Debate on How to Change It : Santa Monica Contest Focuses on Ellis Act

An otherwise predictable race for two seats on Santa Monica’s Rent Control Board has become a forum for debate over the controversial Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to go out of business.

Two incumbents on the board, longtime tenant activists Julie Lopez Dad and Dolores Press, promise to fight to have the law changed and to find ways to protect tenants.

The third candidate is Keith Lambert, an apartment manager and real estate agent who says the “one-sided antagonism” of the Rent Control Board is what forced landlords to seek the Ellis law. He is calling for fairer treatment of apartment owners and protections for truly needy tenants.

All three candidates agree on the importance of protecting the city’s stock of affordable housing. But Press and Dad disagree with Lambert on the best ways to achieve that goal.

Long-Shot Candidate

The 5-member board has always been controlled by the city’s dominant political faction, the liberal Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights. In several races, landlord and real estate interests have put forth opposition candidates but have never emerged victorious.

Lambert is considered a long-shot against well-known incumbents Dad and Press in a city where an estimated 80% of the voters are renters.

Dad, a researcher and community organizer in the Ocean Park neighborhoods, and Press, a labor union staff employee and former one-term city councilwoman, are members of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights.

The campaign itself has been relatively uneventful in contrast to the race by 13 candidates for four seats on the City Council.

But the election comes at a time when recent court decisions supporting landlords who are using the Ellis Act have weakened the power the Rent Control Board has in regulating the removal of rental housing from the market. Many see some of the authority to protect tenants shifting to the City Council.

Dad, 44, and Press, 54, say they believe the council will help protect tenants by enforcing the payment of relocation fees, discouraging commercial development in residential areas and joining court battles.

But they both maintain that the real authority to administer the city’s tough rent control law and set policy will remain with the board.

Amendment to Ellis Act

Dad and Press called for an amendment to the Ellis Act, a 2-year-old law sponsored by the real estate industry and written by Sen. Jim Ellis (R-San Diego) that allows owners to evict their tenants and go out of the rental business.

Dad said amendments should be made to prevent what she said are abuses of the law, such as the purchase of a property by a group of owners who then evict tenants under auspices of the Ellis Act.

“The biggest threat to rent control right now is the Ellis Act,” Dad said. “Ellis was intended to undermine rent control, and that’s what it is doing. The only way to deal with state legislation is state legislation.”

Dad and Press rejected the suggestion that the board has been unreasonably antagonistic, saying board members are only responding to constant challenges from landlords.

“If they (landlords) are looking for peace, then they should stop filing so many lawsuits,” Press said.

The legal challenges are also to blame, Press and Dad say, for the rent control agency’s huge budget, now in excess of $4 million.

But Lambert has lashed out at the board for what he says is its inflated budget. Pledging to streamline the rent board bureaucracy, he charged that board members often provoke the landlord lawsuits by deciding cases unfairly.

Lambert says the Ellis Act is no longer an issue for the Rent Control Board but will be fought out at the level of the City Council.

Poor Administration

While praising the rent control law itself, Lambert said the board has administered it badly, forcing landlords to seek haven in the state Legislature.

“It’s the antagonistic attitude of the board that forces landlords to go out of business,” Lambert, 27, said. “If rent control had been administered well in the first place, there wouldn’t have been a push in Sacramento for Ellis. If they had administered the law rather than just (using it to) whip landlords, there wouldn’t be a problem of protecting tenants.”

Lambert contended that rents have been kept so artificially low that owners have no incentive to keep up maintenance of their properties. In the long run, he said, the tenants--and the city--are hurt.

“As long as they refuse to give incentives to owners, there are parts of Santa Monica that will turn into slums,” he said.

Dad and Press said landlords do have incentives. Owners can make capital improvements in their properties and apply for rent increases, the two incumbents said.

All three candidates voice degrees of support for two programs under study by the city.

One is inclusionary housing, which the Rent Control Board has been reviewing for more than two years. It would allow landlords to rent some of their units at market value while setting aside other units for low-income tenants.

A second program imposes fees on developers on a per-apartment basis for rental housing they demolish in order to build something else. The City Council’s staff is drawing up this plan, which is sure to face a legal assault in the courts.

Lambert said the fees--which may go as high as $50,000--should not be too excessive. Dad suggested that developers also be required to build replacement housing.