St. Louis Park may make permanent a requirement that property owners give tenants notice of major rent hikes after a building is sold or pay if the tenants have to leave on short notice.
The city is one of several in the Twin Cities to require new property owners to pay tenants relocation assistance if they plan to raise rents or enforce new requirements, such as income restrictions, within three months of buying a rental property.
An existing ordinance in St. Louis Park will sunset July 1, but the City Council may make notice and payment requirements permanent. The issue is taking on greater importance as development booms along the Green Line light rail extension.
Property owners in the city must give three months' notice of rent increases or other new requirements after buying a building. But the owners can get tenants to move out on shorter notice if they provide relocation assistance. The required assistance now ranges from $2,600 for a tenant leaving a studio apartment to $4,100 for a three-bedroom apartment. Those amounts — set in 2018 — could increase to $3,200 for a studio and $5,000 for a three-bedroom.
The rules only apply to buildings where 18% of the apartments are affordable to moderate-income people. That translates to rents of just more than $1,200 for a studio apartment or just more than $2,000 for a four-bedroom home.
Since the ordinance took effect in 2018, it has affected 18 buildings in St. Louis Park. So far, none of those property owners has paid relocation assistance because they gave tenants three months' notice of rent increases.
