(a) It is found and declared that there is a growing shortage of, but increasing demand for, housing in the city of Palo Alto. Such shortage and increased demand, coupled with increasing inflation, have placed substantial pressure on those residents of Palo Alto seeking rental housing. This council finds that renters are entitled to a contractual relationship with a landlord that offers some assurance of stability and fair treatment under the terms of a written lease to minimize displacement of renters into a rental housing market which affords them few and expensive options.
(b) Council further finds that the provisions of California Assembly Bill 1482 (2019), as codified and later expanded in the Civil Code of the state of California, offers important protections from instability and displacement to renters. The provisions of that bill as they relate to eviction reduction are restated and expanded below, to make the protections permanent in the city of Palo Alto, to extend them to renters living in qualified residential rental units that received a certificate of occupancy within the last fifteen years, and to reduce the minimum occupancy time period for renters to qualify for eviction protections.
(Ord. 5592 § 2, 2023: Ord. 5589 § 2 (part), 2023: Ord. 3252 § 1 (part), 1980)