Three powerful landlord groups have joined to run what they say must be an all-out multimillion-dollar campaign to stop the Portland City Council and the Oregon Legislature from enacting "radical" tenant protections they say would jeopardize their livelihoods.

That the gulf between landlords' desires and policymakers' plans is so wide reflects the tensions between tens of thousands of struggling renters around Oregon and the relatively few landlords that control their housing.

The landlord industry groups, which have banded together under the name More Housing Now!, laid out their intended strategy in a letter and four-page brochure aimed at getting participants onboard that was obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The materials, which are unusual because of their unflinching frankness, call out by name Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly as the industry's primary foes.

Michael Cox, Wheeler's chief of staff, said the mayor has "acted on many fronts" to boost housing availability. "But when it comes to their opposition to effective tenant protections, we couldn't disagree more," Cox said.

Eudaly was unavailable for comment. Marshall Runkel, her chief of staff, said "calling each other names and throwing mud at each other is not going to make anything better – on either side."

More Housing Now! claims a ban on criminal background checks of tenants and limits on security deposits will be foisted on landlords if they don't fight back. Policies in the same vein as those are under consideration and likely to be proposed in the coming months, said a staffer to a Portland commissioner. The city Rental Services Commission, which devises rental regulations, will discuss the proposals this month.

Outright rent control is unlikely to be proposed in the near term because it is banned statewide. Even if the Legislature lifted the ban, cities would be responsible for enacting their own rent control ordinances – and would likely face intense pressure from landlords not to do so.

The landlords' brochure takes pains to criticize the renter activists of Portland Tenants United, a group that was formed to help tenants oppose rent increases and evictions that has become known for its protests. The landlord group's handout asserts the tenant association "wields power over City Hall" and has "manipulated City Hall and the Legislature" into becoming anti-landlord. A message left with Portland Tenants United Thursday was not returned.

Lobbyists hired by More Housing Now! will "fight activists and bureaucracy in City Hall and the Legislature," the brochure goes on to declare. But to succeed, it says, "we need YOU and your financial support. Because your livelihood is at stake." The group seeks to raise $2 million this year, the brochure states.

Industry groups formed More Housing Now! in 2017 to oppose a bill in the Legislature that would have allowed municipalities to enact rent controls. The bill ultimately faltered in the state Senate. That later dealt a costly blow to Sen. Rod Monroe, D-Portland, a longtime legislator and landlord who lost his May primary election in a landslide to an insurgent candidate who ran on a pro-housing platform.

The Monroe loss – and the 2016 election of Eudaly, a tenants' advocate – demonstrates that being too soft on renter protections holds political consequences in Oregon's most left-leaning parts. Yet More Housing Now! is pressuring policymakers to not ramp up their efforts to make renting easier, fairer or more tightly regulated.

One of the More Housing Now! documents, a June 8 letter by Portland developer Tom Brenneke, says that that due to "threats surrounding our industry," landlords must launch a "consolidated effort to fight unnecessary and potentially crippling" regulations.

What Brenneke warned of: a landlord registry, additional property inspections, limiting security deposits, prohibiting criminal records checks of prospective tenants and a ban on landlords evicting tenants for no reason.

Of those concepts, only the registry has been adopted, and it is not fully effective until 2020. The other concepts do not exist yet as proposed state legislation or city ordinance.

As a candidate, Eudaly was painted by landlords as extreme for supporting rent control. Since being elected, she has successfully secured a unanimous City Council vote to impose serious financial penalties for no-cause evictions and 10 percent rent hikes in Portland.

Brenneke was not available for comment Thursday. But his letter makes landlords' position clear: lawmakers' interest in enacting additional tenant protections is "very bad" for his industry.

"We must not allow them to go down this path," he wrote.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

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