First in a series
Within the past month, a 40-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman – two unacquainted Culver City residents, living modestly in separate mid-town apartments – suddenly have died, mere weeks after being informed their rent nearly would be doubled. He died of a heart attack. Pending an autopsy report due in 60 to 90 days, her cause of death is unknown.
The City Council received the startling news placidly at last Monday’s meeting.
Are runaway rent increases life threatening for ordinary persons with low-profile lives?
Can a link be established between the unexpected deaths of two persons with considerable life expectancy and the pay-or-else 100 percent-range rent hikes they just had been slapped with?
Rent control appears to prosper in surrounding communities often portrayed as models for Culver City – West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Los Angeles.
But it has been a bogeyman in Culver City, resisted with the strength of a brick wall and the will of Superman.
[img]2121|right|Kevin McKeown||no_popup[/img]In Santa Monica, Kevin McKeown, a 15-year veteran of the City Council, has been a stentorian force for rent control throughout his four terms. Rent control became a wildly popular staple of Santa Monica life in 1978 – early in the heyday of mass transportation advocate Denny Zane, a City Councilman in the 1970s. Rent control blew into Santa Monica on the powerful wings of the controversial passage of Prop. 13.
Outside of the above-named cities, Mr. McKeown told the newspaper this afternoon he only could think of three other California cities with rent control – Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco.
The Class Is Small
The reason:
The six identified communities are dense with renters, a hefty 70 percent in Santa Monica.
State legislators are as little interested in the concept as City Hall has been for the opposite reason, renters are relatively few and their influence is transitory.
Mr. McKeon said that the gift of rent control serves two shining purposes in his town:
• “It protects people against sudden rent increases and
• “It prevents evictions without just cause.”
Rent Control and Stability
He said that “rent control should be no threat to homeowners in Culver City” who have stood stoutly alongside City Hall in deflecting such a regulation.
“Rent control has given us stability,” Mr. McKeown said.
In Culver City this afternoon, the tone of receptivity was mixed.
“Until now, I have been against rent control,” said Mayor Jeff Cooper.
“I have some serious concerns about how rent control would impact building owners, and the potential negatives for renters as well.
“However, I am open to hearing all sides of the issue. This is an incredibly complex topic, one that I would spend a great deal of time deliberating on.
“I am interested in hearing what the public and what my fellow Council members have to say regarding rent control.
“In addition,” Mr. Cooper said, “I want to explore both the positive and negative implications of rent control by speaking to my counterparts in other cities where rent control, in various forms, has been implemented.”
Councilman Andy Weissman was far more succinct. To the question of whether he would be supportive of the concept, he said “no.”
Would he favor placing a cap on the percentage landlords could increase rent?
“No.”
Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells, the most progressive member on the dais, is a vigorous proponent, and her story will be told in Monday’s Labor Day edition.
(To be continued)
