West Hollywood City Hall is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. (photo by Jose Herrera)

The West Hollywood City Council declared a local emergency on March 16, and since then, the city has enacted ordinances and services to provide for the community during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, April 6, the City Council held a meeting and received an update on West Hollywood’s response to COVID-19. During the meeting, council members unanimously approved amendments to the city’s residential eviction moratorium, enacted a temporary moratorium on commercial evictions due to non-payment of rent by tenants impacted by COVID-19 and adopted additional emergency measures.

“What would be revised in the residential ordinance is to extend the term through May 31, 2020,” said Lauren Langer, assistant city attorney. “The original term was only 60 days from March 16, and this would put it in line with the proposed commercial ordinance and the governor’s order authorizing these actions.”

Tenants must notify their landlord in writing, text or email of financial impact due to COVID-19 to defer rent payments. However, Langer said the city added language into the ordinance clarifying that tenants can provide an explanation of financial impact, as physical documentation of loss of income may be difficult to provide to the landlord.

“We have received reports from tenants that it can be difficult for people to demonstrate their loss of income,” Langer said. “For example, if they are an independent contractor and the work is no longer coming in, versus having been laid off by a larger company, where you would have something in writing.”

The residential eviction moratorium was ratified to allow tenants 12 months to repay back rent after the emergency order expires. Tenants cannot be evicted for failure to pay rent during the local emergency, provided the tenant pays rent in a timely manner after the period of local emergency and is repaying the past due rent that accrued during the emergency period, according to a staff report.

Additionally, the ordinance encourages landlords to adopt rental payment plans, which could extend beyond the 12-month period upon mutual written agreement, and landlords cannot charge interest on deferred rent during the eviction moratorium.

Langer added the moratorium will expand to prevent evictions based on the presence of unauthorized occupants in a unit while people are following the “Safer at Home” orders.

“This ordinance is just intended to prevent an eviction on those grounds, but if people wanted to permanently reside in the unit, they should amend their lease to account for the appropriate number of people who live there,” Langer said.

The updated residential eviction moratorium also suspended rent increases for housing subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance during the period of local emergency and for 60 days following its expiration. Individual rent adjustment applications are still being accepted through the city’s standard rent adjustment process for individual exceptions to this rule if necessary, to provide a just and reasonable return and to maintain net operating income on the property.

Mayor John D’Amico, Mayor Pro Tempore Lindsey Horvath and Councilmembers John Duran, John Heilman and Lauren Meister were thankful and supportive of the adjustments to the residential eviction moratorium. However, Duran urged the City Council and city staff to take further steps in protecting renters by extending the amount of time to repay deferred rent.

“I understand why everybody wants to take an incremental approach to this,” Duran said. “It’s true that there are 12 months to repay the rent, but it’s 12 months to pay two months of rent. It’s not 12 months to repay anything beyond May 31.”

He added that there is the possibility that tenants will not be reemployed on June 1, when the residential eviction moratorium expires. The epidemic is likely to continue and the hiring process will be slow.

D’Amico agreed to some extent with Duran’s opinion, but said it would be complicated for someone to repay six months of rent back in 12 months.

“I am interested in seeing the full use of our housing resources in terms of expanding how it’s used because setting up for a larger kind of failure later on is not the best solution,” D’Amico said.

“No one wants to jeopardize anyone’s housing,” Horvath said. “That is why we are going through the process of having these conversations and taking these precautions to keep people in their housing.”

After council members asked questions about the residential eviction moratorium, they moved on to discussing the commercial eviction moratorium. The commercial eviction moratorium was created to support business and encourage them to follow national, state and local directives to close down without fear of losing their business during the coronavirus emergency.

The ordinance is similar to the residential eviction moratorium, however, it differs in that if commercial tenants suffered partial loss in income, the tenant shall pay the prorated share of rent that corresponds to the income generated during the period of loss. Also, commercial tenants must pay back rent within six months, have up to 90 days to provide documentation that the business closed and show lost or reduced income during this time.

Originally, the ordinance gave commercial tenants 30 days, but Duran, who is also a commercial tenant, said it would be difficult to provide documentation within that short time frame.

“Many commercial tenants including myself were able to pay April 1 rent based on the revenue they’ve received in February and early part of March,” Duran said. “Our offices are shut down, our businesses are shut down, employees are laid off, the doors are closed and there’s been no income for three weeks. We don’t have the ability to prove anything at this moment. Now, 60 or 90 days from now, we’ll be able to show bank statements that will show a decline in both operating revenue and net income.”

Among the city council’s decision to update the eviction moratoriums, they also approved $250,000 for funding related to rental assistance, food and nutrition services, and transportation. Another $250,000 was allocated for emergency funding. Heilman said the city has created rules that are reasonable and realistic.

“This gives us an opportunity to put a halt to give the business community some time to catch its breath and not lose their storefront or their office if they’re a commercial tenant,” Heilman said. “Our goal should be to try to help our business community get back up and running as soon as possible because that’s what’s going to help people get back to work.”