TENANT LEADERS FEAR RISING RENTS SPUR HARASSMENT

By Jorge Casuso

Saturday, April 17 -- Concerned steeply rising rents are inciting some landlords to harass tenants out of their rent controlled units, the Santa Monica City Council is expected to tighten existing tenant harassment laws.

That was the message sent by leaders of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, who gathered outside City Hall with a half dozen tenants who say they were pressured to leave their units. The city is currently considering whether to file harassment charges against the owner of their building in Ocean Park.

It would be the fifth case filed by the city since the state passed a law in 1996 that allowed landlords to raise the rents on vacant rent controlled units. The Costa-Hawkins bill, which initially allowed two increases of 15 percent per unit, went into full effect Jan. 1, when landlords gained the right to charge what the market would bear for the first time since Santa Monica voters passed rent control 20 years ago.

On Thursday, the rent control board released figures that show the following increases for the 915 units that have been processed under the state law:

· For the 114 studio units that turned over, the median rent per unit rose from $553 under rent control to $775, or 40 percent.
· For the 510 one-bedroom units, the median rose from $630 to $1,000, or 59 percent.
· For the 254 two-bedroom units, the median rose from $772 to $1,397, or 81 percent.
· For the 32 three-or-more-bedroom units, the median rose from $991 to $1,890, or 91 percent.

"This is what we predicted all along,' said rent board member Alan Toy, "only it's happening with more tenacity than we expected. Landlords have the right to raise rents, but they don't have the right to harass tenants out."

Landlord leaders counter that tenant advocates are blowing the harassment charges out of proportion for political gain on the eve of a major election for an open council seat. They say that five suits in more than two years is an insignificant number, and note that two of the cases were settled out of court and two were filed against one landlord.

"It's all politics to get the tenants to vote," said Herb Balter, president of Action Apartment Association, the city's grassroots landlord group. "They're fighting for their very lives. For power."

But council members say the Ocean Park building, where tenants charge they were threatened with eviction, then paid off to vacate their units, highlights the need to set stricter harassment laws.

On April 27, SMMR council members are expected to introduce changes in the city's 1996 harassment ordinance that would protect a tenant's "quiet enjoyment" of a unit. They also want to explore ways to make the standard of evidence of harassment less burdensome on tenants.

Landlords have complained that the current law already places too much of the burden of proof on Landlords .