Title
Introduction of Ordinance Amending the Alameda Municipal Code by Amending Article XV (Rent Control, Limitations on Evictions and Relocation Payments to Certain Displaced Tenants) to Adopt and Incorporate Provisions Concerning Capital Improvement Plans (CIP) for Rental Units in the City of Alameda. (Community Development 265)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the Alameda City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In September 2019, as part of adopting an ordinance to revise and restate the City's rent control ordinance, City Council requested that staff re-visit the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Policy that City Council adopted by resolution in April 2016, and that had not been revisited or revised since that time. Since April 2016, the Rent Program has received eight applications for capital improvement plans and approved only two, suggesting that the current Policy may not have had its intended effect.
The proposed amendment to the Rent Ordinance (Attachment 1) would embody the salient portions of the existing Policy into the Ordinance with some revisions. For example, it would permit a landlord to "pass-through" the amortized cost of major improvements (defined in the amendment) assuming the cost of the improvements to be amortized is no less than $25,000 and the cost to each rental unit is no less than $2,500. No pass-through would be greater than 5% of a tenant's current rent and annual general adjustments (annual rent increases) would be calculated without regard to the pass through amount. Pass-throughs would be eliminated for new tenancies (vacancy decontrol).
Tenants would be displaced temporarily only if the work associated with the capital improvements could not be accomplished with the tenant safely remaining in the rental unit; landlords would be required to make temporary relocation payments in that instance.
A tenant would know before any work started what would be the amount of the "pass-through" and the pass-through amount would ...
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