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Redefining
Rent Control

How Long Can You Afford to Live in DC

By Norman L. Bott

February 2002

Volume 39, Number3

The Tenant's Task Force for Rent
Control recently introduced a package of amendments to the current Rent
Control Law. The changes are designed to remove sudden outrageous rent
increases that hit low and moderate-income people in the District all
too often. The District's current rent control law only helps tenants
who have not moved from their apartments for many years. It is not much
help to tenants who have rented for only a short time, and it does nothing
for new arrivals to the city.

The District faces a dwindling stock of affordable rental property,
primarily due to serious loopholes in the outdated and weak rent control
law currently on the books. Under most cities' laws, rent ceilings will
only increase on an annual basis according to the Consumer Price Index.
However, in the District of Colombia, a provision enacted in 1985 allows
for high rent increases when long-term tenants move from their apartments.
Whenever an apartment is vacated, a landlord may increase rents by either
12 percent or the highest rent charged on similar apartments in the
building. Rents may also be increased for special Hardship Petitions
successfully authorized by the Rental Accommodations Office of the Department
of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. Landlords may also increase rents
for special improvements made to the building. The amendments to the
law made by the Tenant's Task Force for Rent Control would tighten up
all these possible scenarios, making it more difficult to raise rents
to the astronomical levels we are currently witnessing in this city.

In many cases, rental ceilings in this city have reached exorbitant
levels of $5,000 and more. This has been made possible because the rent
ceilings have been adjusted due to the high turnover of apartments and
the special exceptions already discussed. New tenants may not even know
that huge rental increases are possible because there are no disclosure
rules in the current law.

Issues of rent control can become very complicated, and you are urged
to contact a member of the Task Force for further information on the
topic. The Task Force is happy to provide a copy of the proposed legislation,
along with sample letters with which to contact your City Council member
about this topic. We can only improve the current law if we can make
it politically desirable for our elected officials to act on this. More
people are needed in this struggle: ask your city council representatives
and the Mayor's office to support the Task Force amendments to DC's
rent control laws.

Contact: Karen Williamson (202) 483.1680, Kenneth Rothschild (202)
882-4262, Norman L. Bott (202) 452-4203 (weekdays only). Or email tenantstaskforce@yahoo.com

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