Rich Renter, Poor Renter : A Tale of 2 Landlord Disputes : Beverly Hills Imposes 90-Day Freeze After Tenants Protest Hikes of 30%

Shocked by increases of more than 30% imposed by the city’s biggest landlord, the Beverly Hills City Council has frozen rent increases on many of the city’s apartments.

The 90-day moratorium came after landlord Donald Sterling, who is also owner of the Clippers NBA basketball team, notified more than 100 tenants that they would have to pay the increases or face eviction within a month. None of those affected have leases.

“This kind of increase may be legal, but it’s immoral,” said Micky Wood, a tenant who said she originally paid $920 a month for her apartment but was notified of a $95 rent increase effective June 1 and another $300 increase effective July 1.

The apartments in question are not covered by the city’s rent stabilization ordinance, which is limited to units costing $600 a month or less. Apartments rented under lease agreements and rental units in owner-occupied buildings are also excluded from the moratorium, which is intended to block the increases while city officials update Beverly Hills’ 1979 rent control ordinance.

Angry tenants who packed the council chambers Tuesday night cheered the council’s action.

“It was the best I could get tonight,” said Gerson Curtiss, administrator of Concern for Tenants Rights, a renters’ group. He said he had been lobbying the City Council for changes in the rent control law when the increases came “like a lightning bolt.”

The tenants booed and hissed when Joan Whitney, executive vice president of Sterling’s Beverly Hills Properties, briefly spoke, but quieted down after Mayor Charlotte Spadaro threatened to oust them.

“At this time we understand the concern of all of our tenants,” Whitney said. “Our prime concern is to provide the highest quality buildings for our tenants and the citizens of Beverly Hills.”

She acknowledged that “there may have been some errors in rents” but said later that it would be impossible to cancel any of the increases that went into effect before Tuesday night. She said 120 tenants at Sterling’s 21 buildings in the city have been given rent increases in recent weeks. The average increase was 14%, she said.

Council member Robert Tanenbaum, author of the moratorium, said making it retroactive would have opened it to legal challenge.

In addition to protesting the rent increases and the threat of eviction at a month’s notice, tenants complained of torn or cheaply patched carpets, loose wiring, leaky roofs, dark entryways, a pool that was empty for a year and a non-functioning air conditioner that was not replaced for four years.

“There is no excuse” for such conditions, said Vice Mayor Benjamin H. Stansbury Jr., urging that inspectors go out immediately to check for violations.

Whitney said renovation work is now under way at six buildings but added, “We can’t possibly do all our buildings in one week or one month.”

Council member Donna Ellman said Sterling was responsible for enactment of the 1979 rental law, which was passed after “this particular insane landlord came into the city, bought up buildings and quadrupled rents overnight.”

Councilman Maxwell Salter said the moratorium, while directed at Sterling, will hurt other landlords whose policies have not given rise to complaints.

City officials said about 3,000 of the city’s 8,200 rental units will be affected by the moratorium. Of those, about 500 units are in buildings owned by Sterling, they said.

The landlord, a publicity-shy attorney who also owns property in Malibu, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Marina del Rey and West Los Angeles, did not respond to telephone messages.

City officials who spoke with him said he blamed some of the rent increases on computer error. They speculated that he may have imposed the rent increases to guard against the possible loss of depreciation credits under tax reform proposals now being considered in Congress.

Plan to Sell Denied

Another theory was that he may be raising the rents in order to sell some apartment buildings and take advantage of a sellers’ market in real estate.

But Whitney said that was not the case. She said the increases were required in order to pay for renovation of the buildings, and that the rents were no higher than in Brentwood, Westwood or other prestigious neighborhoods.

“None of these buildings is for sale,” she said. “We want to hold on to these properties because we love them dearly.”