Ever since Santa Monica made “rent control” a sexy symbol 40 years ago, the magical phrase has been an enduring magnet for aggrieved tenants, locally and nationally.
Perhaps explicably, the notion of rent control has been stopped at the Culver City border as if a gigantic wall were blocking it.
Further, the wilted future of rent control in Culver City was buried even deeper underground last evening.
Never mind one dangling, nagging, unrequited detail: Rent control remains the most flammable community topic to come before the one-voice City Council in eons. Fifty-five emotionally charged persons stated their convictions, the majority opposing controlling rents.
Eventually, without mentioning rent control by name, the Council came to a unanimous conclusion:
The Ultimate Answer?
They agreed to conduct a community discussion regarding creation of affordable housing – the clearly less attractive twin, often paired as a single topic with rent control — and to again debate the role of the mystical, traditionally invisible Landlord Tenant Mediation Board, characterized by critics as toothless.
With Vice Mayor Mehaul O’Leary recusing himself since his home is up for sale and he presently is renting, the four participating members of the City Council vociferously lined up their shoulders against rent control.
[img]1307|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]It was Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells’s idea to spotlight these two subjects, but she said, with regret, that there had been “a disconnect” between what the agenda item said and the heavy emphasis that had materialized on rent control.
She said she had not wanted the theme to be rent control. She just wanted to make sure people aren't taken advantage of.
“The status quo is not working for everyone,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said. Renters need protection. She said that the pre-meeting noticing by City Hall had been “inadequate,” a failure “to send notices to renters.” That, said the mayor, is why more landlords than renters declared themselves.
“There have to be solutions we can get to through discussion,” the mayor said, tools to help renters, ways to change status quo.”
After suggesting a policy of phased-in rent increases, she said she was ready “to move forward with the discussion?
Time to Disagree
[img]1305|left|Andy Weissman||no_popup[/img]Councilman Andy Weissman held up a “whoa” sign.
“These suggestions are rent control without calling it rent control,” he charged. “I am not interested in pursuing any of those.”
He aimed his arrow of responsibility at the Landlord Tenant Mediation Board. “They can study what has been done and make recommendations.”
It may have to take a stronger hand in mediating landlord-tenant disputes, he said.
Mr. Weissman, speaking for everyone, as it turned out, said he supported a dialogue on ways to promote creation of more affordable housing.
“Rent control is bad public policy,” he firmly declared. “An unintended but fully understood consequence is that rent control reduces quality and quantity of rental housing.”
He believes that more affordable housing is the most direct path to “healthy diversity in the community.”
Jeff Cooper swung against both concepts in the evening’s center ring. Besides opposing rent control, he spoke against increased density and height exceptions as ways to incentivize creation of affordable housing.
While favoring making the Landlord Tenant Mediation Board more muscular, Jim Clarke Clarke encouraged a community discussion about housing, rental assistance programs, density bonus and height exceptions.
