Petition seeks to get anti-rent control measure on ballot

Kenneth Ma

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- Rent control may never be possible in the city if

a local businessman succeeds in getting an anti-rent control measure on

the ballot and approved by voters.

Coatings Resource Corp. owner Ed Laird said he has collected more than

12,000 signatures on a petition that calls for an amendment of the city’s

charter to forbid any type of rent control. There is no rent control in

the city now.

Laird, who may run for a City Council seat, must gather signatures

from at least 15% of the city’s registered voters -- 16,419, according to county records -- by December to put the measure on a future ballot.

“Rent control does not provide more or better affordable housing for

anyone -- especially the elderly and young families,” Laird wrote in a

notice to circulate a petition that was submitted to the city clerk’s

office. “Rent control destroys affordable housing and accelerates

development pressures to turn older properties into new and higher

density commercial and so-called ‘upscale’ housing.”

Laird said rent control interferes with people’s ability to control

their property and leads to deteriorating neighborhoods.

“We don’t want the government to interfere in our lives,” Laird said.

In April, the City Council agreed to hire a consultant to study the

need for rent control. But a consultant has not been selected yet.

Councilman Peter Green said he expects a selection to be made in two

weeks and the study to be completed in three months. The council will

make a decision on the need for rent control after reviewing the study,

he said.

Steve Gullage, who has testified before the council numerous times

about the need for rent control, said many people are against the

proposed ballot measure.

If the ballot measure passes, “there will be no stopping rent

increases. People will have no choice but leave the city,” said Gullage,

president of the Huntington Beach Mobile Homeowners Assn., which

represents 800 members.

Although the average rent for mobile homeowners in Surf City is $600,

Gullage said that many residents are barely making ends meet because they

are either retired or elderly and living on a fixed income. He said there

are about 18 mobile home parks in the city with nearly 5,000 residents.

Gullage said he wants a form of rent control in which rent would

increase annually according to the Consumer Price Index. For example, if

the index increased 2% next year, the base rent would also increase by

that percentage.

Pat Shuey, a resident of Los Amigos Mobile Home Park, said she is

afraid of losing her home if rent goes up.

“By the time I retire, a great deal of my money will go to rent,” she

said.

Another resident of Los Amigos, Mary M. Gardner, said she fears that

without rent control, the cost of her place will skyrocket.

“It is not like having an apartment, where you can just pick up and

move,” Gardner said.

Laird contends that rents for mobile homes are not outrageous and that

there is a rental assistance program for mobile home owners that anybody

who needs a subsidy can qualify for. Laird said his mother lives in a

mobile home park.

Mobile park owners “are not in business to take people’s homes away,”

said Steve Kato, a co-owner of Kato and Associates, which owns Los Amigos

Mobile Home Park. “I don’t think we need rent control.”

Kato said rent control is not needed because rent for mobile home lots

in Huntington Beach is reasonable compared to other cities in Orange

County.

Residents of Los Amigos, which has 145 homes, pay between $470 and

$500 a month for rent, he said. Also, the company offers a 10% rent

discount to residents who have financial difficulties.

Green said he also opposes rent control because it is a form of

government interference.

“I don’t see how a government can step in and agree upon a price for

two people,” he said. “We [cannot] set rent control for apartments,

automobiles and mobile homes. Those are private transactions, and I don’t

think the government should interfere in them.”