6
The Legislature was well aware, however, that such vacancy decontrol gave landlords an
incentive to evict tenants that were paying rents below market rates. [Citation.] Accordingly,
the statute expressly preserves the authority of local governments ‘to regulate or monitor the
grounds for eviction.’” (Action Apartment Assn., Inc. v. City of Santa Monica, supra, 41
Cal.4th at pp. 1237-1238.)
As pertinent to this appeal, section 1954.53 provides that “an owner of residential real
property may establish the initial rental rate for a dwelling or unit” (§ 1954.53, subd. (a));
however, under subdivision (b), “the rent level established upon an ‘initial hiring’ applies to a
‘tenant, lessee, authorized subtenant, or authorized sublessee for the entire period of his or her
occupancy. . . .’” (DeZerega v. Meggs (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 28, 41 (DeZerega), italics
omitted.) Then, when “the original occupant or occupants who took possession of the dwelling
or unit pursuant to the rental agreement with the owner no longer permanently reside there, an
owner may increase the rent by any amount allowed by this section to a lawful sublessee or
assignee who did not reside at the dwelling or unit prior to January 1, 1996.” (§ 1954.53, subd.
(d)(2).) “This subdivision does not apply to partial changes in occupancy of a dwelling or unit
where one or more of the occupants of the premises, pursuant to the agreement with the owner
provided for above, remains an occupant in lawful possession of the dwelling or unit, . . .” (Id.,
subd. (d)(3).) Costa Hawkins explicitly allows cities to regulate evictions to the extent it is not
preempted by statute. (Id., subd. (e); § 1954.52, subd. (c); DeZerega, supra, at p. 40.)
In Parkmerced Co. v. San Francisco Rent Stabilization & Arbitration Bd. (1989) 215
Cal.App.3d 490, 493 (Parkmerced), a local ordinance limited rent increases upon any tenant,
subtenant or any other legitimate occupant of a dwelling unit. The Court of Appeal held that
the rent protection ordinance—which defined a tenant as “‘[a] person entitled by written or oral
agreement, sub-tenancy approved by the landlord, or by sufferance, to occupy a residential
dwelling unit to the exclusion of others’”—extended to the named tenant’s sister, even after the
named tenant moved out, reasoning that the rent ordinance “clearly focuses on occupancy as
the factor which triggers rent control protection,” and that an adoption of the lessor’s “narrow
and unduly restrictive interpretation of the Ordinance . . . would undermine the intent of the