By Jessica Bernstein-Wax and Bonnie Eslinger
Daily News Staff Writers
Posted: 06/09/2010 12:01:35 AM PDT
East Palo Alto voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a new rent control law that will strengthen and modernize an existing 22-year-old ordinance.
As of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, with seven of eight precincts reporting, 77.7 percent of voters had cast their ballots for Measure H, according to the San Mateo County elections office.
“We’re elated that the community would come out so strongly in support of rent conrol,” said East Palo Alto Vice Mayor Carlos Romero, who campaigned for the ordinance.
Community leaders have blamed the city’s previous 1988 rent stabilization ordinance for a string of legal disputes over the past couple of years between East Palo Alto and Page Mill Properties, citing the law’s vagueness and inconsistency with state law. Page Mill was the city’s largest landlord until it defaulted on a loan to Wells Fargo Bank and lost its 101 East Palo Alto buildings to foreclosure earlier this year.
Page Mill began buying properties in East Palo Alto in 2006 and owned about 1,800 rental units in the city of 33,000 when its properties reverted to Wells Fargo.
East Palo Alto voters approve new rent law – San Jose Mercury News.
AROUND CALIFORNIA - NEWS FOR OWNERS OF MOBILE/MANUFACTURED HOMES 