This Bill Would Extend Renter Protections to Homes Rebuilt After a Disaster. Some Say It Falls Short | KQED

More than six months after the Eaton and Palisades wildfires destroyed nearly 13,000 homes and apartments near Los Angeles, property owners have begun rebuilding. State Senator Aisha Wahab introduced SB 522 to close a loophole in the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which limits annual rent increases and restricts evictions to "just-cause" cases and applies to most multifamily properties older than 15 years. SB 522 would extend those tenant protections to units destroyed by wildfire, flood or other natural disasters instead of restarting the 15-year eligibility clock. An earlier version that would have mandated rebuilt units remain rent-controlled drew criticism from apartment associations, realtors and building trades, who warned the requirement would make financing and reconstruction more difficult for property owners already handling insurance and recovery.

Wahab's bill, SB 522, aims to close a loophole in the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which expires in 2030. The law limits annual rent increases and restricts evictions to only "just-cause" cases, including not paying the rent, violating the lease or withdrawing the unit from the rental market. The law applies on a rolling basis to most multifamily properties built more than 15 years ago.

SB 522 would extend those protections to homes destroyed in a wildfire, flood or other natural disaster, rather than waiting another 15 years for the clock to restart. Wahab's bill previously included language that required rent-controlled units to remain that way, even after getting rebuilt. That version received strong criticism from various apartment associations, realtor groups and building trades, which argued the bill, if passed into law, would make rebuilding too expensive for rental property owners already reeling from losing their homes and dealing with insurance claims.

"Financing of replacement properties becomes extremely difficult if property owners do not have the ability to recover rebuilding costs through market-rate rents," Dan Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, wrote in an email to KQED. "Property owners will struggle to secure financing, delaying or preventing reconstruction altoget

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