Rent Hike Ballot Issue Killed; Turf Battle Ends

A turf battle between the Santa Monica City Council and the city’s Rent Control Board ended abruptly last week when the council announced that it will not promote an apartment improvement plan opposed by the board.

Councilman David G. Epstein said the council withdrew consideration of a June ballot measure that would have legalized rent increases to pay for capital improvements on apartments. Epstein, who initiated the idea, suggested Thursday that the council give the board more time to create its own improvement plan.

“Maybe they’ll have the guts to come up with something realistic,” Epstein said. “I doubt it, but let’s see. We could still introduce a measure on it in November (and) there will be more time to deal with the question.”

Epstein’s decision came two days after rent board member David Finkel accused the council of usurping the powers of the board, which is an independent agency, by involving itself in the discussion of rent hikes.

Too Important to Rush

Epstein said Finkel’s statements had no bearing on the council decision, but Finkel contended that the board had proven its point. He said a proposal that would allow tenants and landlords to negotiate rent increases for apartment improvements is far too important to be rushed onto the June ballot.

The rent board is expected to consider its own improvement plan during the next several months. Finkel said the board is especially concerned with deterioration of the city’s apartment buildings, which have been under rent control for seven years. But he said there was no reason to believe that the improvement program discussed by the council would have solved the problem.

“It wasn’t a good idea,” said Finkel, who made an impassioned speech before the council. “This is a very serious dilemma, and there is no easy solution . . . Anything that the board tries will probably be experimental.”

The council voted last month to consider a ballot measure addressing apartment improvements. Five of the seven council members supported the proposal. The only opposition came from Councilmen Dennis Zane and James P. Conn, who are affiliated with the city’s renter activist group.

5 in Favor, 2 Opposed

The program that the council considered already had been rejected by the Rent Control Board. Finkel said the board rejected the plan when it was proposed by its staff last year because it did not believe that landlords should be given permanent rent increases for improvement costs that could be paid back within a few years.

“The board felt the length of the rent hike should be limited,” Finkel said. “We didn’t think someone should have to pay for drapes for 20 years.”

Instead, the board adopted a one-year experimental program that permitted landlords and tenants to negotiate temporary rent increases of no more than $20 a month, or 5% of the maximum allowable rent. Finkel said the program, which generated only seven applications for rent hikes, was criticized for being too complicated. The program ends this month, and Finkel said the board would study new ideas after holding several public hearings.

One group pleased by the council’s decision to drop the idea of a June ballot measure was the landlord organization known as ACTION (A Commitment to Insure Owners’ Needs). The landlord group has qualified its own rent control measure for the June 3 ballot, and leaders of the organization said they feared that another proposal would confuse voters.

“We feel that this strengthens our chances,” said Geoffrey Strand, a spokesman for the landlord group. “And the tenants will realize that ours is a very beneficial program.”

Santa Monica law currently prohibits a landlord from raising rents when a tenant moves out of an apartment. Leaders of the landlord organization said their plan would allow unlimited rent increases on vacant apartment units in cases where an apartment owner shares his profits with tenants.

In a recent legal opinion, City Atty. Robert M. Myers said the landlord plan may actually provide nothing to tenants because of the way it is worded. The landlord organization denied that the wording is a problem and accused Myers of basing his opinion on personal bias against the plan.