Some of the most interesting parts of last night’s Long Beach City Council discussion of apartment renters’ rights weren’t just the heartrending testimony of disabled tenants who feared being pushed out in the street by future condominium conversions–or the plain speaking from several landlords, one of whom used a phrase you don’t hear much anymore: “doing without.”

No, what was truly revealing was hearing what our elected representatives really think of Long Beach–and they spoke their minds several times as the Council decided how to give renters additional rights by revamping its condominium conversion ordinance.

“I think we in Long Beach have some problems that are not being addressed by this motion and [are] not being addressed here tonight,” said Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga, as the Council considered a motion made by Second District Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal.

“A lot of the causes are the rate of poverty, and this is not addressing that,” said Reyes Uranga, who was critical of the gentrification which happens  in neighborhoods where apartments are converted to condominiums and the rents rise.

“We’re solving our poverty rate by exporting our poor,” Reyes Uranga said, “and this is not addressing that.”

Eighth District Councilwoman Rae Gabelich weighed in by reading the percentages of various segments of the U.S. population which live in poverty. Twenty percent of Long Beach residents, she said, are below the federal poverty line.

“Why are we at 20 percent?” Gabelich asked. But she also gave a nod to landlords who currently must pay relocation costs of $3,700 to each displaced tenant, when apartment houses are converted to condos.

“We cannot be a sustainable city if we try to solve the problem of poverty on the backs of the entire city,” Gabelich said.

After two hours of discussion, the Council voted to ask city staff to prepare a new ordinance making sure displaced renters get adequate notice that they’ll have to move.

In addition to the $3,700 in relocation funds, the council asked that qualified low-income senior and disabled renters get an additional $2,000 from the city’s Housing Development Fund.

Now, city staffers draft the new ordinance and, probably some time next year, it returns to the Council for a vote.

Tags: California, condominiums, condos, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, poverty level, rae gabelich, renters' rights, Southern California, suja lowenthal, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, Tonia Reyes Uranga