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Rent
Board Stories #112, June 2004
On March 31, longtime ACTION memeber and “housing provider” Chet Hoover passed away. Most people in Santa Monica who heard of him probably remember seeing him on local cable TV during his years of opposition to the Rent Control Board meetings during the Sandinista era when the Board was setting foreign policy. But that was only part of his contribution against Rent Control. I knew Chet Hoover for 20 years and if I had to describe him in one sentence, I would say, “He was the best ‘landlord’ I ever knew.” He would probably object to the word “landlord” and describe himself as a “housing provider” and/or one of the Rent Board’s greatest enemies. He would be right about that, even though it may seem strange that the best landlord would have so many problems with the Rent Board. But that is the way things are under Santa Monica rent control. Chet Hoover did business as the “301 Ocean Avenue Corporation,” which is the address of the two buildings that the Hoover family built and first operated in 1957. If you know where best locations to live in Santa Monica are, you know that the best addresses are on Ocean Avenue OR San Vicente Blvd. Hoover’s property is located where Ocean Avenue becomes San Vicente Blvd. There is no better location to live in Santa Monica, and his rent levels were some of the best bargains in the City. For example, on April 10, 1978, (the “base rent date” when rents were controlled in Santa Monica) the average rent for the entire City was $300 per month for units where the tenants paid their own gas and electric bills. On that same date, the average rent levels at 301 Ocean Avenue were $235 and all utilities were paid by the property owner. These are known as “master meter” buildings. Chet Hoover filed four rent increase petitions to correct his low rent levels. The first rent increase petition was I-0052 which he filed in 1979, shortly after the Rent Control Law was adopted. In that case, the Rent Board’s hearing examiner disallowed all repair and maintenance expenses and then granted a rent increase of two dollars ($2.00) per unit per month. Next, in 1982, Chet Hoover filed rent increase petition I-0624 seeking a pass-through for the cost of bringing the building elevator up to earthquake safety codes. When the Rent Board refused to grant a rent increase, the TENANTS of 301 Ocean Avenue sued the Rent Control Board to give themselves a rent increase of $11.00 ($11) per unit per month, which was only applied to units not located on the first floor of the buildings. Then in 1983, Chet Hoover filed Rent increase petition I-0704. This time his petition was assigned to hearing examiner, Elizabeth Spector, a Soviet communist from Odessa, Ukraine. (This is not a joke. She was also married to Frank Spector, a fellow attorney with the International Labor Defense committee best known for the Scottsboro case in the 1930s. You could look it up on the Internet). That rent increase petition also resulted in a rent increase of two dollars ($2.00) per unit per month. By the summer 1983, Chet Hoover was clearly upset with the way the Rent Control Board was treating him, so he and a number of other apartment owners challenged the Rent Board’s registration fees and penalties. That case became 301 Ocean Avenue Corporation v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board (1985) 175 Cal. App. 3d 149. As a result of that decision, the Rent Control Law was amended in 1984 and some of the penalties for late payment of the fees were permanently eliminated. Chet Hoover’s next litigation against the Rent Board determined who controlled his garage/parking spaces. In 1984 the Board created presumptions that all parking spaces were included in the apartment rent unless the property owner charged them separately from the apartment rent. Chet Hoover controlled the assignment of his spaces without charging for them separately and when the Rent Board attempted to assign the spaces to specific units, he successfully challenged the Board in 301 Ocean Avenue Corp. v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board (1991) 228 Cal.App.3d 1548, 279 Cal. Rptr 636. That case established that the courts could exercise their independent judgment and did not have to defer to the Rent Board’s interpretation of the law on the issue of jurisdiction and control over parking or garage spaces. Chet Hoover’s final petition was I-0993 which he filed in 1987. That rent increase petition was moderately successful even though a hearing examiner known as Doris Gangster reduced Chet’s labor rate to $7.00 per hour, disallowed his itemized management expenses, and redetermined the expenses that were already decided in the earlier two cases. Although many of the hearing examiner’s determinations were reversed on appeal, she was later promoted to the position of the Board’s Senior Attorney and General Counsel and she retains that position to this day. By the 1990s, Chet Hoover longed for the good old days when rent increase petitions were more fairly decided by a communist hearing examiner from the Soviet Union instead of the new Sandinista Rent Control Board, which was much worse. His fourth rent increase petition was his final attempt at that exercise in futility. Chet then attended Rent Board meetings wearing a communist party hat with a red star on it and interrupted the Rent Board when it wandered into foreign policy issues. I told that story in Rent Board Stories Part 26, “Unsung Heroes of the Santa Monica Militia.” In summary, during the 20 years that Chet Hoover managed his property, he filed four rent increase petitions, but only one tenant objected to one of those petitions. Some of his tenants pursued a court case to give themselves a rent increase after he brought the building elevator up to earthquake safety codes. When he filed a base rent petition to establish his control over the garage/parking spaces, most of the tenants supported him. He never had to attend a rent decrease hearing or excess rent hearing although the rent Board issued thousands of those decisions during the time Chet managed his property. Despite this great management, the Rent Board only valued his time at a rate of $7.00 per hour at the same time it supported a “living wage” for busboys and dishwashers at $11.50 per hour plus health insurance. That is an example of how fair rent control is in Santa Monica. Chet Hoover sold his property in the late 1990’s and moved away from Santa Monica. He passed away on March 31, 2004 and I attended his funeral service on April 7th. The man who gave the eulogy mentioned how much Chet supported and liked our President and placed a Re-Elect George Bush bumper sticker on his casket. He also mentioned that Chet would probably vote by absentee ballot at the next election. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried. As I filed by the casket, I gave a final salute to the best landlord I ever knew. If all landlords were like him, there would be no rent control in Santa Monica and/or it never would have survived. And if you don’t believe it, read Rent Board Story Part 26, or I.0062, I-0604, I-0993, 301 Ocean Avenue Corporation v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board (1985) 175 Cal.App.3d 149, and/or 301 Ocean Avenue Corp. v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board (1991) 228 Cal.App.3d 1548. |