Second of two parts
Re “Councilman Takes a Closer Look at Rent Control in Santa Monica”
[img]2123|right|Robert Holbrook||no_popup[/img]Dateline Santa Monica – He is in the unique position of being a City Councilman for a quarter of a century and a landlord in a community renowned for its progressive politics, especially rent control, which bred a peculiarity or two.
“I knew people,” says Bob Holbrook, “who would only rent to bachelors. When Santa Monica was under strict rent control, the wealthiest bachelor who applied for an apartment would get it.
“They reasoned that bachelors spend most of their time over at their girlfriends’. That means they’re not home messing it up.
“This could be a three-bedroom apartment. The tenant could be some guy just out of college with a good job. The landlords’ thinking is that there will be less wear-and-tear on the apartment, less cleaning up to do. They say to themselves that ‘when this man moves, I have to re-rent it at the same price, and I can’t afford the expenses.’
“What happened was, the school population took a tremendous dive” because of the turn rent control took, Mr. Holbrook said.
“I knew some landlords who would only rent to people who weren’t U.S. citizens so they couldn’t vote in Santa Monica elections. That is how bad it got. Guys would stand up in front of groups and say, ‘Look for someone who is not a U.S. citizen or for a bachelor. If you rent to a woman, the guy will be coming over to her place, right? Rent to a convicted felon. They can’t vote.’ That is how strident it became.
“We were losing kids every year in the (Santa Monica-Malibu) School District because landlords no longer were renting two- and three-bedroom apartments to families. Over a period of about eight years, the student population went from 14,000 down to 9,000. This was in the 1980s and ’90s. It just became horrible.”
Mr. Holbrook said that today, after 45 years, rent control is as integral to Santa Monica as its golden beaches or blue skies.
“Nobody thinks about it,” he said, “except SMRR (Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights) and the Rent Control Board. They still want to have as many apartments built as they can to try to get as many Ultra Affordable, Low Affordable and Affordable apartments. They are hoping all of those people will support rent control as they always have in elections.”
The six-term City Councilman said the future looks different from the past.
“The future in Santa Monica is that the renters are becoming much younger, and they are used to paying a couple of thousand dollars a month for a unit. When they are told we are going to preserve rent control, they just look at you and ask, ‘what rent control? I just paid $2,000 for this apartment.’”
The times they are a-changing, Mr. Holbrook said, and Santa Monica’s clutching grip on rent control has loosened.
Does the Councilman view this with regret or with a sense of neutrality?
“I am a neutral observer,” he said, “because I think change in economics is part of the future.”
Sentiment, however, has not wafted away.
“There are cadres of people looking at city issues – whether rent control, density, billing, height – who want to live in the past. They want to stay in the past. They want to be in the past.”
Mr. Holbrook profoundly disagrees.
“My vision,” he said, “is, how can we have the best future assured for the city?”
He is comfortable about how the scenarios will unfold. His mind is stacked with anecdotal evidence that “young people want to live in Santa Monica,” and that notion gives birth to a lasting smile.
