Landlords Don’t Get ‘Fair Return’

In response to the chairwoman of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board--if I may take exception to her statement that “rent control law would guarantee (him) a fair return on his property.” My fair return, on the rent-controlled building I owned, was less than half the mortgage payment. If we were to include taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc., my rents were a small fraction of my costs.

I have been a landlord and a tenant. I did volunteer work for CED (Campaign for Economic Democracy) and consider myself on the liberal fringe, but I cringe at the idea of government telling private individuals what they may charge for their personal property. I wonder what a renter’s response would be if the price of the used car he wished to sell was regulated, or items at a garage sale.

I am out of the rental business, thankfully, so I have no vested interest. And I agree with the principle that I believe is behind rent control--that everyone is entitled to affordable housing. My question is: Who should subsidize that housing? The government--federal, state, or local? Charitable institutions? Or individual landlords like myself who owned four-unit buildings? I hope that in a democracy we value fairness or economic self-interest.

KENNETH LYLE WILSON

Santa Monica