Rent-Control Plan Rises From Still-Smoldering Ashes...

City leaders are considering a rent-control law that they say will curb the power of absentee landlords who helped fund the successful recall of four City Council members.

The council on Monday will discuss several versions of rent control and decide if such laws--which limit how much rent a landlord can charge--are a good idea in this city where nearly 80% of residents are renters, many of them poor.

The last-minute drive for rent control is being led by Councilwoman Rosa Hernandez, the only council member not targeted by the December recall that turned city government upside down. For months, Hernandez and other city leaders have argued that the ouster of the four Anglo council members was not spawned by a grass-roots Latino movement as has been widely proclaimed, but by wealthy absentee landlords who feared that strict city housing and zoning codes would cut into their profits.

Hernandez said that if allies of the absentee landlords are elected to the council, Bell Gardens residents will pay for it.

“I have nightmares about these people coming in and doing what they want,” she said in an interview last week. “People need protection from these landlords who can raise rents whenever they feel like it.”

Bell Gardens families, most of whom pay rents between $500 and $549 a month, are among the poorest in the state, according to 1990 census figures and the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning.

Recall leaders dispute council claims that absentee landlords orchestrated the recall, and they dismissed the discussion of a rent-control ordinance as “just another trick” to appease Bell Gardens residents.

Marie Chacon, a leader of the recall drive and an absentee landlord who lives in Downey, said that she did not think rents in Bell Gardens are too high. She said that a rent-control ordinance is unnecessary. She said she charges her tenants $500 a month for a two-bedroom home. According to U.S. Census figures, $500 a month is the average rent paid by residents in Bell Gardens, Maywood, Bell and Huntington Park.

However, Josefina Macias, a City Council candidate, recall organizer and longtime renter, said that she has been the victim of sudden rent hikes and has long advocated rent control. With the clock ticking until the March 10 special election to replace Mayor Robert Cunningham and council members Allen Shelby, Letha Viles and Douglas O’Leary, Hernandez said that she wants to get a law drafted as soon as possible.

She faces a tough battle, however. Although some of her colleagues agree that rent control is necessary, none share her sense of urgency.

“I think it’s a very controversial issue and one that I’m not going to be around to do anything about one way or another,” Cunningham said last week. “If we pushed it, we could probably squeeze it in, but I doubt that will happen. Even if we did, if the new council is against it, they could amend it, or just get rid of it.”

But Cunningham said he would like to see controls placed on the number of people who live in a house, and he also favors city inspections of rental units each time there is a vacancy.

Councilman O’Leary said he favors rent control, but only for those landlords who own “large, barracks-type apartments.”

“Rent control is a double-edged sword,” he said. “Tenants need some protection, but you don’t want to step on the civil liberties of those who own the property.”

Council members Viles and Shelby declined to discuss the rent-control ordinance until they receive a report from city staff at Monday’s meeting. Shelby owns seven rental units in the city.

In a memo to the council, Assistant City Atty. Sandra Pettit said that the supply of affordable rental housing in Bell Gardens is shrinking, but a growing number of out-of-town business people have invested in rental property. As a result, she said, many low-income families are forced to pay exorbitant rents for shoddy, sometimes barely habitable, housing.

If the council goes ahead with a rent-control ordinance, members would be considering such issues as whether to exempt some properties, rollbacks in rents, what kind of annual increases to implement and whether a landlord will be allowed to raise rents to market value once a tenant moves out, Pettit said last week.

Just over a year ago, the Bell Gardens City Council passed a new zoning map law that would have limited the number of homes and apartments on a lot. The changes angered many residents and fueled charges that the council was trying to drive low-income Latinos from the city. Almost 90% of the residents in Bell Gardens are Latino.