Xiong presents another review of tenant protections at Merced City Council meeting

 

Two months after the Merced City Council approved the creation of a Repeat Housing Code Violators program, Councilman Fue Xiong on Monday night brought to the table a discussion about ways to further expand local tenant protections — “and not necessarily rely on the state to provide it.”

Xiong — a staunch advocate of renters’ rights and affordable housing — presented a list of expanded protections for all city residents in the areas of landlord retaliatory conduct, retaliatory rent increases, relocation payments, right of first refusal, right of return, buyout agreements and restrictions on school year evictions for educators and families with school children.

The councilman also cited examples of protections enacted by a few cities in the Bay Area.

“The goal of tonight is really to provide tenant protections at a local level,” Xiong told his Council colleagues. “We already have the repeat housing code violators program. We also have the displaced tenant protections [program]. These exist, but they’re very specific. … So the goal is to expand these protections to all residents, and then also add additional programs, or ordinances, in which we don’t have these types of protections from the state law.”

In June, the City Council approved a new ordinance focused on holding negligent landlords accountable by naming any landlord with three or more unresolved housing code violations within a 12-month period as a “repeat housing code violator.” The designation comes with a stiff penalty structure, daily fees, and public notices.

After the destructive floods of 2023, the Council also took a deep dive into reforming a displaced tenant protections program for those affected by the tragedy. And in recent years, the Council has had multiple — sometimes lengthy and drawn-out — discussions about a rental registry program, proactive code enforcement and inspection programs, a rental stabilization ordinance and tenants’ rights to legal representation.

“My understanding is the Council doesn’t have the appetite for these [larger programs],” Xiong said on Monday night before detailing a proposal for expanded tenant protections under the city’s municipal code.

Ten local residents took to the public speaking podium, or used the city’s new call-in service, to speak against moving forward with Xiong’s discussion items. Some said Xiong’s ideas would negatively affect good landlords that fill a vital need in an area with some of the lowest rents in the entire state. Others pointed to existing state laws that favor tenants and already offer substantial protections. A few suggested they would like to see results from the city’s new code violation program in order to make a determination on further protections.

“This proposal directed to staff is premature,” Mike Solovar said. “I’m a consultant with 40 years of experience in implementing process changes, and you don’t load new procedures, new codes, new laws, on top of existing changes until you’re sure they’re the right thing to do. You’ve implemented new code violation fines and stepped up inspections only a couple months ago. … Instead of directing staff to draft any part of this proposed new package, the staff should be directed to analyze the actual data from these increased inspections and report results.”

Four residents spoke up in favor of action on issues Xiong brought up, including Latanya Ri’Chard who spoke in support of tenant relocation assistance, further eviction protections and a right of refusal program.

During her comments, however, she turned away from the Council and spoke directly to the audience, apparently to landlords and/or property managers in attendance.

Mayor Matthew Serratto routinely cautions speakers during the public comment period to address the council members directly, as per meeting protocol, but this time the mayor allowed Ri’Chard to spend half of her allotted three minutes at the podium speaking with her head turned away from leaders and toward the audience.

Here’s what she said: “I frankly find it disturbing that so many owners are more than willing to be slumlords and you all are comfortable with it, keeping your homes in substandard conditions while charging rents that’s higher than a giraffe’s eyebrows. That’s ridiculous. Prices out here are so freaking high. We got high gas, food, and water. Everything is high as hell, but you all can’t keep your properties up. It is not the tenant’s job to keep you afloat financially. It is not our job to keep you afloat financially. Keep your properties up. Make sure that people can live in them safely and cleanly. If a tenant is making problems there, then you can mess with the tenant, and get them to do it right, but it’s not a tenant’s job to keep you afloat financially.

“Keep your places up, and it is only right and fair that there are protections for the people that are renting out your homes. Stop being so caring about just your money and worry about the people that are putting money in your pocket. If your place is not up to standard, you do not deserve a protection that is causing people to be unhealthy, sick, and miss work.

“You want people to be unhoused? No, you don’t, right? You don’t want to lose your home. Keep it up. If people are out on the street, then you want to make sure that, ‘Oh, well, we need to get more police so that people can go to jail for being unhoused.’

“Keep your house up. We’re not even asking you to lower your rent. Keep your house up. That is the basic. In the world. I don’t want to come into a house with mold and disgusting bugs like I did when I first moved over into Merced. That’s ridiculous. Get it together, goddamn.”

As Ri’Chard walked away from the podium she could be heard, even on the meeting’s live broadcast feed, saying: “I’m tired of these people.”

Once the discussion returned to the Council dais, it became clear a majority of the council was not in agreement with Xiong’s proposals.

“I can’t support moving any of this forward,” said Councilman Mike Harris. “We have state laws. We’re not Berkeley. We’re not Concord. We’re not San Jose.”

Councilman Darin DuPont called the discussion “a non-starter,” and criticized Xiong bringing it up when “the ink hasn’t even dried,” on the new housing code violators ordinance.

“If I was Councilmember [Shane] Smith, this would be a slap in the face that you brought this,” DuPont told Xiong. “He spent his time and effort to broker a deal between the tenant rights advocates, and the landlords and property managers for a repeat housing code violators program. And at the end of that, we discussed what we need to see — more data, more information — before we can even make any type of discussion on tenant relocation programs.

“And here we are, two months later, talking about it — no data, no information. … This council has made an effort to bring common sense solutions with both sides at the table, discussing solutions to the issues. … I’ve seen California law. It heavily favors tenants’ rights. So I think we are wasting our time discussing this expansion program.”

Councilwoman Sarah Boyle — who also serves as the city’s mayor pro tem — offered the most comprehensive response from the leadership dais to Xiong’s proposals.

“I’m absolutely willing to have a general discussion on tenant protections that was requested in May, but my frustration is what was presented tonight. It goes well beyond what I understood to be a general discussion. We are now specifically talking about a rental registry, proactive inspections, rent stabilization, legal representation, relocation requirements, and several additional ordinances — many of which deserve their own individual policy discussion analysis.

“I also think we’re overlooking something very important, which some of my other council members brought up tonight, is that we literally just addressed this in June. We unanimously adopted our repeat housing code violators program, and that program hasn’t even had the opportunity to operate long enough for us to know whether it’s working. Before we create another layer of regulation, I think we owe it to our community to implement what we just passed, collect the data, and determine whether there are still gaps that need to be addressed.

“I support protecting our tenants. I support strengthening our ability to go after negligent landlords, which is exactly what we just did. But there is a significant difference between targeting repeat offenders and creating new requirements that apply to every responsible landlord in Merced. Before I would consider expanding beyond the program we just adopted, I want to see the results. How many properties are being designated as repeat violators? Are the increased penalties resulting in faster compliance? How many tenants are actually being displaced? What problems are we discovering that our new ordinance cannot address?

“If the data eventually shows us that there are gaps, then let’s have that discussion. But I don’t believe we should adopt a solution first, and look for the problems afterwards.”

Councilman Xiong ultimately made a motion for staff to take up his proposals and research them further.

The motion died for lack of a second.