Tenant advocates launch Delano rent control voter initiative

The Bakersfield Californian- By Melanie Nyugen and John Cox

DELANO — Delano tenant advocates kicked off a petition drive Monday to pass a voter initiative limiting rent increases in the city and putting in place new protections for renters.

The Fair Rents Delano campaign, organized by an informal coalition dubbed the Rural Justice Alliance, aims to gather and file 3,000 signatures to qualify the initiative for the November ballot.

Delano would be the first city in Kern County to put rent control regulations before voters. Other cities in California that are considering parallel initiatives — and receiving similar legal guidance from Los Angeles-based nonprofit ACCE Institute — are Larkspur, Pittsburg, Redwood and San Pablo.

The event followed about eight months after the Delano City Council tabled a rent-control proposal so city officials could take a formal look at how municipal finances might be impacted by the plan. In the meantime, no such study has begun.

Petition text submitted to the city Monday morning states the new draft ordinance would limit rent increases to a rate that’s 60% of the annual change in the federal consumer price index. Rents would not be able to rise more than 3% per year, though exemptions would apply.

There would also be new restrictions on landlords' ability to evict renters, along with new prohibitions on actions such as intimidation of tenants and bad-faith negotiations.

The paperwork says tenants make up 42% of households in Delano and that, according to an American Communities Survey, almost half the city's renters are "rent-burdened," meaning they pay more than 30% of their income toward rent.

One speaker at Monday's event, lifelong Delano resident Humberto Ortiz, said he recently had to move to Bakersfield so that he could find an affordable rental for his family. This was after he sent two of his seven children to live with relatives elsewhere because he could not provide for them.

“Inside I’m hurting. Inside I’m struggling, I’m looking for help. I’m looking for the city to help their people,” Ortiz said. He said his family has moved into a three-bedroom apartment, but that he still struggles to pay rent despite the extra hours he works at Amazon.

Gladys Flores, a Delano resident, said there are landlords who are taking advantage of their tenants by telling them they do not have to live in their respective homes if they cannot pay rent.

“This is not about politics. This is not about organizations. This is just community coming together and saying, ‘Let’s do this right for our community.’” Flores said.

Arturo Rodriguez, communications director with Central Valley Empowerment Alliance, said the initiative targets corporate landowners, not mom-and-pop landlords.

Executive Director Mari Perez-Ruiz at Central Valley Empowerment Alliance said the initiative is meant to invite the community to decide on rent control because it is a human issue. She said the City Council has been passing the buck on rent control, and because of that, the community has built a level of distrust.

“It’s very disappointing that we have to be here today,” Perez-Ruiz said, “We have no choice but to be here today and do the job that our leadership is not doing.”

None of the members of the Delano City Council attended the announcement Monday morning.

Reached later in the day by phone, Councilman and Vice Mayor Salvador Solorio-Ruiz said the council hesitated to embrace rent control when it came up in the spring because of the proposal’s potential administrative costs.

The council wants to study the expenses involved and other considerations, he said, but the exploration process has been delayed because the municipality is looking for a new city attorney.

“It’s all about, you know, if we’re able to do it, in my opinion,” he said, noting no other city in the Central Valley has implemented such an ordinance.

“If we’re going to do a policy, we need to do it right,” Solorio-Ruiz

said. He added that he sees construction of new housing, together with the creation of good jobs, as the ultimate solution.

Some who spoke Monday voiced frustration with Solorio-Ruiz, who was endorsed by the California Democratic Renters Council but later said he did not campaign on rent control and ran for office to tackle the housing crisis. Rodriguez called his actions “disappointing.”

Despite the support of some community members, Perez-Ruiz said she expects to face opposition for this initiative.

“We understand what is coming down the pipeline. We understand the opposition will be coming hard. The opposition, the developers, the California Apartment Association will be coming hard because, once again, Delano is making history. We’re going to pave the way. As Delano goes so will the Central Valley,” Perez-Ruiz said.

If the initiative is approved during the 2024 election, Rodriguez said, there will be further discussions with Delano residents on how to best implement rent control.