The Beverly Hills City Council inched closer to finalizing a Rent Stabilization Ordinance that it hopes to have completed by the end of the year.

Provisions discussed during a Nov. 20 study session included relocation fees for evicted tenants, how much a landlord can pass through to tenants for building upgrades and protections for households with local students.

“A home is a home, and whether you live in a three-plex, four-plex, ten-plex – we’ve seen having relocation fees has made all the difference to so many people that have moved out of their homes,” Councilwoman Lili Bosse said.

The possibility of exempting relocation fees for tenants evicted by landlords who wanted to move immediate family members into the units had also been discussed.

“I think a home is a home too, but it’s also a home to the people who actually bought the buildings, maybe their parents did, so for them to be able to move in themselves – and I think we have to separate between trying to evict someone and trying to have the ability to move someone in who is part of one’s family,” Vice Mayor John Mirisch said.

The effort to develop a more comprehensive Rent Stabilization Ordinance began in February 2017, when the council adopted an urgency ordinance that reduced the allowable annual rent increase from 10 percent to 3 (which has since been raised to 4.1 percent due to a provision that allows it to be adjusted in accordance with the consumer price index).

Several of the city’s landlords have voiced their concerns to council members about imposing restrictions to annual rent increases that they worry will adversely affect maintenance of their properties. But more than half of Beverly Hills renters are rent-burdened, and approximately 30 percent are severely rent-burdened, according to city staff.

Appropriate amounts for pass-throughs from landlords to tenants for costs such as seismic retrofitting are under consideration.

“If there’s an improvement to a building that stays with the building for the lifetime of the improvement, the tenant isn’t necessarily there for the lifetime of the improvement,” Councilman Robert Wunderlich said. “That’s a reason for passing on only a portion to the tenant.”

The city also established a rental registry to allow city staff to monitor rent increases. The council held two special meetings in October to establish the goals of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which include providing more stability for renters and maintaining the city’s multi-unit housing stock. To those ends, council members unanimously approved an urgency ordinance eliminating no-cause evictions.

The city will also establish a Rent Stabilization Commission to handle mediation between landlords and tenants over Rent Stabilization Ordinance issues.

“City Council may consider whether the Rent Stabilization Commission would hear applications regarding disruptive tenants, mediate relocation fee issues, and hear appeals from hearing officer decisions on habitability complaints and rent increase and decrease applications for Chapter 5 and 6 units,” read a report by Susan Healy Keene, director of community development, and Helen Morales, deputy director of rent stabilization.

Chapters 5 and 6 of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance currently in effect provide protections for renters.

“The commission also could hear appeals from the other determinations that are made by hearing officers with respect to Chapter 5 units,” the report said.

Mayor Julian Gold said they should model similar commissions in other cities that have proven to be effective.

“We ought to start with something that somebody else has done, as opposed to us sort of making it up,” he said.