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DOWDALL LAW OFFICES <br />A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION <br />ATTO R N EYS AT LAW <br />City Council of the City of Santa Ana <br />City of Santa Ana <br />September 16, 2021 <br />Page 40 <br />Our results support the hypothesis based on a more extensive and timely data set <br />than had been employed in similar prior studies in California. Using pooled data <br />from seven counties in California, before 1993, a flexible rent control regime <br />results in real growth rates in prices 1.69 percentage points less than overall <br />growth rates, while a rigid regime yields real growth rates in prices 0.19 <br />percentage points less; after 1993, a flexible regime results in real growth rates in <br />prices 0.57 percentage points less than overall growth rates, while a rigid regime <br />yields real growth rates in prices 1.11 percentage points greater. After 1993, for <br />communities with rigid rent control regimes, the rates of real price increases for <br />coaches was positive and significant in six of the seven counties included in our <br />data set. In general, rates of price increase were higher after 1993 and in <br />communities with rigid rent control regimes (no vacancy decontrol). <br />Hybrid weighted repeat sale price indexes tracking rent controlled and non -rent <br />controlled units in the seven counties from 1983 to 2003 show that prices of rent <br />controlled units have increased 153 percent while units not subject to rent <br />control have increased in price 136 percent, a difference of 17 percentage <br />points. <br />The three -prong test to determine if a vacancy control provision is lawful is as follows: <br />(1) the economic impact of regulation, <br />(2) its interference with reasonable investment -backed expectations, and <br />(3) the character of the governmental actions. <br />See Lingle v. Chevron, 125 S.Ct. at 2081. <br />Santa Ana owners can easily show that the proposed ordinance imposes a de facto housing <br />subsidy on all park owners, causes transfer premiums of the underlying value of the property to the <br />selling tenant based on the value of reduced rents. This result fails to serve the express purpose of <br />the proposed ordinance of protecting affordable housing. It virtually guarantees its disappearance. <br />Allowing profits generated by monetizing undermarket rents is anathema to the expressed <br />interest of advancing affordable housing, while disproportionately imposing its burden on Park <br />owners. The Ninth Circuit has held that regulations which improperly impose the burden of <br />affordable housing on individual property owners constitutes an unconstitutional taking. Cienega <br />Gardens v. United States, 331 F.3d 1319, 1338 (9th Cir. 2003). <br />Cienega Gardens involved a facial takings challenge to affordable housing regulations. The <br />plaintiffs were property owners who had financed property developments with special federal <br />funding which included an agreement to maintain the property as affordable housing while the laws <br />were in place. Id. at 1324-1325. The federal government found that large numbers of these <br />developers were prepaying the mortgages after 20 years, as allowed by the agreements. Id. at 1326. <br />In order to preserve affordable housing, the federal government adopted legislation that prevented <br />