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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judgment entered after the superior court rejected most of their
claims, raising a number of state and federal constitutional
issues.
       Relying on article XI, section 3 of the California
Constitution, which specifies that the voter initiative power may
be used to propose amendments but not revisions to county or
city charters, petitioners contend Measure H constituted an
impermissible revision to the Charter. However, we conclude
Measure H was not an impermissible revision of the Charter, but
rather was a permissible Charter amendment.
       Petitioners next challenge on two different grounds the
Measure H provisions that require the City Council to appoint
tenants to seven of the 11 seats on the rental housing board.
First, they argue restricting eligibility to persons holding a
leasehold violates the California Constitution’s prohibition in
article I, section 22 on conditioning the right to hold office on a
property qualification. However, we construe the bar on property
qualifications to mean the right to hold office may not be
conditioned on the ownership of a real property interest. The
constitutional provision thus does not bar restrictions based on a
leasehold property interest. Second, petitioners contend that
reserving seven of the board seats for tenants—guaranteeing a
supermajority of tenants—violates landlords’ and other property
owners’ rights to equal protection of the law under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Applying a rational basis standard of review because neither
landlords nor property owners are protected classes and no
fundamental rights are at issue, we reject petitioners’ facial equal
protection challenge.

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