Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)

Citation: Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)
Parent Document: Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2025-12-18
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10761039/cal-apartment-assn-v-city-of-pasadena/ ↗

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lead to absurd results”]; accord, Equinix LLC v. County of Los
Angeles (2024) 101 Cal.App.5th 1108, 1116-1117.)
       We thus construe the bar on property qualifications under
article I, section 22 to mean the rights to vote and hold office may
not be conditioned on the ownership of a real property interest.
Measure H does not violate the constitutional provision because
none of the Rental Board positions is restricted to individuals
who own real property.
       Petitioners alternatively argue that even if the property
qualification provision only pertains to real property ownership,
individuals (i.e., landlords) may not be barred from holding office
because they own real property just as individuals may not be
barred because they do not own real property. Petitioners
provide no authority suggesting the constitutional provision
supports an inverse property qualification theory or, as
respondents frame it, a “property disqualification” theory.
Moreover, even if this theory were sound, it would not apply here
because no one is disqualified from any position on the Rental
Board based on his or her property ownership. All Pasadena
residents can apply for the four at-large positions regardless of
whether they own property. And the seven tenant positions
require only that an applicant (1) is a Tenant and (2) does not
possess a Material Interest in Rental Property. An individual
can meet both of those qualifications while still owning real
property. (See § 1803(i), (aa).) In other words, any property
disqualification under Measure H is based not on ownership of
real property, but rather on the property’s use as rental property.
(Cf. Apartment Assn. of Los Angeles County, Inc. v. City of Los
Angeles (2001) 24 Cal.4th 830, 838 [distinguishing property
ownership from its use as rental property for purposes of

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