“RENT CONTROL, IF IT IS TO SURVIVE, should indeed have an overhaul. They should be screening all recipients of this kind of financial aid. The cheaters should be weeded out.”
“RENT CONTROL IS ESSENTIAL FOR OUR city in order to keep a varied community because the land is so expensive here. We must keep rent control for us to keep a varied community and healthy community. I support it all the way.”
“YOU HAVE THREE LEECHES ON THE City Council who are renters and have been renting for years on this rent control. They are Kevin McKeown, Pam O’Connor and Ken Genser... all by their own admission. The people of Santa Monica need to unite and vote these people off the City Council. They need to organize and get term limits because these people will be there until they die. And these three same people do not pay property taxes and are determining how much property owners have to pay for services. This is ridiculous. These people are parasites who live off the citizens of the city of Santa Monica. I think it is disgusting. I cannot believe the citizens don’t get together and throw out rent control and get these people off the council.”
“FORGET RENT CONTROL! I THINK the City Council needs an overhaul, after seeing students’ bus fares raised 100 percent and 300 percent. They seem to be functioning on the Every Child Left Behind concept.”
“I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT THINK RENT control is in need of an overhaul. There is no way I could continue to live in Santa Monica without it. My rent is already plenty expensive.”
“WHAT RENT CONTROL? FOR ALL intents and purposes, rent control ended with decontrol recontrol. An example being that now, under decontrol, a three-bedroom apartment in a dingbat apartment building will now rent for $36,000 per year. The real reason owners want to get rid of rent control is due to the other protections provided to renters under the program, such as evictions and rent reduction for poor maintenance.”
“NEWER SANTA MONICA TENANTS LIKE me don’t have a beef with those who have been here for years. We understand that rent control protects us both. I don’t know why you would like to pit one against another?”
“NO RENT CONTROL OVERHAUL. ANY changes means testing the percent of time a renter occupies an apartment, age testing. It will result in more bureaucracy.”
“THEY NEED TO DO SOMETHING WITH rent control because there are too many rich people abusing it, like that lawyer who had that apartment in the Ocean Park area and he had a house someplace else. He should have been kicked out.”
“I THINK RENT CONTROL HAS BEEN very positive to our community. It has slowed gentrification. It has also flowed growth. It has helped maintain diversity in our community.”
“DO I THINK RENT CONTROL IS IN NEED of an overhaul? No. If anything, rent control should persevere to strengthen renter protections. It allows Santa Monica to be a diverse community economically. It is important to remain vigilant to maintain these rights.”
“EVER SINCE RENT CONTROL WAS FIRST passed in 1979, not only was it a good idea, but it is part of the reason that Santa Monica became such a desirable place in the county. Stabilized rents and regulations and ordinances help to give tenants security, and also landlords, therefore possess some of the most enviable property in the county. If renters and landlords continue to respect each other, we can continue to have the most ideal city in all the county.”
“THE ONLY OVERHAUL THAT RENT control needs is a revocation of the Ellis Act. Rent control needs to continue and be strengthened.”
“RENT CONTROL BENEFITS ONLY THOSE living with a cheap subsidized rent, if living under possibly substandard conditions can be called a benefit. In Santa Monica, it serves to maintain SMRR in political control.”
“I THOUGHT THE ORIGINAL MAIN reason for rent control was to control the rampant speculators buying apartment buildings then flipping them, thereby increasing the rent of long-time renters to help pay for the new mortgages. It has now morphed into low-income housing for out-of-staters or people who don’t speak English. Rent control has helped eliminate the middle-class landlord. Look at all the Ellis Act evictions turned into condos.”
“RENT CONTROL IS A SYSTEM THAT is unfair to landlords and those who pay market rents, both of whom subsidize those on rent control.”
“NEARLY EVERYONE AGREES THAT Santa Monicans for Renters Rights have ruined a once quiet residential town and turned it into a tourist trap and worldwide homeless and insane asylum.”
“THE PERSPECTIVE ON THE NATURE of the benefits of rent control should be better addressed in the press.”
“OF COURSE RENT CONTROL NEEDS to be overhauled. Those leeches down there at the rent board suck $11 a month from every renter in town. The whole rent board should be overhauled, extremely.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 26, 2007. Read the original PDF.