Downey extends rent moratorium for businesses

DOWNEY – The Downey City Council voted to extend its current moratorium on evictions of commercial tenants who have been negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, however indicated that the time to start paying up may be coming soon.

The current moratorium applies to commercial tenants who have provided notice to their landlord of their inability to pay rent due to financial setbacks caused by Covid. The tenant is also allowed a two-month repayment period for every month that they are in arrears in rent to the landlord.

This moratorium has been in place since June 23 last year, when it was reestablished. It has since been extended three times on July 28, Sept. 22, and Jan. 26.

On Tuesday, Council voted to once again extend the moratorium by a month, albeit doing so with a vocalized desire to see renters start to pay back some of what they owe sooner rather than later.

Councilman Sean Ashton said that he wanted to “specify that you can’t pay it all at the very end.”

“We want to give the people who are renting the time to pay, but we also need to take care of those who have been patient over this past pandemic time and have lost income because of this pandemic,” said Ashton. “We need to help them as well.”

Under the original agreement, tenants are expected to make a “good faith effort” to pay back their rent. When the moratorium comes back in about a month’s time, it is likely to include language that will require tenants to meet some sort of specified payment plan or percentage, potentially 25%.

Mayor Claudia M. Frometa said that “hindsight is 2020,” suggesting that the city was in a better position now to tighten up the terms of repayment.

“These 15 months have been so critical. A year ago, we were struggling, we did not know the extent of this virus, and how much grief and financial strain would create across our communities,” said Frometa. “Being where we are now, we can be more thoughtful and create better language to provide relief to the owners that have been patient. I think we need to be thoughtful and we need to be fair to both sides.”