LA City Council Moves Rent Freeze-Eviction Moratorium to Committee

Published On: January 30, 2025

LA City Council Votes to Move Rent Freeze-Eviction Moratorium Motion back to Housing and Homelessness Committee for Future Decision

The LA City Council voted 10-3 to forward an amended version of the Rent Freeze-Eviction Moratorium motion introduced by Councilmember (CM) Heather Hutt and CM Euisses Hernandez motion to the Housing & Homelessness committee for a future date. This vote came after 100 public speakers evenly divided and a thorough debate amongst Councilmembers lasting nearly four hours.   

REALTORS® and Housing providers who testified against the original motion by CM Hugo Soto-Martinez and CM Hernandez, cited the problems with the blanket rent freeze and eviction moratorium that happened during COVID pandemic and shared stories of how that really hurt housing providers.    

During the council debate, CM John Lee addressed concerns of process as amendments are being done in the backroom and not discussed with the public. He opined that “A blanket motion like this will discourage investment. I am hearing that even non-profit developers that are concerned about this type of motion because they saw from COVID how this destroyed housing investment.” 

CM Traci Park asked specific questions to leadership of the LA Housing Department (LAHD) regarding the current eviction moratoriums and just cause provisions that city already has, providing a much needed sensible and wise voice to the discussion laying out the work that the City already has done on this.  

CM Bob Blumenfield usually a voice of building consensus expressed his strong concerns with the original motion citing the problems with the blanket motion that was done during COVID and how to now ask housing providers to do this again without any reporting to verify if they were truly impacted by the natural disasters is disingenuous.  

CM Katy Yaroslavsky also expressed strong concerns with the motion’s blanketed approach mimicking the comments made by CM Blumenfield. 

CM Soto-Martinez pushed back on comments from his colleagues about the differentiation between ‘mom & pop’ versus corporate housing providers. His comment erupted in jeers from the housing providers in council chambers. Hugo’s comments enabled CM Imelda Padilla to push back retorting “The divide between mom and pop versus corporate landlords are coming from your repeated passionate proposals on freezing rents” and continued that the original proposal is a bad idea for economic development in working communities and urged the council to bring this back to committee. 

We want to thank all of our GLAR members who submitted comment letters, testified in person and or called their respective councilmembers addressing our concerns.  In addition, we want to thank our coalition partners with California Apartment Association, Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, LA Area Chamber and Valley Industry Commerce Alliance (VICA) for testifying and mobilizing the business community on this effort. 

Out of the 10-3 decision, The only ‘no’ votes were from CM Hernandez, Soto-Martinez and Jurado. CM Monica Rodriguez was absent due to a family emergency and CM Curren Price could not vote due to a conflict as he is a housing provider.   

This new Hutt-Hernandez motion could be heard as early next week, Wednesday February 5th so be on the alert for a future Red Alert from us when this comes to the Housing and Homelessness Committee.

The revised (Hutt-Hernandez) motion seeconded by Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson posted on the City Council Chamber Board.

GLAR Government Affairs Committee Chair Mahogany Rhodes testifying.

GLAR GAC member Candace Kentopian testifying.