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# Landlords may raise local rents
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/landlords-may-raise-local-rents/
- Published: 2008-05-07T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:28:58.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Real Estate & Housing, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Rents may be on the rise in Santa Monica*

*By CHIARA CANZI Special to the Daily Press*

CITYWIDE As residents struggle to fill up their gas tanks and put food on the table, they also have to be leery of rising rents.

In the coming months, landlords may increase rents by as much as 2.7 percent, the recommended annual adjustment set by the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, which looked at the level of inflation for the Los Angeles-Anaheim-Riverside area over the last year.

According to the board’s memorandum released on May 1, the increase stems from a rise in the cost of utilities and maintenance.

“I know the figure that the department is recommending, but I haven’t given it much thought right now” said Joel Koury, chair of the Rent Control Board, which will consider the increase this Thursday during a meeting at City Hall.“I want to evaluate it and I want to spend the next month or so to try to figure out if it’s the best thing for the city.”

Some landlords feel that the increase does not truly reflect the cost of maintaining their properties.

“The number is pretty low,” Carl Lambert, president of Action Apartment Owners Association said. “The rising cost of labor and supplies for repairs just outstripped inflation rates and when the city gives us, the landlords, only one third of the compensation, it’s just not fair.”

The report followed a detailed methodology: The total dollar amount for the rent is divided into expense categories such as “hard expenses” that include taxes, utilities and city services, and “calculated expenses,” which include management costs and maintenance services.

“I was talking to a landlord today, a local landlord,”Koury said.“He indicated that the number was definitely in the ballpark.”

Lambert thinks otherwise. “In the range of five or six percent would be more realistic in order to maintain our buildings properly,” Lambert said.

The Santa Monica Rent Control Law has been in effect since April 10, 1979\. Its main purpose has been to control the amount that may be changed for a rental unit within the city. For Koury, the percentage of the increase isn’t at odds with renters’ rights.

“The number didn’t shock me or surprise me,” Koury said. “The formula that we have here in Santa Monica for rent control is more transparent” to that of Los Angeles County and most other jurisdictions.

“If someone on the board sees something out of the ordinary, like water rates rising out of control, the department takes that into account,” Koury said.

Lambert said the board has designed the formula to stem rising cost rents and protect renters, forgetting about the rights of the people who own the units. As president of Action Apartment Owners Association, Lambert’s goal is to protect owners’ rights and achieve fairness in the application of rent control.

“Because of the strict rent control laws, rents on decontrolled units have been rising an amazing amount,” to compensate for the loss in revenue needed to make repairs and upgrades he said.

The rent control board was debating changing the formula to match similar laws on the county level, which solely takes a percentage of the consumer price index into account, Koury said.

“I personally don’t think it’s good,” said Koury. “If it’s not broken, why fix it?”

In recent years, landlords have not petitioned for rent increases higher than those recommended by the board because they feel the board doesn’t care about them as much as they do renters and protecting renter’s rights.

“People need to see the abuses landlords are faced with,” said Lambert. “When new tenants will recognize that they are subsidizing the old tenants then changes can be made.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 7, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/050708.pdf?ref=smdp.com)