Rending Rent Control

Nick Gillespie from the April 1994 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Because most rental complexes are on down-zoned lots, they cannot simply be rebuilt as they were. Santa Monica Mayor Judy Abdo, who sees rent control as "the most effective way of maintaining affordable housing" and wants to save as many rental units as possible, says the earthquake will lead to some zoning changes. But it is unlikely the revisions will include letting owners rebuild what was standing before the quake. So there will likely be fewer rental units available when all the building is completed. And any new units will not be subject to rent control.

There's a good chance that some lots will remain vacant. If Lambert's 15-unit complex is torn down, he says, the current down-zoning for his lot allows him to build six condominiums on the property. Because Propositon R has a "rounding-up" mechanism, that means that two of them would be slated for low-income residents. Covering the costs on the two units, however, would price the other units out of the market. Given his options, it might be easier to leave the property fallow.

Will the earthquake's political aftershocks undermine Santa Monica's rent-control policies in the long run? Council Member Greenberg is optimistic, but she isn't placing any bets. "Although the quake at first brought everyone together, it has also unleashed hostility and anger and resentment all around," she says.

Whatever happens will depend in large part on how the Rent Board navigates between the need to compensate landlords and the desire to minimize rent increases. Those are hazardous waters at best.

"The rent-controllers usually win elections by 3,000 to 4,000 votes," says AAGLA's Isham, "so they're really in trouble." Isham figures that 500 to 1,000 apartments will go unrepaired, a loss that significantly eats into rent-control advocates' slim margin of victory. Rich Seeley, a columnist for The Outlook, a Santa Monica newspaper, predicts the reverberations will continue at least through next fall's elections. In a February 1 column, he writes, "How eager will landlords be to help [Santa Monicans for Renters Rights] ensure that tenants get to stay in the city?...How far can SMRR go to make nice with landlords before it starts alienating renters?"

If the recent upheaval showcases the inability of rent control to respond to market forces and its effects on the replacement of housing stock, then something positive may be pulled from the rubble of the January 17 earthquake. No one predicts Santa Monica will abolish its draconian rent-control and land-use ordinances any time soon. But the quake has, however fleetingly, forced a city known for denying market forces into acknowledging their existence.

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