Rent board’s 3304 struck down
CITY HALL — A Santa Monica judge has ruled that the local rent control board overstepped its authority when it passed a law that allows landlords to jack up the rent on part-time tenants.
Santa Monica Superior Court Judge James Bascue issued a preliminary injunction last week on the enforcement of regulation 3304, which was adopted by the rent control board in March. The law allows landlords to raise Police nab suspect in weekend shooting to market value the price of rent-controlled units used as second homes, offices or for storage.
Robert Bisno, 51, an attorney and prominent local real estate investor, sued the Santa Monica rent control board this year, arguing the law is illegal because it was never put before voters and it goes against the charter that governs rent control.
Bisno lives in an exclusive enclave of Beverly Hills. But since 1996, he has also kept a two-bedroom, two-bathroom penthouse apartment in the Santa Monica Shores apartment buildings overlooking Ocean Park.
Though his rent is set at $1,064 because of rent control, comparable apartments in the Shores command $4,895 on the open market.
Douglas Emmett & Co., the company that owns the Shores, challenged Bisno’s residency under the new law in a formal complaint to the rent control board earlier this year. On May 28, Bisno and his attorney, Andrew Zanger, sat through a six-hour hearing with rent board and Douglas Emmett officials.
Bisno claimed that his wife Janette, who he has been in divorce proceedings with for the past 18 months, currently resides in the apartment.
To make his case, Bisno presented the hearing officer with mail addressed to Janette Bisno at the Shores, a copy of her registration for art courses at Santa Monica College this summer and pictures that show the apartment has been occupied by her and their 10-year-old child.
Shores officials disagreed, arguing that the property has been mostly vacant since Bisno rented it in 1996.
It’s unknown whether a hearing officer made a decision on Bisno’s case, but because of Judge Bascue’s ruling, all decisions and orders relating to the law are now null and void.
Judge Bascue held that the voters who enacted Santa Monica’s rent control law through a city charter amendment in 1979 had not given the rent control board the authority to enact a policy like 3304.
The rent control board’s function is not to make housing policy, but to limit rent increases so that landlords receive no more than a fair return, said Allan Abshez, Bisno’s attorney.
“Regulation 3304 was a particularly nefarious ‘Big Brother’regulation because it encouraged government and landlords to snoop on the private affairs of tenants who were lawfully using their apartments in Santa Monica,” Abshez said. “The voters who enacted rent control in Santa Monica never envisioned such a system.”
Under the law, tenants were subjected to invasions of their privacy through inspections of their apartments, including photographs of the contents in their closets, personal effects, refrigerators and disclosure of their financial affairs, Abshez claims.
Santa Monica Rent Control officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
As a result of the law, many tenants were unable to afford the rent increases, which were doubled and sometimes even quadrupled, and were forced to move out. It’s unclear how the rent control board will compensate the tenants who paid increased rents or have been forced to give up their apartments.
About 117 cases have been filed with the rent control board since the law went into effect March 15.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.