Sebastopol City Council adopts a just-cause eviction and relocation assistance ordinance

Councilmember McLewis made it a nail-biter to the end

At last night’s Sebastopol City Council meeting, the council adopted a just-cause eviction and relocation assistance ordinance that would apply to Woodmark and four other large, affordable-housing complexes in town. The ordinance will slow, though likely not stop, the removal of Woodmark’s current tenants and would require the developer to pay significant relocation assistance.

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Mayor Stephen Zollman, Councilmember Sandra Maurer and Councilmember Phill Carter were present for the Nov. 4 Sebastopol City Council meeting. Vice Mayor Jill McLewis attended via Zoom. Councilmember Neysa Hinton was absent.

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The council actually adopted two ordinances: an urgency ordinance that would go into effect immediately and, as a backstop, a traditional ordinance that would go into effect around Dec. 18.

City Attorney Alex Mog introduced the ordinances. “The ordinances take what is in state law and expand on it in three ways,” he said. This is important because California’s rental laws allow cities to create their own just-cause eviction and relocation assistance ordinances only if they expand upon the current protections.

• Sebastopol’s new ordinance extends just-cause eviction and relocation assistance to “regulated units,” that is, affordable housing units. (California’s rental law doesn’t apply to affordable housing.)

• In the case of a no-fault eviction—like the one in process at Woodmark—Sebastopol’s new ordinance would require the property owners to pay relocation assistance worth either three months of rent or three months of the fair-market rent, whichever is greater. (California law only requires one-month’s rent worth of relocation assistance.)

• Sebastopol’s new ordinance would apply to any “regulated” housing with at least 40 units, regardless of when they were built. (Weirdly, California’s just-cause provision doesn’t apply to newer buildings—anything built in the last 15 years.)

The ordinance will expire automatically on January 1, 2027. Councilmember Jill McLewis, who has been leery of this ordinance from the start, insisted on including this sunset clause at the last meeting.

A matter of urgency

An urgency ordinance was required, Mog said “because it’s necessary to prevent displacement evictions that might occur between now and when the regular ordinance goes into place.”

Urgency ordinances require a 4 out of 5 vote. Because Councilmember Neysa Hinton was absent last night, that meant that McLewis would have to vote for the urgency ordinance in order for it to pass—something she had opposed at the last meeting and remained skeptical about throughout last night’s discussions.

During council questioning, McLewis asked if the city had reached out to all the complexes that might be affected by the ordinances. Mog said they had but had only heard back from one (whom he didn’t name), who wanted to make sure that the ordinance would not interfere with any federal requirements.

“I let him know that there was language in the ordinance that it would not apply to the extent that federal or state law prohibits it from applying,” Mog said.

McLewis noted that three times the market-rate rent would be less than the $10,000 relocation assistance offered by Woodmark’s developer and wondered if the developer’s offer of relocation assistance didn’t make this ordinance unnecessary. In public comment, a couple of Woodmark’s tenants clarified that that $10,000 offer only applied to those who moved out by Oct. 31 (which has already passed). The developer, TPC, offered $5,000 to those who moved out by Nov. 31, and nothing to those who moved later.

The new ordinance would ensure that the 14 to 16 families still in residence at Woodmark (out of an original 48) would at least get a significant relocation payment.

During public comment, several tenants from Woodmark, as well as friends and supporters, stood up to plead with the council to pass the ordinance. Some of tenants, who’d appeared at several Sebastopol City Council meetings by this point, attested to the mental toll this was taking on their families—their children especially. Many of the speakers spoke through tears with trembling voices, and the mental cost of this fight was clear in their demeanor.

Sunny Noh, executive director of Legal Aid Sonoma County reminded the council “These are families with children, seniors, folks with disabilities, and they’ve been living in fear and uncertainty, being told that they will be once again homeless. This very, very narrowly focused ordinance is necessary to protect these families.”

Some tenants expressed a hope that they could stay in their apartments. McLewis asked Mog if that was the case, to which he replied, “I don’t know what the USDA may or may not have ordered, what the requirements are from USDA for this, whether all of these units are required to be vacated.” The USDA is the agency that is requiring Woodmark’s developer to get back into compliance with its loan by replacing the current tenants with farmworkers, the people the development was originally built to house. “I can’t speak to any of that, but if that reason applies, that would be a no-fault reason under the ordinance…in which case, tenant relocation [assistance] would apply.”

McLewis had one last question. She asked if passing this ordinance would open the city to legal action by the developers.

“I have to say you can never guarantee that no one will sue ever,” Mog said, but he noted that, “There are many other cities with similar ordinances in place that have not faced any litigation.”

Councilmember Maurer asked for a straw vote—which a non-binding way of seeing how people are going to vote. Three councilmembers—Maurer, Zollman and Carter—indicated they intended to vote yes on the just-cause eviction and relocation assistance ordinance.

All eyes turned to McLewis, who gave the following statement:

“I want to make a comment before I vote…obviously everyone knows that I was the no vote last time for the urgency [ordinance]. And it’s because after attending these city council meetings for a decade and watching so many urgent matters that were voted on which really resulted in things that were not beneficial to the city, and sometimes were, like, “Oops, we shouldn’t have done that.” So based on that history, that’s why I almost always vote—or maybe have always voted—no on urgency ordinances, because I’ve just never seen anything good result from this city council, which, again, I’ve been attending for at least a decade now, before I ever ran for council, and my frustration is why I’m sitting here now in this role.”

It was difficult to tell if this was a preface for a yea or nay vote, and on the dais, Councilmember Maurer put her head in her hands.

McLewis continued, “I’m going to be willing to do a thumbs up, but with that caveat. I just want people to understand my reasoning, because, again, things just have not gone well when I’ve watched these ordinances. But for, just for the purpose of moving this forward, and in hopes that this will help some people—I am hoping for that—so that’s the only reason I’m giving this thumbs up. I do not like the history that this council has had in this city with doing these urgency ordinances…but I do understand the urgency that these folks feel. And so I will give a thumbs up for tonight.”

At which point, the tenants of Woodmark and their many supporters exploded into cheers and applause.

The final, official vote was 4 to 0 with one absence.

After the vote, Woodmark resident Trinell Meyer told the Sebastopol Times, “I am truly grateful to the Sebastopol City Council for hearing our concerns and passing this urgency just-cause ordinance. This is a step towards protection and stability for a vulnerable group of tenants who are fighting hard for our rights and our homes.”

Woodmark tenant Melissa Page echoed these thanks and added that she was “proud of all of the Woodmark tenants for standing up and speaking out. We still have a lot of work ahead of us but this is a big win for us.”

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