Baker

Defendants and appellants City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Rent Control Board (Board), and plaintiffs, respondents and cross-appellants John J. Stein and James W. Baker appeal from a judgment upholding Board’s standards for determining rent increases, but permanently enjoining defendants and appellants from “regulating or prohibiting, directly or indirectly, demolitions of controlled rental housing.”

Factual and Procedural Background

On April 10, 1979, the City of Santa Monica (City), responding to a housing crisis in which much of its rental stock had been razed, by initiative added a rent control law to its city charter providing basically the following:

—established an elected Rent Control Board (Board),

—instituted a rent rollback and freeze,

—required the Board to establish procedures,

—prohibited evictions, and

—imposed controls on removals and demolitions.

On the very next day James W. Baker (Baker) filed a taxpayer’s suit against City, Board and others, challenging the validity of the rent control law and the regulations promulgated pursuant to it and seeking a mandatory injunction and declaratory relief. A later mandamus action brought by John J.…