The current housing policy of Santa Monica can be
summed up by the following: Keep them in fear. Keep them trapped. Keep them
renting. Keep them poor. Keep them voting for more rent control…
There is a way to fix this mess:
There is a way to fix this mess:
Back in 1984, threatened by a ballot measure, city
hall reluctantly enacted TORCA (Tenant Ownership Right Charter Amendment).
TORCA allowed tenants to negotiate with their landlords to buy the apartments
they were renting. If a sufficient number of tenants in a building wanted to
buy their apartment at the offered prices then the building would convert to
condos. Those that bought their apartments were on their way to financial
independence, building equity, and real housing security. Those that didn’t
buy, but continued to rent in a building that converted to condos, were allowed
to continue renting as long as they liked, still under rent control. From that
point on the building was protected against redevelopment, and the renters were
protected forever from no fault eviction.
TORCA was one of the greatest things to ever happen
in Santa Monica. Many who bought their apartments have made serious
capital gains – money the landlords would have made if they had still owned the
building. The transference of ownership from landlord to renter is a truly
wonderful thing. Home ownership is the key to wealth and security. City
hall doesn’t want you to own your apartment. They quietly killed TORCA when too
many apartments were converting – which threatened their voting base. The only
way to make TORCA better would have been to enact it statewide, not just in
Santa Monica. Then all renters everywhere could have potentially become
homeowners.
TORCA really did allow thousands of former tenants
to own their own homes in Santa Monica. (A seemingly impossible dream, but in
reality surprisingly easy to achieve.) If the city doesn’t bring back TORCA
then a ballot measure would be sure to pass. And it wouldn’t take much legal
work, since it has been done before.
TORCA could also be given a boost with a companion
ballot measure forcing the city to provide all possible financial and other
assistance to tenants who wish to buy.
Without TORCA, over time, more and more of the city
will become low-income housing for the poor or new-build condos for the rich.
TORCA converted apartments will never be desired by the rich, but are cherished
by the working and middle classes who will otherwise have to buy in other
cities or be doomed to rent forever. Also, when a building converts via TORCA
it will be permanently saved from demolition, helping to preserve the city’s
historic architecture.
The authors of TORCA should have monuments built in
their honor outside city hall by all those renters who bought their apartments
– their debt to those authors is incalculable.
There is no rational argument against TORCA, the
only opposition being political – it will weaken the voting base of the pro
rent control politicians in city hall. And it will reduce the rent control fees
flowing to the rent control board, threatening their underemployed staff’s
wages and jobs (of course their massive pensions will go on forever.) The
argument that it will lessen the rental base of the city is nonsense – new
apartments are, at last, being built in numbers in the city. And it has already
been shown, over and over again, that vacancy control is a disaster.
Vacancy control is a dangerous mirage
that just distracts from the need to bring back TORCA conversions. AB1506 would have changed nothing, apart from wreck the city, cause more demolitions, hardship and
loss of housing supply. And it kept the wealth generation in the hands of the
landlords, forever keeping the tenants trapped and at the command of city halls
rent control fanatics.
Alongside TORCA a dramatic increase in the
new construction of market rate apartments would keep a lid on rental
costs for new residents. This can be achieved by:
•
Re-zoning commercial districts to multi-family
housing.
•
Increasing density throughout the city by allowing small-lot
developments and other modern housing formats.
•
Easing parking requirements for new construction.
•
Dramatically lowering permit fees.
Currently it is not uncommon for single family
homes to be built on multi-family lots to avoid the huge fees and difficulties
of building multi-family units. These changes will make it easier to house more
families on those lots. AB1506 would have done nothing except makes things worse, much
worse.