Santa Barbara One Step Closer to Approving Stricter Eviction Ordinance

City Council Now 4-3 in Favor of Tenant Protections Meant to Prevent ‘Renovictions’

Councilmember Kristen Sneddon said she wants the city to tighten its eviction ordinance to prevent residents from being displaced. “I don’t want to lose any more people from our community because of renovictions,” she said. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

The Santa Barbara City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday to take the next step toward a stronger eviction ordinance, bringing back three provisions intended to prevent rental tenants from being evicted for renovations and priced out of their units.

On April 8, the council will officially decide on the amendments, which would give renters the right to return to their units after renovations with a 10 percent cap on rent increases; require property owners to provide a certified opinion from an independent contractor saying why tenants must vacate for work to be done; and institute a “cooling-off period” prohibiting property owners from renovating or demolishing within one year of buying a property with five or more units.

All three provisions were originally included in a proposal to tighten the city’s eviction ordinance a year ago — following months of public hearings and unanimous approval by the Ordinance Committee — though when the City Council voted in January 2024, the three provisions were left out of the adopted version.

Since then, newly elected councilmember Wendy Santamaria has tipped the scales at City Hall, flipping the makeup of the council to a slim four-vote majority in favor of stronger eviction regulations.

In February, Councilmember Santamaria teamed up with fellow Councilmember Kristen Sneddon to re-introduce the portions left out of the adopted ordinance, restarting the process to amend the ordinance to include the full slate of protections. Last week, the City Council voted 5-2 to place the item on the agenda during its March 11 meeting.

After a lengthy public comment period on Tuesday, in which dozens of city renters and housing advocates repeated testimonies of eviction and skyrocketing rents, Councilmember Santamaria made it clear that she hoped the city worked quickly to “close the loophole” without any further delay.

“We saw that the ordinance as it was passed last year did not meet the needs that our community has,” Santamaria said. “Unfortunately, it did not close the loophole that it was intending to close.”

Councilmember Sneddon was equally exhausted with the process and eager to get the three provisions across the finish line.

“I’m especially concerned that every time we talk about it and don’t take action that we’re actually making the problem worse,” Sneddon said. “I don’t want to lose any more people from our community because of renovictions.”

She said that the cities of Carpinteria and Goleta had already passed similar protections against “renovictions” with success, and just last week the Los Angeles City Council voted 12-0 in favor of an interim ordinance blocking landlords from evicting tenants to remodel their properties.

But not everybody is happy with the city’s decision to revisit an ordinance that was already adopted a year ago.

Mayor Randy Rowse opposes the stricter protections and said that even the term “renoviction” is “provocative” and unnecessarily demonizes landlords while portraying tenants as victims. He asked that city staff provide more data regarding how many units these provisions would affect and worried that too many regulations would be “shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Brian Johnson spoke on behalf of the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, and he raised concerns over the impacts the policies could have on the rental market, leading to “unintended consequences that will hurt tenants in the long run.”

Requiring an outside contractor to verify that a tenant must vacate their unit for a remodel, he said, would be an “unnecessary bureaucratic burden that will slow down much-needed repairs and upgrades.” Capping rent increases after renovations would be a “blatant disincentive to improving rental properties,” he said, and instituting a cooling-off period could be a “serious overreach that could have financial, market, and legal consequences.”

Councilmember Mike Jordan, who originally proposed the one-year cooling-off period before changing his vote last year, worried the changes to the ordinance could lead to “significant costs to the city,” and would benefit only “existing tenants and nobody in those buildings ever after that.”

City residents who spoke during the meeting shared stories of dealing with absentee corporate landlords, and of deciding whether to pay double the rent or relocate their families. Housing advocates encouraged the council to take action before more working-class people were forced to leave the city they serve.

“Protecting our current residents from displacement deserves immediate attention,” said Bradley Klein, a city worker and union representative. “We face an urgent situation where established community members are being forced from their homes, not due to any wrongdoing on their part, but simply because their eviction presents an opportunity for increased profit margins.”

Councilmembers Meagan Harmon and Oscar Gutierrez joined Sneddon and Santamaria in favor of bringing the three amendments back for an official hearing on April 8, recommending to skip the Ordinance Committee and come directly to the City Council.

The City Council will work out details during the April 8 hearing, including addressing questions over exemptions (single-family homes would be excluded) and potential impacts on the city’s other housing priorities.