Los Angeles tenants and landlords have managed to co-exist peacefully under rent control for 23 years.

While landlords generally have hefty disdain for rent control of any kind, both critics and advocates hold up Los Angeles-style rent control as one of the least offensive and most pragmatic rent regulations currently in practice.

"There is no perfect rent control situation," says Michael Teitz, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley and director of research for the Public Policy Institute of California. "Nonetheless, there are some situations in which rent control is relatively benign in terms of market impacts while still having some limited benefit for tenants... One of the best is the city of Los Angeles."

In 1978, in the midst of a statewide movement that saw 13 California cities adopt rent control regulations, Los Angeles adopted a rent control ordinance of its own. Under the city''s system, only apartment units built before 1979 are subject to rent control. Landlords are required to register their units with the city''s Rental Stabilization Unit and must pay a $14-per-unit annual fee. Annual rent increases are allowed, but cannot exceed the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the inflation rate, for the LA urban area for the past 12 months. That protection lasts as long as the same tenant occupies a unit. According to state law, landlords may raise the rent as much as they wish after a tenant vacates an apartment.

The ordinance also established a seven-member Rent Adjustment Commission responsible for administering and enforcing rent control regulations. Commission members can neither be landlords nor tenants, and they are appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council.

In order to protect tenants from eviction so landlords can raise rents, the ordinance also specifies 12 reasons that a landlord can evict. Reasons include failure to pay rent, damaging a unit or using it for illegal purposes.

The ordinance implemented a brawny Habitability Enforcement Program that sends out housing inspectors to examine every apartment in the city every three years. The program includes a process in which tenants can file complaints when landlords fail to keep up their properties and be awarded a rent reduction.

By keeping the make-up of the rent-control power structure neutral and by using CPI as the touchstone for rent increases, LA has managed to keep rent control from becoming a political hotbutton like it is in Berkeley, where an elected rent board sets annual rent increases, often way below CPI. And by keeping the regulations simple and straightforward, conflict is kept to a minimum.

"Deciding to go with rent control is both a philosophical and a practical decision," Teitz says, "The more complex it is, the more difficult is it."

--Laurel Chesky