We oppose Measure C for a number of reasons. We support needs-based government rent subsidies like Section 8 and believe that the program should be better funded and more efficiently managed.
Rent control forces private individuals to subsidize other individuals regardless of need for an indefinite period of time. Rather than provide services for its residents, the city will penalize property owners because the city is financially unable or unwilling to pay for housing assistance services. The City of Santa Rosa spent almost $10 million on the Courthouse Square project and regularly has hired city staff at high wages with pension entitlements
Property owners are referred to as greedy if they make a profit on their business but the fact that there are major costs and risks associated with property ownership is ignored.
Rent control law exempts buildings constructed after 1995. Most small local rental property owners have older housing stock and will be disproportionately penalized by this law. The city cut-off at owner-occupied triplexes creates a new class of property and a new issue for valuation and sale of rental property.
Rent control does not create more affordable housing but instead encourages people to stay frozen for years in one place.
Property owners will be more likely to raise rents every year to the maximum allowable by law. When tenants move out property owners will raise the new rent as high as possible knowing that this may be the only chance they have to adjust to current market rates.
Properties that are rent controlled are less likely to be well-maintained because the property owner's expenses are rising but the rents stay the same. We don't see Sonoma County offering to freeze property taxes on rent controlled units, nor will the City of Santa Rosa freeze water and garbage rates.
The City of Santa Rosa will create a layer of bureaucracy and a Rent Board. They plan to charge $115 per unit per year. Half of this will be passed to the tenants. Rent Boards tend to be aggressive with property owners and lenient with tenants even in cases of long term sublet arrangements where the tenant leaves and sublets to another for more money. In Berkeley this scenario is allowed to continue for a minimum of 4 years and the property owner must prove that the tenant has 'no intention' of moving back into the unit---impossible to prove.
Here in Santa Rosa there are builders with land who would like to construct apartment buildings but are blocked by the Planning Department. Reasons given have varied from not being close enough to a direct bus line to the train station, to not being within the specific plans of the downtown redevelopment areas. Although redevelopment was ended the Santa Rosa General Plan rezoned large areas of the city. Funding, politics, and building restrictions have blocked construction of housing that could be affordable.
There is an ideology espoused by Julie Combs and others in the city and elsewhere that housing is a right and that this right should be enabled by private individuals. In order to enforce this ideology a large segment of the population will be made to pay disproportionately more than other individuals in the city.
Again, rent subsidies should be made by government based on need.
Here are two quotes that describe the direction that Measure C is following:
Nazi Land Philosophy:
'The issue of land ownership is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property--so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.'
Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, 1982
Ernst Huber, official Nazi Party spokesman, 1933:
'All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community. '
Rent control forces private individuals to subsidize other individuals regardless of need for an indefinite period of time. Rather than provide services for its residents, the city will penalize property owners because the city is financially unable or unwilling to pay for housing assistance services. The City of Santa Rosa spent almost $10 million on the Courthouse Square project and regularly has hired city staff at high wages with pension entitlements
Property owners are referred to as greedy if they make a profit on their business but the fact that there are major costs and risks associated with property ownership is ignored.
Rent control law exempts buildings constructed after 1995. Most small local rental property owners have older housing stock and will be disproportionately penalized by this law. The city cut-off at owner-occupied triplexes creates a new class of property and a new issue for valuation and sale of rental property.
Rent control does not create more affordable housing but instead encourages people to stay frozen for years in one place.
Property owners will be more likely to raise rents every year to the maximum allowable by law. When tenants move out property owners will raise the new rent as high as possible knowing that this may be the only chance they have to adjust to current market rates.
Properties that are rent controlled are less likely to be well-maintained because the property owner's expenses are rising but the rents stay the same. We don't see Sonoma County offering to freeze property taxes on rent controlled units, nor will the City of Santa Rosa freeze water and garbage rates.
The City of Santa Rosa will create a layer of bureaucracy and a Rent Board. They plan to charge $115 per unit per year. Half of this will be passed to the tenants. Rent Boards tend to be aggressive with property owners and lenient with tenants even in cases of long term sublet arrangements where the tenant leaves and sublets to another for more money. In Berkeley this scenario is allowed to continue for a minimum of 4 years and the property owner must prove that the tenant has 'no intention' of moving back into the unit---impossible to prove.
Here in Santa Rosa there are builders with land who would like to construct apartment buildings but are blocked by the Planning Department. Reasons given have varied from not being close enough to a direct bus line to the train station, to not being within the specific plans of the downtown redevelopment areas. Although redevelopment was ended the Santa Rosa General Plan rezoned large areas of the city. Funding, politics, and building restrictions have blocked construction of housing that could be affordable.
There is an ideology espoused by Julie Combs and others in the city and elsewhere that housing is a right and that this right should be enabled by private individuals. In order to enforce this ideology a large segment of the population will be made to pay disproportionately more than other individuals in the city.
Again, rent subsidies should be made by government based on need.
Here are two quotes that describe the direction that Measure C is following:
Nazi Land Philosophy:
'The issue of land ownership is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property--so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.'
Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, 1982
Ernst Huber, official Nazi Party spokesman, 1933:
'All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community. '
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