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# Rent control has conflicting interests
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/rent-control-has-conflicting-interests-editor/
- Published: 2006-06-27T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T18:33:54.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By P. Davies Santa Monica*

Thanks for the recent informative articles about our city’s ongoing Rent Control debacle. As noted in Vincent Solo’s letter to editor, (SMDP, June 13, page 4) “Rent Control needs checks and balances” the 2006-07 proposed budget increase for the Rent Control Board will go mainly toward increased salaries and benefits for the Rent Control Board staff. It is funded by fees assessed to property owners who then can pass them on to their tenants. But many of the Rent Control staff and board members live in rent control apartments. These city officials make decisions on issues that benefit themselves. The new year budget increase is a drop in the bucket compared to the loss most landlords suffer each month because their tenants are paying only a third of the market rental rate. It is an outrage that they call their department a “public service organization” and suggest that they are helping the poor or maintaining “diversity” in our city. There is no means in place for testing a tenant’s financial status to determine who benefits from below-market rent. Also, the rules are so biased to renter’s rights that tenants can abuse their landlord while the rents are not enough to properly maintain the building. Landlords have little choice but to sell the building for condominium use. There is nothing wrong with landlords charging market rates when a tenant voluntarily vacates his apartment. Maybe the intention was once there, but it is the selfish attempt of the Rent Control Board to control rental rates that is directly responsible for the lack of apartment units in the city, the high-market rental rates, the friction between landlords and tenants and causing apartments to be poorly maintained.When is the City Manager going to correct this conflict of interest?

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 27, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)