By David Courtland and Carlos Garcia
Oxnard’s city council passed an ordinance at its Tuesday night meeting to stop renters from being harassed, with only Councilmember Aaron Starr voting against it.
The ordinance prohibits landlords from retaliating against tenants who ask for routine services or file complaints with the city’s Housing Department when those aren’t performed.
Landlords who violate the law can be fined up to $1,000 or jailed for up to six months, or a combination of both.
The ordinance was written in response to a large group of tenants who related their ongoing difficulties with landlords at the city’s Jan. 7 meeting.
“If you’ll recall, renters from three different apartment complexes shared their experiences of retaliation when they exercised their rights,” Maria Navarro of the activist group Central Coast United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) told the council.
Among those were tenants being intimidated and threatened after filing a complaint with the city, said Navarro. Allegedly, threats included rent increases and reporting immigration status.
“There is very little open dialogue between landlords and tenants in our experience,” Navarro said.
Speaking through a translator, Carla Lopez told the council after she submitted a complaint to the Housing Dept., the complex owner and manager came to her to ask who was responsible.
“When you ask for the ordinances to be complied with, we get intimidated and they retaliate against us,” said Lopez.
Councilmembers were generally sympathetic to the tenants, with Councilwoman Gabriela Basua particularly concerned about retaliatory rent increases. She related her own experience growing up in Oxnard’s Colonia district.
“We didn’t have Christmases because my parents had to save for the January rent,” recalled Basua.
Starr said he voted no because there are already laws against most of the actions banned by the new rule.
“Some of these things duplicate already existing law,” Starr said. “For example, a reduction of maintenance or failure to perform repairs – that’s already against the law.”
But City Manager Alex Nguyen said the agencies tasked with enforcing those laws had failed to do so in the past.
“If we don’t do this, nobody’s coming to enforce those laws to protect our residents,” Nguyen said. “This is so that we have the tools – nobody’s coming to enforce those laws, so frankly they’re meaningless in this community.”
The ordinance was opposed by many landlords, some of whom made their views clear at the meeting.
“Who deserves the protection?” asked one woman unidentified phone caller into the meeting. “Please ask yourselves who you are protecting with these strict so-called anti-harassment laws.
“In a multi-family living situation there’s always one family that pushes the boundaries, causing distress and discomfort for the other behaving tenants,” she continued.
The anonymous caller cited examples such as renters who play music loudly, smoke despite the presence of children with asthma, have intimidating dogs or disturb people working from home by playing video games all day, “or the person who regularly has their car blocked by a neighbor and is unable to go to work.”
If the law passed, said the caller, landlords would no longer have the confidence to maintain order on their properties.
“Property owners need to have confidence they can talk to tenants without fear of reprisal,” the caller said.
The new law also drew opposition from the Greater Landlord Association of Los Angeles, which also represents property owners in Ventura County, said a spokesman who only identified himself as Jesus at the meeting.
“When the city adopts ordinances that are so extreme, then small property owners are forced out and larger corporate owners move in,” Jesus said, calling the ordinance overbroad and far too costly. “As a result, more affordable housing will be lost in Oxnard.”