The Imperial Beach City Council established a special committee on Wednesday that will work through the holidays to study how the city could provide stronger protections for renters.
The Council’s action comes as scores of tenants at Hawaiian Gardens, a 64-unit apartment building on Imperial Beach Boulevard, are facing eviction at the end of January. Dozens of residents from the building and surrounding neighborhood have urged the Council to intervene for weeks.
It remains unclear whether city leaders will actually block those evictions, as many at Hawaiian Gardens hoped. The Council discussed temporarily freezing evictions on Wednesday but did not reach a final decision.
Joshua Lopez, a Chula Vista Elementary School District technician who has lived at Hawaiian Gardens for 11 years, was grateful that the Council was taking some action. But he wished they had been more clear about what they might do in January.
"I think with the amount of time that we have, I can't really hang my hat on that," Lopez told KPBS.
Wednesday’s discussion came after the owners of Hawaiian Gardens issued a mass eviction notice in late October.
The owner, San Diego-based F&F Properties, had owned the building for about a year and a half when they sent out the notices. They were no-fault evictions, meaning none of the tenants had done anything wrong. Instead, the company said they were kicking everyone out so they could completely renovate the apartments.
Under California law, that’s a legal reason to evict someone. But it's one that has drawn strong criticism from tenants’ rights advocates, along with some housing attorneys and state lawmakers.
They argue that real estate investors can exploit these "substantial remodel evictions" by buying up older buildings, kicking the old tenants out and putting the remodeled apartments back on the market at a higher price.
Advocates say that’s what is currently unfolding at Hawaiian Gardens.
In a statement, the company said it had gone "above and beyond" by giving residents three months’ notice and waiving some rent charges and other fees.
The news of the mass eviction has rocked Imperial Beach, where close to 70% of people rent their homes rather than owning them. Many at Hawaiian Gardens said the decision had upended the lives of dozens of working class families and would force them out onto an unforgiving rental market.
Last month, dozens of renters from the building and surrounding neighborhood marched to City Hall, along with organizers from the tenants rights group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
They urged the City Council to pass an emergency freeze on evictions in the city and ban substantial remodel evictions altogether.
Other cities in California have implemented similar bans, including Los Angeles and South Pasadena. No other cities have taken those steps yet in San Diego County.
At their regular meeting on Wednesday, Imperial Beach City Council members discussed options for stronger tenant protections.
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre began the discussion, arguing for a solution that would benefit both renters and property owners without displacing people during the winter holidays.
"In this particular case, I think there’s a window of opportunity," she said. "It’s a real concern that we may have people out on the streets.”
Representatives from several landlord industry groups urged council members to proceed with caution.
George Ching with the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors said changes in tenant protections could hurt small landlords who are already contending with expensive construction materials and labor costs.
"If a property owner needs to do that and … they’ve been charging rent that’s under market value, they’ll have a tough time doing that," Ching said during the public comment portion of the meeting. He added that more small landlords might end up selling their properties to larger real estate investors.
Other property managers said they supported stronger protections.
Gilberto Vera, deputy director of the nonprofit law clinic Legal Aid Society of San Diego, told the City Council that his parents were also small landlords in Imperial Beach and that he helped them manage their properties. Vera said he strongly supported reinforcing the city’s tenant protection laws.
"If you leave it as is," he said, "what you’re telling institutional investors is that there is open season on your naturally affordable-occurring housing."
Lopez said he understood landlords’ concerns about their profits. But he pointed out that he and other renters are trying to keep the only home they have.
"Our community’s fabric is unraveling," he said during public comment. "People like me are being forced out, told implicitly that we no longer belong because we don’t belong to a certain economic status or class."
Councilmembers spent nearly an hour debating how to respond.
Several councilmembers said they were worried policies like an eviction freeze and a ban on substantial remodel evictions would expose Imperial Beach to expensive lawsuits that could bankrupt the city.
Some also blamed County of San Diego leaders and lawmakers in Sacramento for not taking more decisive action on substantial remodel evictions and other housing policy.
Still, the council unanimously supported the forming of the special committee.
"During COVID, we implemented several different measures — including moratoriums — with legal liability," said Aguirre. "But we did it because we cared about our community members."
The Council plans to discuss the committee’s findings at their next regular meeting in January.
