Letters to the Editor

Concerning Potential Rent Increase Reductions in 2025

Dear Los Angeles County Supervisors:

I am a businessman, CPA and real estate owner of multifamily property for over 35 years. I will make this very simple – DO NOT SUPPORT ANY TYPE OF RENT CAP PROPOSAL UNLESS YOUR GOAL IS TO IMPLODE THE HOUSING INDUSTRY. IT IS HOUSING SUICIDE. 

NO business can survive with price restrictions without corresponding restrictions on expenses. Housing providers do not have the ability to grow the number of units. If you own a 10 unit building today, it will be a 10 unit building forever. Economics does not allow businesses to succeed by restricting revenue growth. Who will want to ever invest in housing if there is no economic reason or benefit. Do you invest in products that don’t provide a promising return?  Why invest in housing in the county of LA. with such restrictions?  I certainly would not nor will anyone else. The unintended consequences of such action will be enormous and is not the answer to the cost of housing. This action will even affect county property tax revenues both short term and long term.

Please be good and thoughtful stewards of our county and DO NOT SUPPORT ANY RESTRICTIVE RENT CAP PROPOSALS. 

I would be happy to discuss further.        Sincerely, Craig D.

Good Landlords are Being Punished

Dear Pasadena, Rental Housing Board Members:

As longtime housing providers, we are dismayed at the rental situation in Pasadena.  Our perspective is from the housing provider standpoint.  We have always provided clean, safe, beautiful housing for our long-term residents.  We have many residents who have been with our properties for over 10 years.  We have many residents who have lived at multiple locations that we provide in Pasadena, as well as having them refer their family and friends.   We have always had excellent relationships with our residents; respond immediately to any service issues and we also invest money back into the properties so that our residents are proud of where they live.   We are saddened that some renters are not having similar experiences and that a few owners are really ruining the magic and availability of Pasadena housing for renters at affordable rates now that the rent control has set in upon our fair city.   As you heard recently at a city council meeting, many housing providers explained they were not in the habit of raising rents each year, yet now they do so, for fear that they will never be able to raise the rent again.   Many housing providers, including ourselves, have lowered rents when the economy has been bad or if the residents had difficulty with their finances or were in between jobs.  The current situation with rent control removes many facets of that compassionate working relationship between the housing provider and the resident renter.   

Specific items that definitely need to be addressed are:

1. Exemption of Single-Family Homes, Condos, Co-Ops and housing providers with buildings of four or fewer units.  Respect Costa Hawkins, which has been the law in California for over 20 years.
2. The structure of the Rent Board creates an imbalance in power and means that the Board doesn’t have the real estate knowledge and expertise that it needs to regulate a complex financial industry. The solution is to adjust the structure to specifically include housing providers. This will add to the depth of knowledge on the Board and reduce the risk of legal challenges to its decisions.
3. The existing measure, especially the relocation system, is an unfair burden on smaller housing providers who simply rented out their own house or back ADU for a while until they needed it back for themselves. We need the Rent Board to come up with a tiered relocation system or a mechanism to subsidize the relocation payment for all housing providers, especially those with only a few properties. This should not be a penalty for the housing provider and a financial boon for the renter, which is exactly the current situation.
4. The rental registry fee must be paid entirely by housing providers, unlike similar systems in cities like Oakland and Santa Monica, where half of the fee is paid by the renters, which is only fair. The issue is not the $10 per month that this will move from housing provider to resident, but the fact that, right now, there is no incentive for the Rent Board to keep the fee at a reasonable level, and no incentive to encourage cost efficient spending by the board.

Two additional serious concerns are 1) the inappropriate language in Section 18.17, which criminalizes only the housing providers for failing to comply with this complex and contradictory measure and 2) the “right of fair return” only allows our net income to rise at 50% of the rate of inflation.  Where is the equity and fairness in that while the housing provider shoulders all the extra costs and increased fees and the potential for criminal prosecution?

We must be the exception in having good relationships with the people that reside in the housing that we provide.  However, I doubt that is the case and sense that a few bad actors have really mucked up the rental housing system in Pasadena.  Please take that into consideration as you deliberate. 

With appreciation for your attention to these issues from the housing providers’ perspective.

    ANN-MARIE V.