By Heidi Marshall Booth Santa Monica
I have to say that I took offense to Melody Hanatani’s biased article on rent-controlled apartments (“First-come, first-served,” May 19-20).
I moved into a rent-controlled apartment about a year and a half ago. Lucky, right? Yes, I was four blocks from the beach. I pay just under $1,500 — about market rate. I also had a hole through the roof and ceiling of my living room within four months of living there. Within seven months, I started having seizures for the first time in my life! I insisted they test for mold. It took over a month and a half for them to clean out the place while my husband and I lived in the Travelodge on Pico (Boulevard). You see, things are not that rosy.
There are numerous rent control tenants who could never dream of living in Santa Monica, had they not been here originally, and I think that is where the true problem lies. A few wealthier people who can afford the rents once places are vacated may not want to be neighbors with “them.” Is it always the rent-controlled tenant causing the fuss? I doubt it. Please stop trying to skew Santa Monicans’ beliefs about who and what a rent controlled tenant is, because it varies. I know some who desperately need the financial break and I know others who use it as an excuse to have really nice cars. We do not blame the people who got in with cheaper housing costs who could buy, and I guess part of me feels like renters should get some of that, too.
My landlords inherited the property, sold it, repurchased it and are selling it again as a “developers dream.” And it may end up as just that, another cookie-cutter looking design to help with what you call “the housing shortage” in Santa Monica. Guess what? I moved here because I did not want so many people. Most Santa Monicans I speak with seem to feel the same. The traffic is a mess, the parking is a mess, and I personally do not feel we need any more large developments. It is taking away the charm that brought me here in the first place. Not everyone can live where they want to. (We had to sublet in Venice first and waited.) The people with the “real deal” are the out-of-town developers who don’t care what the inflated rents are, who don’t deal with the clash of the cultures of what once was a great beach town colliding with what is becoming “Yahoo” and “Google” central, or the richies who buy a home for $1.5 million only to tear it down and build a Cali-McMansion.
Why not move to Malibu or the Palisades and leave Santa Monica alone?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 22, 2007. Read the original PDF.