Maintenance Regulation Added to W. Hollywood Rent Control

The West Hollywood City Council has amended the city’s rent control ordinance, requiring landlords to perform maintenance work on their apartments before they increase rents for new tenants.

The amendment requires landlords to clean carpets and drapes and paint the interior of an apartment if they want to increase rents for new tenants by 10%.

Allowed once every two years per apartment under the law, the vacancy increases are designed to provide landlords with enough money to maintain their buildings properly, according to rent control administrator Adam Moos. The vacancy increase is added to the annual yearly increase (set this year at 3%) allowed for all apartments.

In many cities with rent control, landlords have refused to perform maintenance because they claim that their return is not great enough on controlled rents. Moos said West Hollywood officials hope to preserve the quality of apartments there by allowing rents to increase somewhat after vacancies. Berkeley, Santa Monica and other cities with tough rent controls do not allow vacancy increases.

West Hollywood landlords who can prove they cleaned and painted within six months of a new tenant moving in can get the 10% rent increase without cleaning and painting again.

Landlords are unhappy with the amendment because the original rent control ordinance had allowed the 10% increase without maintenance. Landlords simply had to apply for it.

Grafton Tanquary, president of West Hollywood Concerned Citizens, a community group dominated by landlords, said landlords will feel compelled to do the maintenance to get the 10% increase.

“Under this set of circumstances we could be forced to paint, even if the apartment had been painted 6 1/2 months before,” he said.

But maintenance requirements for landlords do not end with new tenants. Under provisions of the ordinance previously approved by the council, landlords must paint every four years and install new carpets and drapes every seven years.

These requirements go beyond cleaning and painting for new tenants. The work must be performed on all apartments, regardless of whether the landlord intends to take a vacancy rent increase.

The provisions were enacted primarily to protect long-time tenants against haphazard maintenance. Renters will have to ask their landlords to perform the work. If the landlord refuses, the matter will be taken to the rent stabilization commission. The landlord will be freed from painting, carpeting and installing new drapes only if he can produce receipts proving that the work has been done within the required time.

Tanquary said the long-term maintenance standards take away the owner’s ability to decide when maintenance is needed. “They say you have to paint every four years,” he said, “but no one paints their own home that often.”

New tenants can also use the long-term maintenance standards to get new carpets and drapes in their apartments, Moos said. For example, even if a landlord cleans the carpet for a new tenant, that tenant can legally demand a new carpet if the old one has not been replaced in seven years.

At tonight’s meeting, the city council will discuss rent control regulations, including application fees for individual rent increases. Landlords have complained that the fees, which could run as high as $300 for a 100-unit building, are too high. The session will convene at 7:30 in Hall A at Plummer Park.