Why My West Hollywood Building Is Painted Red

I’d like to explain to the renters of West Hollywood why I painted my building red.

It is not out of malice for the City of West Hollywood, which I love and support (I am a chairperson of the City Hall Search Committee) and it’s not out of malice for renters, which I have been, and who most of my good friends are.

I needed to make a social statement. We property owners are a 12% minority and our businesses have been singled out and are being discriminated against by the political power seekers who scheme to buy your votes by taking away the equities in our properties.

I have worked very hard over the years to save a down payment and to invest in this property. The rules of the game are being changed after I have purchased and it is infuriating. The City Council plans to limit the amount of rent I can charge on a vacated unit. This does not hurt one tenant in West Hollywood, but it buys the votes of all future tenants who will be handed unneeded, undeserved rent subsidies.

City Council members have promised the voters they will be fair, however they have gotten more radical since being elected. They claim that tenants will be harassed if owners have full vacancy decontrol. They choose to ignore the fact that in Los Angeles with full vacancy decontrol they get about 250 harassment complaints a year. Comparably West Hollywood should get about 7 to 8 per year.

Tenants will see property in West Hollywood deteriorate because owners will be given no incentive to maintain them. You will see a “black market” on new rentals as is seen today in Santa Monica. Investors will not build new housing in a hostile anti-free enterprise environment. Money that could be better spent cleaning up that disgraceful median strip, or funding worthwhile social programs or increasing our police protection will be wasted on a costly rent control bureaucracy and expensive litigation.

We are asking for fairness and moderation. We are asking for compromise not war.

JOHN PARKS

Los Angeles