Picking up where Proposition 90 left off
To combat the failure of Proposition 90 in the 2006 election — a ballot measure that would have outlawed eminent domain in the state of California — a local taxpayers advocacy group is pushing for a similar measure to be placed on the June 2008 ballot.
If rent control falls along with it, consider it collateral damage.
“A substantial majority of Californians still want to enhance property rights protection,” said Jon Copula, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), on Friday.
The association is ready to begin getting signatures in order to qualify the California Property Owners Protection Act. Coupal estimates they will need about 1 million registered voters to sign on.
But along with the proposal to outlaw eminent domain is a side effect that would banish rent control.
“Somebody’s property is something that belongs to them,” Coupal said. “The ability to sell it at a price of your choosing or to lease it at a price of your choosing is an important stick in the bundle of property rights that one has in real estate.”
In fact, the association believes that anything done to deregulate the housing market will not only protect property rights, but would also, in the long term, increase housing stock, ultimately lowering the costs of owning a home.
The measure allows for a three-year phase out, so that renters aren’t kicked out of their homes immediately.
The original version of the California Property Owners Protection Act was recently revised to allow for the three-year phase out.
SMRR President Denny Zane believes the HJTA realized they would be facing a powerful opposition and decided to add the buffer period to make the proposed legislation seem less controversial.
“Presumably, they realize that they have a political hot potato and they still have a political hot potato,” Zane said.
Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights is promising a fight and is planning to join with similar pro-rent control organizations across the state to form a coalition to combat the measure if it is placed on the ballot.
In Zane’s opinion, the ballot measure would do nothing but increase the presence of homeless in the streets of California.
“This is like the ‘Homeless Creation Act of 2008,’” Zane said on Friday. “They’re in for a dog fight.”
The measure would affect renters in cities across the state, including Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Berkeley and East Palo Alto.
Several groups have come out in support of the ballot measure, Coupal said, including the California Farm Bureau Federation and property rights groups.
Just as eminent domain affects private property owners, it affects farmland owners, said John Gamper, director of Land Use and Taxation Policy at the California Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s largest farm organization with 94,000 members.
“Our members were just as shocked as every other citizen when the Supreme Court said you can take someone’s house or small business for economic development purposes,” Gamper said, referring to the Kelo v. city of New London case where the U.S. Supreme Court decided, 5-4, in 2005 that eminent domain was allowed for economic development purposes in New London, Conn. Susette Kelo was one of the lead plaintiffs in the case.
“We want to address the issue of taking farm land by local jurisdiction for similar use,” Gamper said on Friday.
“We’re sympathetic to the outrage over the Kelo decision. We want to protect farm land taken under misguided schemes.”
Niels Hansen, a 20-year rent control tenant who has lived in three units in the same Mid-City apartment complex, said he strongly opposes the proposal.
Rent control allowed him to start a life in Santa Monica as a 19-year-old from Oregon and believes countless other renters in the city have similar tales of beginning anew in the desirable beach community.
The new father of a baby daughter, Hansen hopes to eventually move out of his one-bedroom unit, for which he pays $570 a month. But in the meantime, he’s enjoying the economic benefits of paying low rent.
“Without rent control, I would not have enjoyed the quality of life that Santa Monica has to offer,” Hansen said on Friday. “(The repeal) would make it difficult for young people to get started in a place like Santa Monica — new people with young ideas.”
If rent control is repealed, Hansen said he would move his family back to Oregon.
“If we lost our rent control, it gives us very good reason to leave California,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2007. Read the original PDF.