Renters Speak Out on Housing Crisis as City Presses Charges on Landlord

Isla Vista, West Beach Residents Struggle with Displacement, Rent Hikes, and Renovictions

By Ryan P. Cruz Wed May 29, 2024 | 02:35pm

There is no question that Santa Barbara’s housing crisis is characterized by a severe lack of affordable rentals and a massive backlog of new housing, forcing a crunch that has sent rent prices far beyond what working-class residents can afford.

But renters have also highlighted exacerbating factors such as untenable rent increases, and a method known as “renovictions,” in which property owners acquire an aging apartment complex with years of deferred maintenance before forcing the current tenants out under the legal basis of renovations.

Renters from two high-demand areas, Isla Vista and West Beach, attended recent forums to publicly address the impacts of the crisis on their neighborhoods, and to discuss how city and county leaders could continue to address the issue from all sides.

Fallout in West Beach

On April 24, the Santa Barbara Tenants Union hosted a “Tenant’s Panel on Renovictions in West Beach.” Present and former residents of a 52-unit apartment complex, many of whom had lived there for years, spoke about their experiences since a new ownership group acquired the property in September 2023. They described receiving confusing termination notices, harassment from new landlords, as well as offers of payment to relocate.

Santa Barbara city councilmembers Oscar Gutierrez, Kristen Sneddon, and Mike Jordan attended the meeting, each expressing support for the tenants. The four property owners declined repeated invitations to the meeting.

City Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez (above left) at last month’s “Tenant’s Panel on Renovictions in West Beach” | Credit: Courtesy

The property has been the center of a battle that spilled over to City Hall, which culminated in amendments to the city’s “just-cause” eviction ordinance earlier this year. Eventually, the city’s attorney has pressed criminal charges against property owner James Peter Knapp of the Koto Group.

According to the City Attorney’s Office, Knapp is charged with “terminating tenancy without just cause,” failure to comply with the city’s just cause eviction ordinance, and failure to serve proper copy of permits. Assistant City Attorney Denny Wei said each charge carries a maximum of six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

Knapp’s lawyer Robert Forouzandeh, an attorney who for the past 17 years has represented some of the region’s large landlords, said that this is the first time in his career he has “ever seen a landlord criminally prosecuted for serving an eviction notice.”

He said that his client had acted in good faith during the entire process, even consulting with the City Attorney’s Office prior to serving the notices.

“It appears the city is caving to the pressure of the radical tenant organizations to make an example out of my client,” Forouzandeh told the Independent. “The real issue about affordability is not ‘renovictions’ or ‘rent control’; it is the draconian land use development policies of the city which have stunted growth and created a massive imbalance of supply of housing versus demand for housing.”

Forouzandeh said that the city’s just-cause ordinance is “vague and unclear,” with “no explanation on how a landlord is supposed to calculate whether a permitted renovation would take more than 30 days to complete.”

The ordinance, he added, was drafted in haste “by people who are not professional property managers or landlords” due to “political pressure from the misguided people who believe rents are too high and unsustainable due to ‘renovictions’ as opposed to lack of supply of housing.”

He plans to meet with the City Attorney’s Office prior to the June 12 arraignment to prove that necessary work cannot be completed in less than 30 days, and says he hopes the city will “dismiss the charges against my client.”

Stanley Tzankov, cofounder of the Santa Barbara Tenants Union — an organization that has worked with the tenants and city leadership — disagreed with Forouzandeh’s assessment.

“There appear to be a handful of real estate developers and law firms that believe the law has gone too far,” Tzankov said. “They seem to have become comfortable operating recklessly without any semblance of accountability to anyone — and baked into their business model is a practice of misleading, harassing, and ultimately displacing long-term tenants.”

Present and former tenants in West Beach described receiving confusing termination notices, harassment from new landlords, as well as offers of payment to relocate. | Credit: Courtesy

Time for Rent Stabilization?

On May 13, a similar forum was held in Isla Vista, hosted by advocacy groups Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) and Santa Barbara Tenants Union alongside UCSB’s Blum Center Student Leader Team and the Office of the Executive Vice President for Local Affairs. Earlier this year, the Blum Center had released an in-depth report, People’s Guide to UCSB’s Housing Crisis.

CAUSE Policy Advocate Frank Rodriguez said rent stabilization is “a critical foundation for tenant protections…. We are grateful for stronger eviction protections, but that does not mean much if families and workers can be priced out of our community,” he added.

In the City of Santa Barbara, landlords can legally raise the rent up to 10 percent each year.

“If a tenant is currently paying $2,000 in rent a month today and receives a 10 percent rent increase each year, the monthly rent would will end up being $5,187.47 in 10 years,” Rodriguez said. “That is not sustainable for a worker or a family, and it’s the reason more and more cities are implementing rent stabilization measures to prevent the continued displacement of their community.”