doors. LAUSD is also testing emergency equipment, including pumps and emergency lighting systems, and stocking supplies such as flashlights and drinking water.

“Preparing for severe weather starts well before the first raindrop,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said in a statement. “We can’t control the weather, but we can take steps now to protect our students and employees and help our schools stay ready.”

The district will monitor weather patterns using information from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials, it said.

LAUSD encouraged families to update their contact information to ensure they receive district calls, texts and emails. Families should also monitor weather alerts, follow emergency officials’ instructions, avoid flooded roads and review safe routes to and from school, according to the release.

“Preparing for a storm is a shared effort — from the crews maintaining school buildings to the principals reviewing emergency plans and the families making sure they can receive critical updates,” LAUSD said in the release. “By taking these steps before the rain begins, Los Angeles Unified is working to help students and employees stay safe and keep school communities as prepared as possible for the winter ahead.”

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.