Change in Rent Law Considered : Santa Monica: The proposal calls for landlords who plan to go out of the rental business to carry through with evictions within 60 days.

As part of the continuing tug-of-war between landlords and rent control hard-liners in Santa Monica, city rent control officials are contemplating a tightening of regulations governing the circumstances under which landlords can evict tenants and go out of business.

A proposal scheduled for a public hearing tonight before the Rent Control Board would require landlords who file notice of their intent to evict tenants and remove their properties from the rental market to carry through with the evictions within 60 days.

Members of the rent board, which is dominated by tenant partisans, say the change is needed because they say some landlords have been filing notices of intent to evict tenants to induce tenants to vacate apartments voluntarily.

Because of the tight rental market in Santa Monica, the argument goes, many tenants who are notified of a landlord’s intent to evict do not wait for a formal eviction notice before finding another apartment. These tenants are inclined to grab another rent-controlled apartment whenever they can find one.

When this happens, rent board officials say, some landlords then rent the apartments to more desirable tenants--particularly people with higher incomes who might also be willing to pay under-the-table “finders fees” for a rent-controlled apartment.

The eviction process under rent control is governed by a state law called the Ellis Act, which sets forth the conditions under which landlords can evict tenants and remove their property from the rental market and use it for some another purpose. For Santa Monica landlords, chronically unhappy with the low rents allowed by the rent board, the Ellis law has become their primary weapon for striking back and attempting to force change.

The rent board’s new proposal is an attempt to fine-tune local regulations implementing the Ellis Act. In addition to preventing landlords from seeking to create voluntary vacancies, the proposed change is designed to remove the uncertainty of whether or not the evictions will take place, officials said.

Since the Ellis Act took effect in 1986, owners of about 200 apartment buildings in Santa Monica have filed notices with the city of their intent to evict tenants and go out of business, according to rent board officials. However, only about three-quarters of those landlords have gone forward with the evictions.

Rent Control Board officials say owners of 141 properties with about 700 units have evicted tenants. Twenty owners subsequently withdrew their applications, and 34 applications affecting 335 units are in limbo.

It is the applications in limbo--where the threat of eviction exists but the landlord has not taken any further action and continues business as usual--that the proposed changes would affect. “Ellis has been used to intimidate tenants, and the most valuable change is that it would basically stop landlords from making such threats,” said rent board commissioner Wayne Bauer, who favors the change.

“I don’t think it is going to stop (evictions), but it will force landlords to be serious about it,” rent board Chairwoman Susan Packer Davis said. “At least it lets tenants know that it’s for real.”

But Carl Lambert, an attorney and landlord, calls the proposed requirement a meaningless change that detracts from the real issue behind the growing number of Ellis filings: that the existing system has made the business not worthwhile for landlords.

In any event, the regulatory changes being considered by the rent board may prove insignificant compared to changes in the rent control system that could result from the Nov. 6 election. Two ballot measures dealing with rent control--one sponsored by landlords and a competing measure proposed by rent-control advocates--would allow for substantial increases in rents on voluntarily vacated apartments.

Lambert and other landlords contend that unless the landlord-backed measure passes, permitting virtual decontrol of rents when apartments are voluntarily vacated, there will be a surge of Ellis Act evictions and a sharp decline in the number of apartments in the city.

The rent board’s public hearing tonight is at 7:30 in the City Hall Council Chamber.