LOCAL ELECTIONS : Santa Monica Shifts Focus From Rent Control : Politics: Development and crime committed by the homeless overshadow the issue that dominated city government in the 1980s.

Rent control, move over.

A multi-candidate, multi-issue campaign is taking shape in Santa Monica, two months before the Nov. 6 city elections.

Lines are being drawn, sides chosen and alliances formed in the nine-candidate race for three seats on the Santa Monica City Council, and in the related campaigns involving nine ballot measures.

But some of the lines apparently are being drawn with chalk, making it easier for candidates to erase them and switch sides, depending on the issue.

“Santa Monica is strange,” said Sharon L. Gilpin, one of the City Council candidates. “It’s going to be an interesting election.”

In a departure from past elections, rent control--the issue that dominated nearly all aspects of city politics during the 1980s--is getting less attention than other issues that some voters consider more urgent. Development--particularly of hotels along the beach--and crime--especially that committed by homeless people--have taken over as the primary topics of conversation in this intensely political city.

Each of these issues is represented on the ballot by one or more propositions. Given the competitive nature of the council campaign, candidates are likely to feel pressure to take a position on each ballot measure. And many voters are expected to make their choice of council candidates based on these positions. Voters who regard development, the homeless or rent control as the overriding issue, for example, can choose their council candidates accordingly.

The more complicated political landscape means that renters, who make up about 70% of the city’s population, cannot be counted on this year for a bloc vote in favor of candidates supported by Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the tenants group that championed rent control in the 1980s. Nor is anyone predicting which of two competing ballot measures proposing major changes in rent control laws will win, despite the fact that one measure is supported by landlords and the other by SMRR.

Many tenants are blaming SMRR for what they say is an erosion in the city’s stock of affordable housing. City rent control officials report that more than 1,000 units have been removed from the rental market by landlords who have invoked their rights under the state Ellis Act to evict tenants and quit the rental business, with the intention of eventually converting the property to other uses.

Landlords, who have been saying for years that they cannot make a fair return on their investments under the current rent control system, say more units will be removed from the market if their measure--Proposition U--does not pass. The landlords’ ballot measure would allow rents to rise to whatever the market will bear when units are vacated voluntarily.

The landlords’ threat has many tenants considering supporting Proposition U, because, while paving the way for sharply higher rents for newcomers, it would maintain low rents for current tenants.

It is not coincidence that SMRR, recognizing that it is at risk of losing its majority on the City Council this fall, has endorsed two candidates who are better known for issues other than rent control.

The candidates, Kelly Olsen and Tony Vasquez, predictably agree on housing-related issues but disagree on how to deal with development on the beach. Olsen, an avowed “slow-growther,” supports Proposition S, which would ban construction of new hotels or large restaurants on or near the beach.

Vasquez, best known in the city for his longtime advocacy of district council elections instead of the existing at-large system, has not yet taken a position on Proposition S. He says he supports the milder growth restrictions contained in Proposition T.

Vasquez and Olsen also have differing views on another hot-button development issue: whether construction should be allowed to proceed on a luxury hotel and community center planned on a piece of leased public beach by local restaurateur Michael McCarty.

Olsen vigorously opposes the project, while Vasquez says he has not yet made up his mind. Voters are being asked in Proposition Z on the November ballot whether the council’s approval of the project should be repealed.

Christine Reed, the only incumbent in the race, has become something of a lightning rod for criticism of past council decisions. A four-term council member who has tended to show more sympathy than many of her colleagues toward business and development interests, Reed has been targeted for defeat by some slow-growth groups and candidates.

Reed, for example, was an enthusiastic supporter of a proposed office and commercial development at Santa Monica Municipal Airport that the City Council was forced to abandon early this year in the face of widespread community opposition. And she remains a supporter of the McCarty hotel project.

But whatever votes Reed may lose over development, she may pick up over another emotional issue: the growing homeless population and crimes they commit.

Reed and other candidates blame City Atty. Robert M. Myers for the growing problems because he is reluctant to prosecute homeless people for nonviolent crimes.

Reed has formed a loose alliance with candidates Robert T. Holbrook, a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board of education, and retired businesswoman Donna Alvarez.

All three support Proposition Y, the ballot measure that would make the city attorney an elective rather than an appointive office.

As an incumbent, Reed might enjoy a fund-raising advantage over her competitors. But the advantage may be limited by a new city law that lowers the maximum allowable campaign contribution to $500, from $1,492. The smaller amounts means candidates will have to reach three times as many contributors just to match amounts collected in the last elections.

The early indications are that no candidate is planning to greatly outspend the field. Most of those interviewed said they planned to spend between $25,000 and $60,000 in the campaign, most of that going to mailers and other literature.

Two other candidates have an informal union. Slow-growth advocates Kathleen Schwallie and Gilpin oppose the McCarty project and also support the beach development ban outlined in Proposition S.

But there may be some disagreement on housing issues. Schwallie, a homeowner, opposes both rent control measures. Gilpin, a renter, said she opposes Proposition U, the landlords’ measure, but is considering endorsing the competing measure, Proposition W.

The two other candidates, educator Larry Jon Hobbs and Jean Gebman, a RAND Corp. policy analyst, said they are running independent campaigns. Both, however, oppose the McCarty project and support Proposition S, the beachfront development ban. They both favor Proposition U, the landlord-sponsored rent initiative.

Gebman opposes Proposition Y, which would make the city attorney’s office elective, while Hobbs supports it.

In addition to the City Council race, there will be elections to the Rent Control Board, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education and the Santa Monica Community College District. There also will be a runoff election for municipal judge and a $75-million school district bond issue up for approval.