photo credit: City of Sebastopol
Design rendering of Sebastopol's Woodmark Apartments.

Efforts are moving ahead in Sebastopol to protect residents at the city's Woodmark Apartment complex, but a final package of renter protections is still taking shape.

What is for certain; there will be multiple options on the table when Sebastopol's city council revisits the matter in November.

Woodmark was built in part with a federal grant aimed at providing farm worker housing, but when farm workers didn't apply to move in, other people did.

Now the absence of agriculture worker tenants is prompting big changes. Sonoma County Legal Aid's Cait Vejby said some kind of protection is needed for the at-risk residents.

"Woodmark like all other deed restricted subsidized affordable housing is exempt under the State Tenant Protection Act," Vejby said. "This means that tenants at Woodmark lack protections that apply to many other types of rental housing currently here in Sebastopol, and this is a very significant gap in protections because residents of deed restricted affordable housing are lower income by requirement and are more likely to be particularly vulnerable families."

The Sonoma County Tenant's Union is helping Woodmark residents. The union says 40 of the 48 units are being rented to non-farm worker families; several of which are considered low income.

They've been told their leases won't be renewed at the end of the year unless a farm worker is part of each household, a stipulation from a US Department of Agriculture loan that helped finance the project.

Whatever protections the city passes won't just apply to Woodmark.

Local laws too specifically targeted would be an unfair and arbitrary enforcement of tenant protections, and that could land Sebastopol in legal trouble, according to Sebastopol's city attorney.

The catalyst though, council member Neysa Hinton noted, is the threat of a mass eviction of non-farm worker tenants at the Woodmark Apartments on Bodega Avenue.

"I keep saying this isn't in front of us unless except for you guys," Hinton said. "I want to support Woodmark, but I'm not comfortable with the other long-time tenants, and unintended consequences by making a broad ordinance."

The council voted 4-to-1 in favor of advancing "just cause" renter protections.

They directed city staff to explore options on an emergency and regular basis to regulate 40- and 45-unit complexes, and figure out relocation assistance.

The matter will be back before the city council at its next meeting.