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OPEN MARKET RENTS DECLINE Open market rents in Santa Monica have declined in recent months. While comparative data is limited and somewhat anecdotal, declines have been as much as $200 for apartments renting under $2,000 per month. The dot.com meltdown as well as general economic slowing have contributed to the softening rental market.
At its April 10 meeting the Santa Monica City Council had a first reading of amendments to the Tenant Harassment Ordinance. A provision was added to prohibit landlords from interfering with a tenant’s right to privacy and the penalty per offence was doubled to $1,000. Additionally, the remedies provision of the law was amended so that punitive damages may be awarded in a case brought by the City. It also added a prohibition against influencing a tenant to vacate through fraud, intimidation or coercion. The Consumer Unit of the City Attorney’s office will now offer to train private attorneys to bring complaints on behalf of tenants. Additionally, they will assist tenants in filing complaints with Building and Safety, instead of the past practice of merely referring tenants to that department.
Landlord harassment is not illegal in Santa Monica; in fact it is a political imperative. So, dealing with tenant harassment only wet the Council appetite. On a roll, at the same April 10 meeting, they then directed staff to prepare an emergency ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on the permitting or construction of corporate housing or conversion to corporate housing, to be in effect while staff reviews options for regulating this use. Cutting through the rhetoric, the council is concerned that the demand for furnished apartments in this popular resort town, if adequately supplied, could materially deplete the base of permanent residents, thereby threatening SMRR’s power base of tenant clients.
Not to be out done by the City Council, the Rent Board got into the landlord harassment act by proposing amendments to its regulations to make it more difficult for an owner to choose which apartment he or she wished to vacate for purposes of owner occupancy. The Board proposes to take away an owner’s right to choose between apartments based on amenities or housing services except in the case of a documented medical need. What this means is that if the apartment you want has, for example, an ocean view but another apartment which more recently rented, and presumably has a higher MAR than the unit you want and contains the same number of bedrooms and has within fifteen percent of the same square footage, you would have to take the non-view unit with the higher rent. This provision would apply even if there is a lease in effect for the more recently rented unit.
A San Diego
apartment building suffered $50,000 in damages from an explosion
that occurred when eighteen bug bombs were set off by an appliance
pilot light. The apartment was virtually destroyed but the cockroaches,
that were the target of the bug bombs, were still alive and well
following the explosion.
Facts
from the California Association of Realtors: DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIC CENTER BEING DISCUSSED The City
Council has appointed a working group to begin discussing plans
for developing the Civic Center area bounded by Fourth Street,
Ocean Avenue, Colorado and Pico Boulevards. Perhaps there could
be a wax museum of personalities from the history of Rent Control.
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Calif. median
home price-February 01: $245,580
