Foster City’s tenant protection expansion faces hurdle

The city currently has 426 below-market-rate units and about 12,000 total housing units in the city. 

In September, the City Council voiced support for programs that would go above and beyond Assembly Bill 1482, which restricts rent increases and mandates just-cause evictions for tenants residing in units for more than a year. The council’s suggestions included expanding the legislation to below-market-rate units in Foster City — as affordable housing is currently not covered under the legislation — and provide a minimum tenant relocation benefit of three months’ worth of rent for no-fault lease evictions. Currently, the state only stipulates one month’s worth of rent.

“BMR rents are significantly less than market-rate rents, and if the people are being displaced, they’re going to need to find a market-rate apartment, they’re probably not going to find a below-market-rate apartment because they have very long waitlists that are often years long,” Housing Coordinator Nori Jabba said. “We wanted to provide for them to have the equivalent of market-rate rent.” 

The proposed ordinance brought before the commission March 6 also would expand the city’s rental registry program, requiring more data on evictions, property information, lease terms and vacancy rates. Some basic information on BMR units is required by property owners, but only on a yearly basis. 

“An example is, last week one of our BMR units I learned was overcharging in rent. I talked to the owner, and they reduced the rent, but with [the current system], I only get the information once a year,” Jabba said. “With the new system, the idea is to have the information regularly so that we don’t have to wait to inform and find out that rent is being overcharged.”

But in a 3-2 vote, several commissioners, including Robert Pedro and Ravi Jagtiani, both Realtors, said they were not in favor of recommending the proposals to the council, unless it mirrored AB 1482 more closely — for instance, only including one month’s worth of relocation assistance. 

“I do really feel it’s an overreach, and if every city creates their own little nuances … it really is confusing to housing providers. It’s hard for them to comply when there are all these little nuances in every city’s code,” Pedro said. 

Because the Planning Commission is only a recommending body, the decision of whether to pass the ordinances is up to the council — which has two new members since September. Commissioner Doug Stoveland said he was in favor of the proposals. 

“We have 12,000 [housing] units, and we are talking about 426 units, so that is one-third of 1% of the units in the entirety of the city,” he said. “It seems that the strategy … has been laid out, and we would have to have a very sound reason for not supporting.”