Foes say it perverts city’s rent control laws
On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to change the city’s rent control laws to protect tenants from evictions and harassment by landlords.
Under current law, if a person holding a rent-controlled unit dies, the landlord is allowed to raise the rent to market rate if the family of that person stays behind.
Or if a tenant and a landlord agree to allow a number of roommates when a unit is first rented, a landlord can later restrict that number years down the road.
And some landlords offer apartments at a “discount” during the first year of a tenant’s lease, only to make large increases when the discount expires.
However, all that would change if voters approve Measure FF on the Nov. 5 ballot, supporters say.
“The most important thing about it is that it provides for continuity between tenancies by preventing landlords from terminating a tenancy because one of the tenants becomes incapacitated or dies,” said Councilman Richard Bloom.
“It’s been a fundamental underpinning of our ordinances and laws related to tenancies that we want to preserve the existing tenant base as much as possible because that provides for stability for families and for the community.”
However, Rosario Perry, a local attorney known for representing landlords, said the measure would actually hurt tenants.
He said the measure would make the city’s rent control laws inflexible and unable to change along with state law — should current restrictive rent control laws or laws regarding evictions be re-written.
“They are creating a grounds for eviction,” Perry said. “What they are doing is if (state) law somehow changes, that tenants don’t have to move out, it won’t change in Santa Monica because we will be locked in.”
The measure’s supporters say Perry’s concerns are without merit, and that he is only interested in protecting the rights of the landlords he represents.
“Any time an attorney, whose occupation is representing the opponents of rent control, argues against something so vociferously, it must be good for tenants,” wrote Bloom in a ballot statement countering Perry’s criticisms.
Perry said any time someone criticizes policies supported by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, a local organization that has long held sway over the city’s politics, the attacks become personal.
“Anyone that tries to come forward with a logical argument based on the facts and the law to further people’s understanding, SMRR comes out with attacks,” he said. “And it’s always personal attacks to distract from the debate.”
“I’m not anybody’s lackey or dog,” he added.
Perry said the measure would make landlords powerless to prevent tenants from sub-leasing, possibly allowing unsavory individuals to move in. Perry said if a tenant allows a drug dealer, sex offender or criminal to move into his unit, the landlord would have no way to protect his other tenants.
“People have said to me I’m exaggerating, but it could happen,” he said. “But an owner would never move someone into the building that would disrupt their other tenants. It’s against their best interest.”
The measure would also allow a family member, a spouse or a domestic partner living with someone with a rent-controlled apartment for one year to assume the lease if they had to leave.
Perry believes this would lead to rent-controlled apartments remaining at below market rents when they change from one tenant to another. He said some tenants may even sell their rent-controlled unit to another tenant, who would gladly pay a fee to keep the lower rent.
“There’s no limitation that a domestic partner has to live there one year while they were a domestic partner,” Perry said. “So tenants are going to say this person has been living with me for a year and we just signed up as a domestic partner. It’s a gimmick to allow these tenants to sell their units and move on.”
The measure’s supporters say it’s designed to protect tenants with rent-controlled units from harassing landlords who want the tenant to leave so they can rent the unit out at a much higher market rate.
They say Perry and some landlords don’t want the measure to pass because it would mean tenants could hold onto their rent-controlled units much longer.
“While it’s true that most landlords treat their tenants fairly, unfortunately, there are some that don’t,” Bloom wrote. “We need Measure FF to help assure that renters are treated with respect and that Santa Monica renters are safe in their homes.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 4, 2002. Read the original PDF.