Vacancy Decontrol

The Los Angeles rent-stabilization ordinance is not doing its job and needs to be strengthened. A recent study conducted as part of a review of the ordinance found rents have not been stabilized. Although tenants are doubling up and overcrowding in extraordinary numbers, the percentage of tenants' income paid for rents has been increasing. Two provisions of the ordinance are responsible.

Heskin hit the nail on the head when he writes that "the Los Angeles rent-stabilization ordinance is not doing its job and needs to be strengthened." Two recent housing studies, one prepared for the City Council and the other by the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Affordable Housing, give a clearer picture as to what tenants are now facing. Rents have gone up 110% in the last eight years; over 300,000 L.A. households are now spending more than 50% of their income on housing; over one-fifth of households in this city are living in overcrowded conditions; 4,000 units with average monthly rents of $350 are being demolished annually; and, one-half of all the city's rent-controlled units have been increased to inflated market levels over the last three years due to vacancy decontrol.

Donna Alvarez' excellent letter (Times, Aug. 27) only begins to address the monumental injustices meted out by the power-mad rent control pols in Santa Monica over the past 10 years. No single letter could possibly cover this bloated bureaucracy's history of hypocrisy, disinformation and venom, or their execrable, vote-getting methods which are basically twofold: (1) appeal to voters' greed (rents in one of the world's prime locations should be a fraction of what they are anyplace else, it's a renter's right!

Last week another innocent tenant fell through the cracks of Los Angeles' rent- control law. But for emergency legal aid, Jessie Davis, a 73-year-old single woman disabled by arthritis, would have lost her apartment. As it was, Davis suffered the terror and indignity of having all her belongings hauled away against her will--without notice, let alone the opportunity to be heard in court.

Backers of an initiative petition that would allow landlords to raise rents to market levels after tenants voluntarily vacate a unit submitted more than 11,700 signatures to the Santa Monica City Clerk. At least 7,842 signatures must be validated for the initiative to be placed on the November municipal ballot. The county registrar-recorder has 30 days to verify signatures.

Hundreds of tenants packed the Los Angeles City Council chambers Wednesday as council members passed proposals to tighten the rules on some types of rent increases but did not deal with more substantive changes proposed for the decade-old rent stabilization law. "They're afraid to say where they stand," said a frustrated tenant, Bea Lifshin of Woodland Hills after the three-hour hearing and council debate. Landlords, far outnumbered by renters, expressed displeasure with proposals to further restrict evictions and to limit improvement costs that can be recouped from tenants.

I am appalled at the demagoguery inherent in the article on rent law loopholes in which the authors attack vacancy decontrol. The citation of the Jessie Davis eviction case is a red herring that serves only to emotionalize the decontrol issue. So too with the citation of the plight of the homeless in California. To lay either of these problems at the doorstep of vacancy decontrol is to trivialize any serious discussion of the real problems that the rent control laws seek to address.

Santa Monica landlords say the recent decision by the owner of a large beachfront apartment building to evict more than 200 tenants provides the clearest evidence yet that the city's stringent rent-control system is failing to serve low-income tenants and needs to be drastically changed.

The West Hollywood City Council has voted to strengthen the rights of tenants to prevent them from being forced out by rising rents in the wake of statewide anti-rent control legislation. The council last week amended the municipal code in anticipation of rents climbing after a statewide vacancy decontrol measure went into effect Jan. 1. "Tenants are a massive chunk of the West Hollywood demographics--close to 85% of our population," said Mayor Paul Koretz.

Landlords took the first step this week in their effort to rip the heart out of Santa Monica's rent control ordinance by filing notice with the city clerk that they will circulate an initiative to allow rents to rise to market levels when an apartment is voluntarily vacated. The city attorney will review the proposed Voluntary Vacancy Decontrol and Recontrol Charter Amendment of 1990 within the next 15 days.