Home Sweet Home?

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

May 8 -- In the first case heard under a new rent control regulation, a landlord Wednesday accused a Santa Monica-born tenant of living in a house in Pasadena she co-owns with her boyfriend and using her rent-controlled apartment as a second home.

The case before a Rent Control Board officer provides the first glimpse of the “informal” hearings that will determine if a landlord can raise the rent of a unit to market rate because the tenant does not use it as a primary residence. The decision can be appealed to the rent board.

Since the Rent Control Board approved the regulation in February, 42 cases have been filed. Thirty of the cases have been accepted, nine have been dismissed and three are being screened, rent board officials said. They added that more cases are steadily flowing in.

In a scene destined to repeat itself, the landlord, Les Gibbs, and his tenant, Carol Noonan, sat across from each other flanked by their lawyers at a table in a small office overlooking the 10 Freeway. A hearing officer, dressed in black, sat at the head of the table.

With the tenant answering questions about her personal life into a microphone, Gibbs’ attorney, Rosario Perry, attempted to prove that the apartment unit is not Noonan’s primary residence.

“Do you often sleep at your house in Pasadena?” Perry asked.

“It is not my house,” answered Noonan, her boyfriend, Michael Kobrick, at her side. “It is Mike’s house.”

“Do you claim your house on your taxes,” Perry asked during a relentless series of questions that sometimes went on for an hour.

“That’s private,” Noonan’s attorney, Andrew Zanger, advised his client. “You don’t have to answer that.”

Noonan said she currently pays about $700 per month for the one-bedroom unit she has rented for 20 years in the 12-unit apartment building at 2435 Third Street in Ocean Park.

The new regulation can be a boon to many landlords willing to go through the lengthy process. Rents at some of the city’s most desirable buildings can range from $640 for longtime tenants to more than $5,000 for tenants who moved in after January 1, 1999, when the state’s vacancy decontrol law kicked into full effect.

Noonan’s case is complicated because “you can own a home and still be a resident in a rent-controlled apartment” under a homeowner’s exemption in the regulation, said Marcia Zimmer, a hearing department manager.

Owning a home is “a factor in making a decision, but there is no single controlling factor,” Zimmer said. “It’s the totality of circumstances.”

Tenant advocates are concerned that the regulation -- which experts said could apply to anywhere from 300 to 1,000 apartments citywide -- could result in the invasion of a tenant’s privacy.

In order to strengthen the landlord’s case, Perry subpoenaed Noonan’s workplace records and phone and electricity bills to find out what address she was listing as her residence.

Zanger moved to make the documents inadmissible, because “the reality of this is it’s a privacy issue. I am not concerned what the documents say.”

The hearing officer said she would decide later whether the documents are relevant.

As Perry called witnesses sworn in by the hearing officer and presented proof -- from a deed to the Pasadena house co-signed by Noonan to a business card Noonan’s the landlord found in a trashcan with her Pasadena home’s phone number -- the defendant sat smiling in apparent disbelief.

Perry also produced the two latest Pasadena phone books, which list Noonan’s name by the address and phone number of the home she co-owns, which, Perry added, has a swimming pool.

The manager of the Santa Monica apartment Gibbs bought in 2001 produced three envelopes mailed from outside Santa Monica by Noonan with the rent and testified to seeing the construction notices he was posting on tenants’ doors pile up on Noonan’s door.

Perry drilled Noonan -- how frequently since 2001 she has slept at the at the Pasadena home, where she has an office?

“I don’t want to lie,” said Noonan apparently frustrated with the endless questions. “I don’t want to make up information. I don’t want to make up memories. I really don’t know, but Santa Monica is my home.”

Noonan emphasized her demanding work schedule as a special education speech therapy teacher at a public school in Baldwin Park. She sleeps at the Pasadena home -- which she has not paid a penny for and co-owns only in title -- when she is too exhausted to make the drive back to Santa Monica, Noonan said.

A rent control board inspector, who testified that he visited Noonan’s unit after she failed to return his calls for nearly two weeks, said that the unit was “functional” and that there was food in the refrigerator.

But a carpenter who has been working at the apartment daily for years testified that Noonan’s car is only seen on the weekends in her parking spot directly below her window.

Gibbs, who said he visits or drives by the apartment almost twice a day, backed the carpenter’s testimony, adding that the light in Noonan's apartment is rarely turned on during weeknights.

After the hearing, which lasted about four hours, Noonan was asked if she would appeal if the officer rules against her, a decision that could take up to 60 days.

“I am not going to lose, because I live here. I have always lived here,” said Noonan, who is a third generation Santa Monican. “Santa Monica is my home.”

Related Stories:

"Board Okays Rent Hikes for Tenants who Don't Live in Units," February 17, 2003