By Mark Shepherd Santa Monica
On behalf of property owners, I’d like to thank the Santa Monica City Council and especially Kevin (term limits!) McKeown for doing all it can, legally and illegally, to raise the already stratospheric value of our residences.
The more these Chicken Littles try to limit the number and size of new homes — in the name of “affordability” — the higher the prices here will climb.
McKeown and his “Renters Rights Fellow Travelers” since day one have been fighting a battle that cannot be won, a blind jihad against property that only enriches the owners, landlords and developers — and the all-but-useless city rent control bureaucracy.
What if 30 years ago political activists here had put down their bongs and cleared their heads enough to create a group called Santa Monicans for Property Rights? What if the city these past decades had been dedicated to doing all it can to help renters purchase their units, with grants, with low-interest loans? For one thing, we would not be so freaked out about the possibility of long-time neighbors being displaced by new buildings.
Could McKeown and the renters cabal’s irrational fear and loathing of the real estate market stem from the fact that after decades of paying rent, month after month after month, they’ve lost out on the true homeland security that comes from a nest egg of equity?
Could their animosity toward new owners who arrive with strong credit records instead of criminal records come from jealousy, and from the fact that they know, deep inside, that renters have no real rights, except to shut up, obey their leases and keep paying that rent, month after month, down the drain, while praying that they won’t someday be evicted?
Despite all the damage the SMRR has wrought, it doesn’t have to continue. The city government is the largest, and these days, the only multi-family builder in town. But rather than continue to blast out neighborhoods with oversize rental buildings only for the very poorest of the poor coming here from who knows where, the city could build units to sell to Santa Monica teachers, emergency responders, nurses and other essential workers. My vote would be to enable the person who’s supposed to be in charge of fighting graffiti to actually live here, amid the spray-painted ugliness all around.
Rather than living under a failed and dying rent-control program that may save long-term residents, including the wealthy and some councilmen, a couple hundred bucks a month, what if you owned your apartment — now worth $750,000, or more. Not to mention the tax benefits, and the pure and simple pride of home ownership.
The city could adopt a true progressive policy that simply says,“If you rent here and want to buy, we will use our considerable resources to help you.” Mayor Robert Holbrook is the only candidate who seems to understand the benefits such a policy would bring. Holbrook and his council allies Bobby Shriver and Herb Katz know that renters are not inherently “better” for the city’s social fabric, and that McKeown’s illogical war on market-rate terror brings huge unintended consequences, like severe social stratification, and needlessly higher home prices. Thing is, the SMRR gang outnumbers those guys.
So, things probably won’t change. McKeown will get re-elected with “affordability” rhetoric while doing all he can to make property more expensive.Renters will keep writing those monthly checks. Our indentured population will continue to grow older than surrounding communities, more socially brittle, with less children, and less commitment to our quality of life.
In the meantime, again, thanks from those of us who own property here. We all sleep better at night.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 19, 2006. Read the original PDF.