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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raised does not mean there is not “a total and fatal conflict”
between the Costa-Hawkins Act and section 1806(b)(C). (T-
Mobile West LLC v. City and County of San Francisco, supra,
6 Cal.5th at p. 1117, fn. 6.) For those tenants who are “displaced
from [their] Rental Unit[s] due to inability to pay Rent increases,”
landlords will incur the obligation to pay relocation assistance
under section 1806(b)(C). Accordingly, the issue is ripe for
petitioners’ facial challenge.
       As to that challenge, petitioners assert that just as
Measure H could not impose a cap on rent increases for exempt
units without running afoul of the Costa-Hawkins Act, neither
may it impose penalties in the form of relocation assistance to
discourage landlords from exercising their right under the Act to
raise the rent on exempt units. Petitioners contend the
relocation assistance requirement under section 1806(b)(C)
frustrates the purpose of Civil Code section 1954.52, which is to
permit landlords to raise rents on exempt units to their fair
market value.
       Respondents correctly point out that the relocation
assistance requirement does not directly conflict with the right to
raise rents, because nothing in section 1806(b)(C) constrains
landlords from setting the rent on exempt units whenever they
want and at whatever rate they choose. Bullard v. San Francisco
Residential Rent Stabilization Bd. (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 488
(Bullard) presents an example of a direct conflict. There, the
court addressed whether the Costa-Hawkins Act preempted a
rent control ordinance that required a landlord who evicted a
tenant in order to move into the tenant’s unit to offer the tenant
another unit, if one was vacant, at a specified rate. (Id. at
pp. 489-493.) The court held that the “rent control ordinance, by

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