I am joining the voices of local Fairfax Housing Providers who are disheartened by the Town Council's overreaching Rent Control Ordinances and the unjustified vilification we have received as a result.
Since this section of the Website is titled 'My Story'... here are a few things that I've done in Fairfax:
I ran the Manor School Winter Fair Raffle from 2003-2011. I was on the Fairfax Festival Committee for 18 years. I was the Chair of the Fairfax Volunteer Board for over a decade. I'm the co-founder of the Fairfax Food Bank that's been operating since 2011 serving 300 families per week.
And…I’ve been a Housing Provider in Fairfax for over 25 years! My longest term tenant has been with me for 18 years and my shortest term tenant for 8 years. Both of their rents are double digit % less than what Marin Housing Authority deems Fair Market.
If I had known that keeping rents low was going to end up lowering my property value and imposing a 5 year deed restriction on it if I ever want to sell, my tenants and I would have missed out on many good years together. If I had known that signing a leasing contract with my tenants would end up being effectively ripped up as worthless by a local ordinance, I probably would have made some different decisions.
Fairfax's one-sided ordinance which purports to Protect renters could not have come at a worse time for their Housing Providers - especially the small, fair-minded ones. Here's why:
HOUSING PROVIDERS
Are not Protected from Insurance Companies raising their rates a proposed 30% this year (or cancellation)
Are not Protected from PG&E having raised their rates ~13%
Are not Protected from Marin Water having raised their rates over 20%
Are not Protected from the rate raises for Marin Sanitary approved by our Council.
Many of you good people hear 'Rent Control' and 'Renter Protections' and of course think to yourself "Gosh, I'm definitely in favor of those things". Well, I am too; In word and deed. That said, I'm also against the Rent Control Ordinance as it is written. I believe it will not only fail to do what’s intended, it will have serious, unintended consequences. To start, Housing Providers who have kept rents low have been given exactly zero consideration in the ordinance and some are scrambling to make ends meet.
I know to some I may sound like a whiner. Or maybe to some I sound boastful talking about the stuff I've done in Fairfax. But what I wanted to get across by writing my story in this way was to portray that being a Housing Provider quite literally makes me part of the housing solution for our community. In fact, at this point we are the only solution.
So, enough about me! Let's talk about what we can do. Most of us want Fairfax to be accessible to renters. Hopefully we can also agree that making conditions so inhospitable to Housing Providers that they quit doing it altogether is a bad result. You need only to look at how divisive this issue has been in our community for you to understand that it has to be done differently. The way forward is to repeal the extreme, reactive, one-sided ordinance and help make it work for everyone. By voting YES, you'll be affirmatively letting our leaders know that you want them to do the work of enlisting local community members, not outside consultants, in a solution that fits our Town. Everyone in our Town.