Santa Monica Rent Control Giving Way in Rash of Evictions
Dramatic changes in Santa Monica’s tough rent control ordinance are now all but certain.
The impetus for the change is the more than 1,000 apartments that have been or are scheduled to be emptied under the 1986 state Ellis Act, which sets forth a procedure in which landlords can legally evict tenants and get out of the rental business.
Supporters of rent control are conceding ground to try to stop the massive evictions while landlords are using the law as leverage to force even bigger changes in the rent control ordinance.
Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the tenants group that came into political power by championing rent control in the late 1970s, on Sunday approved several proposals aimed at preserving low-cost housing while allowing rent increases for some occupied apartments and even larger increases on units voluntarily vacated.
Those proposals will be forwarded within 30 days to the City Council and the Rent Control Board for consideration.
Landlords denounce the proposals as insufficient and contend that only full vacancy decontrol--which would allow rents to increase to market levels when a unit is voluntarily vacated--would stop the loss of low-cost housing under Ellis.
“It’s too little, too late,” landlord Carl Lambert told a cheering crowd of about 300 people at a meeting Monday night of Action, a landlords organization.
The extent of the changes may not be known until the November municipal election, when three of the seven City Council seats and four of the five seats on the Rent Control Board will be filled.
There may well be some ballot measures to complicate the fight. Landlords plan to qualify an initiative that would allow vacancy decontrol. SMRR members say that if the City Council does not act on their proposals, they will attempt to place a measure on the ballot to implement them.
Meanwhile, both sides are trying to line up the support of tenants, who make up 80% of the city’s population. Landlords are expected to appeal to current tenants to preserve their low-cost apartments by voting for vacancy decontrol. SMRR members say they will try to convince tenants that the group and its candidates, while conceding some things to landlords, are still the best bet to protect the long-range interests of renters.
“SMRR has never been reluctant to look at creative approaches to solve problems,” said Mayor Dennis Zane, a SMRR founder who helped draft the city’s rent control law.
Sunday afternoon’s SMRR meeting, which attracted about 120 people, was more like a war council preparing to go to battle.
“We are here to unify in the fight to save our homes,” Rent Control Board member Dolores Press said. “The real enemy is the Ellis Act, not each other. We must be open to new ideas. Our very survival depends on it.”
Proposed changes in the rent control law include:
* Allowing units with very low rents to rise to a standard level, still to be determined, when voluntarily vacated.
* Allowing landlords to raise rents a certain percentage or fixed dollar amount on all units voluntarily vacated.
* Changing the formula for annual general adjustments to allow landlords to recoup increases in city fees and assessments.
In order to qualify for these benefits, however, landlords would have to agree not to use the Ellis Act.
SMRR is also proposing that anti-harassment measures be adopted, a fund to subsidize housing for low-income people be established and minimum maintenance standards be required of landlords.
“No one wants to pay more rent,” said Brad Jones, co-chairman of SMRR. “But if the choice is paying $50 or $100 more, or paying more outside of Santa Monica, the choice is clear.”
But landlords say the proposals don’t go far enough and blame SMRR for the housing crisis.
“SMRR is the worst thing to happen to housing since World War II when bombs were dropped on homes,” said landlord Geoffrey Strand, an Action board member.
John Rodriguez, president of Action, had a one-word response to the SMRR proposals: “Nuts!”
Recently appointed rent board member Jay Johnson, who is a landlord and a member of the SMRR steering committee, addressed the Action meeting Monday. He told the group to resist the impulse to go to war and called the SMRR proposals “basic building blocks to resolve our difference.”
The landlords responded with boos and catcalls.
Johnson’s appearance apparently did not change the group’s demand for vacancy decontrol. The meeting ended with a call for all those in support of vacancy decontrol to stand up. Nearly everyone did.
