Santa Monica may be following in the footsteps of other local jurisdictions in the creation of a database of all rental units in the city including both rent controlled and market-rate options.
During the meeting of the city’s Rent Control Board, Council Office and Legislative Affairs Liaison Josh Kurpies presented an outline for a Citywide Rent Registry, data that would allow the City to track allowable rent increases, monitor compliance with the City’s rent and just cause for eviction ordinance, and communicate rental unit data on a regular basis to owners and tenants alike.
While rent controlled tenants have long been tracked and monitored by the Rent Control Board, the new list would enable officials to communicate with, track and protect tenants outside the Rent Control sphere. Similar registries have been implemented in Los Angeles County as well as West Hollywood, and Kurpies stated it will act "as a vital safety net for renters" in Santa Monica who differ in their renting scenarios.
"As much as all of [rent] protections … are great things, they’re complicated and confusing and [it] created a multi-tiered system … some people [in Santa Monica] are protected by rent control, some people are not protected by rent control but [are] protected by just cause evictions, and then you’ve got another layer of people who are protected by the statewide cap on their rental increase but that also creates a group that is not … you basically have four tiers of different people in different situations depending on the length of their tenancy and the building that they live in," Kurpies said.
While details are still being worked out, the potential registry would identify all rental units in the city. Kurpies said there are approximately 26,689 rent controlled units in the city per recent information provided by the Rent Control Board. As no database exists for total non-controlled units, Kurpies said he is still working to identify that number but based on business license data he said the city has about 560 uncontrolled parcels of land containing one or more units. This data excludes units like hospitals, nursing facilities, government housing and owner-occupied units.
According to a 2021 analysis, Santa Monica had about 52,629 total housing units at that time. Of those, 22% were single family homes, 77.6% were multifamily and 0.4% were mobile homes. At that time, about 71.4% of total residents were renters.
Collected data for the registry from property owners include name, property management, on-site manager and 24-hour emergency contact, forms that Kurpies said owners are "used to filling out." Other information would be on a specific unit, such as the unit number/letter, services included in rent, the size of the unit, occupancy status and parking availability. Tenancy-related data would include move-in date, initial rent, current rent, date and amount of the most recent rent increase. Information about specific tenants, such as name and contact information, is still being discussed due to potential privacy issues.
Kurpies noted that this clarifying information being readily available would also measure emerging trends around displacement and gauge a true sense of vacancy inventory in the city.
"We often hear people say there’s so many vacancies in our city, we don’t need to build anymore, but we know that that’s not the full truth," Kurpies said. "This would allow us to have a better idea of what units are vacant and how long they’re vacant and what the reasons are."
Financing for the registry is focused on start-up costs, since Kurpies said the program will "pay for itself" once up and running because of fees associated with entering information for the project. Primary costs include contracting for software, community outreach with local stakeholders, as well as new staffing in a to be determined city department. Kurpies said the intention was not to just "hand it off" to someone already working for the city, and that new staff could potentially be placed in the city’s Housing Office or Business Licensing team for the task.
Rent Control Board Commissioner Anastasia Foster agreed that the fee structure associated with the project would have to create a new position in the city, or potentially a small department. Foster added that the potential registry is "a long time coming" for Santa Monica.
"Whether it’s finding motivation for our landlords who are holding their units empty, for whatever reason they’re doing so, whether it’s motivating them through one means or another to rent those units, which is what we ultimately want, or whether it’s for owner identification purposes … this database will go a long way … [having] another human being at the other end of the rent check, I think that’s a really important goal of this database."
Foster offered several suggestions to bolster the plan, such as being in favor of annual data collection and opposing the exclusion of owner-occupied units because they may not stay that way, and they should be in the system as knowledge of the properties’ existence.
"If we’re really gonna study rent levels, if we’re really gonna study occupancy levels, if we’re really gonna understand the demographics of our city, of our renters, of our employees, our disabled communities, our communities of color, our children in our public schools … all of this is vital data collection that the city has a right to collect, and the public has a right to understand," Foster said.
Both Foster and fellow Commissioner Lonnie Guinn both pointed to the importance of compiling a database sooner than later due to the Justice for Renters Act being on the California ballot in November. The potential repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act would allow for greater local control in rent matters, with Guinn saying the registry would be "invaluable" if the repeal were to take place.
Guinn also questioned a property owner’s incentive for reporting as part of the registry, saying he can see where that’s "problematic," and wants to find ways to encourage owners to report a vacancy. Kurpies noted in his presentation that fines were one form of enforcing compliance with the registry.
The discussion on the registry was a discussion item at the Feb. 8 meeting, and the project will return to City Council before an update is given to the board.
