Rent Dispute Brings Panel Back Into Focus
Karl and Melinda Nilsson discovered the terse letter wedged inside the screen door of their two-bedroom apartment in Camarillo.
The note disclosed that their rent would soon jump by nearly a third, from $600 to $795 a month.
“Our jaws dropped,” said Melinda Nilsson, 25, a kindergarten teacher.
After an unsuccessful appeal to their apartment manager, the couple took a course of action rarely pursued in Camarillo: They complained to the city’s Rent Review Commission.
The Nilssons’ case--the first apartment rental dispute to go before the commission in three years--provides a glimpse into the workings of the volunteer panel that has been nearly forgotten.
The five-member panel was established by the city a decade ago in response to complaints about rapidly rising rents in Camarillo. The number of complaints has plummeted in recent years, a decline officials attribute partly to the economy.
In the Nilsson case, the commission ruled in the tenants’ favor, deciding that the landlord should not raise the rent more than the going rate of 5% annually.
But the commission’s decision is non-binding.
And property manager Donald A. Dawson is not going along with it, saying the city has no right to interfere in relations between landlords and tenants.
Under Camarillo’s rent ordinance, however, both sides must now enter into binding arbitration, which generally costs at least $300, because they could not resolve their dispute through the commission, which is composed of a property owner, a tenant and three members-at-large.
Not wanting to move, the Nilssons plan to pay their half of the arbitration fee and take a chance on the arbitrator’s ruling.
“I still feel confident the decision will be in our favor,” said Karl Nilsson, 24, a Ventura music store manager.
Melissa Nilsson wonders why she and her husband had to go to the trouble of appearing before the commission in the first place.
“I thought it was pretty fruitless, considering it’s not a binding thing,” she said. “What was the point?”
Some former and current rent review commissioners likewise question the authority of the board, whose members are appointed by the City Council.
But other commissioners, in addition to property owners and city officials, maintain that the board is fulfilling its intended purpose: providing a low-key forum for landlords and renters to air their grievances.
Only six cases involving apartment units have come before the commission since it was formed in 1983. So far, the Nilssons will be the first to go to arbitration.
Another nine disputes have gone before the city’s mobile home rent commission, established by a separate ordinance in 1981.
Property owner David J. Fukutomi, an alternate member of the commission, said the small number of complaints filed shows the panel is doing its job.
While high vacancy rates have dictated against high rent increases in the past few years, Fukutomi said the mere existence of the rent review commission has also played a part in keeping rents at reasonable levels.
“Most property owners take this ordinance very seriously,” Fukutomi said. They know “if you do something totally outrageous and without merit, those practices are going to come under some scrutiny.”
Ronald V. McConville, a member-at-large on the commission, said the panel has served to quell the protests for rent control that rocked the city in the early 1980s.
“If the city didn’t have a rent commission, they’d be screaming for a rent control ordinance,” McConville said. “I don’t think anybody wants that. That takes away from the free enterprise system.”
Indeed, the commission was Camarillo’s alternative to the rent control ordinances that at that time were being passed in other cities such as Berkeley, Santa Monica and nearby Thousand Oaks.
Camarillo property managers and landlords have understood that if they do not abide by the rent review commission’s judgments, the council may institute rent control, Mayor Charlotte Craven said.
“The city has held it over the owners’ and the managers’ heads,” she said.
But one of the tenants, who originally called for rent control and who later served on the commission for nine years, said the panel lacks authority.
“I saw from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be effective enough,” Louise Whetnall said. “It’s like a lot of things that start out with a lot of vim and vigor but that fall by the wayside.”
Whetnall believes the commission should have the power to make binding decisions.
“What’s the use to go about it halfhearted?” Whetnall said.
Jackie Marcus, 39, who replaced Whetnall as the board’s apartment tenant representative, said too few tenants know the commission exists.
Under Camarillo’s rent ordinance, landlords must give all new tenants copies of the law, which spells out the function of the commission. But apparently some landlords fail to issue tenants a copy of the law.
Marcus now rents a house, but she said she did not know there was a rent review commission during the entire time, from 1980 to 1987, that she lived in a local apartment complex.
Marcus said, “I don’t believe renters know their rights.”
In the Nilsson case, the former building manager gave the couple a copy of the rent ordinance when they moved in.
But Dawson, who represents a new owner, said he was not aware of the ordinance or the commission until the Nilssons complained.
But Camarillo City Clerk Marilyn Thiel, who handles the commission’s paperwork, said it is incumbent upon landlords to inquire about city ordinances affecting rental properties, so she is not required further publicize the commission’s existence.
Even with its shortcomings, Marcus said the commission serves an important purpose for tenants faced with drastic rent hikes.
“The main objective is that the tenants are getting help,” Marcus said. “When you’re faced with something like that, you don’t know where to go, who to turn to, and your property managers certainly aren’t going to help you. They’re going to tell you pay it or get out.”
