Westlake Village Rent Control

I appreciated your lively report (May 8) on the Westlake Village rent control controversy, which will spill into court and may saddle residents with a $4-million judgment. Especially the quote from City Council member Franklin Pelletier, who declared: “We’re dealing with human beings here, not property rights.”

Mr. Pelletier spoke more frankly than perhaps your reporter realized, since two of the three votes to renew the rent control ordinance came from council members who personally reaped tens of thousands of dollars in windfall profits when they sold their mobile homes in the rent-controlled park.

Greed is human. Property rights are, by comparison, abstract. For Oak Forest tenants to cry poverty (even though they live in one of the most luxurious parks in America, with rents frozen at an average of $317 a month for the last five years) is only to be expected. Particularly those tenants who paid a premium when they bought their homes because the previous homeowner assured them the frozen rent was transferable!

For the owners of the park to point out that monthly rent BEFORE rent control rose a mere $16 a year on the average and to protest that Westlake Village’s peculiar rent control ordinance will never stand up in court seems to be an exercise in futility. After all, we’re “landlords”--cast as the Big Bad Wolf in this fairy tale.

I’m not out to blow anybody’s house in. I am, however, apt to become upset when an amateur City Council riddled with conflict of interest takes my investment apart. This sad saga accumulates more victims as it continues. Once again, I urge thoughtful Westlake Village residents to let the three City Council members who voted for the new rent control ordinance, Klove, Shane and Pelletier, know how they feel about getting saddled with a potential $4-million debt. Let us remember that rent control--which benefits only 4% of the people who live here--could end up costing everyone.

RAPHAEL CHAIKIN

Westlake Village

Chaikin is part owner of Oak Forest Mobile Estates in Westlake Village.