Santa Monica rent-controlled property owners will no longer face a ballot measure that could have allowed successive qualifying occupants to remain in a rent-controlled unit after the original tenant vacated, raising concerns that the tenancy could effectively continue indefinitely.

The city’s Rent Control Board and City Council voted in late July to remove that provision from the Nov. 3 ballot measure, after city officials raised concerns that the language was untested and could invite a lawsuit.

The California Apartment Association had flagged the provision as the most significant element of the measure in a CAA article posted last month. Housing providers in other rent-controlled California cities should take note as well: city staff said they could not identify any jurisdiction that had gone as far as Santa Monica’s original proposal, according to a city staff report.

The City Council originally adopted the measure on July 14 as part of three ballot resolutions recommended by the Rent Control Board. After adoption, the city heard concerns that two provisions — allowing eviction protections for a broadened class of occupants and removing the requirement that a tenant’s death or incapacity trigger those protections — could force landlords into new, unintended landlord-tenant relationships and effectively prevent a vacancy from occurring. Critics argued that, by allowing successive occupants to remain indefinitely, the proposal could interfere with landlords’ rights under the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act to establish a new initial rental rate following vacancy.

City Manager Oliver Chi and City Attorney Heidi Von Tongeln addressed those concerns directly at a July 27 special joint meeting of the City Council and Rent Control Board, held specifically to reconsider the measure. Chi told the two bodies the city had received “a concern that the measure seeks to circumvent Costa-Hawkins and also that the measure would create a circumstance where a property owner might be unable to recover their possession.”

Von Tongeln said the city could not locate a jurisdiction that had removed the death-or-incapacity trigger entirely or extended succession protections to as broad a class of occupants as Santa Monica’s proposal, calling it untested legal territory that could draw a legal challenge if adopted as written.

The Rent Control Board voted 5-0 at that meeting to recommend removing the disputed occupant provisions. The City Council then directed staff to prepare a narrower replacement measure, which it adopted the following night, Tuesday, July 28, rescinding its original resolution by a 6-1 vote.

The replacement measure, which still requires voter approval on Nov. 3, retains two other changes from the original proposal: extending just-cause eviction protections to single-family homes and condominiums for the first time in Santa Monica, and tightening owner-move-in rules for non-rent-controlled units. Under the replacement measure, an owner or qualifying relative would have to move into a unit within 60 days of a tenant vacating, rather than 30, and remain for two years rather than one. The two other measures on the November ballot – a threshold barring evictions for unpaid rent below a set amount, and an administrative measure adjusting Rent Control Board terms and fees – are unaffected by this change.

Los Angeles County’s deadline for the city to finalize ballot language is Aug. 7. None of the measures take effect unless voters approve them Nov. 3.