Santa Monica Properties v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board

*743 Opinion

After taking more than a year to issue a final decision, the Santa Monica Rent Control Board (RCB) decreased two tenants’ rents because their landlord, Santa Monica Properties (SMP), lowered the temperature on a hot tub during workday hours, heating it only during evening hours, and altered a sauna’s timer knob so that the sauna heated for one-half hour at a turn instead of the previous one hour. SMP filed a petition for writ of administrative mandate challenging the rent decrease decision. In the same pleading, SMP sought a petition for writ of traditional mandate to compel RCB to adopt regulations establishing administrative remedies to be applied in the event RCB fails, as it did here, to issue a final decision in a rent adjustment proceeding within 120 days as required by the Santa Monica City Charter, article XVIII, section 1800 et seq., Rent Control Charter Amendment, hereafter the rent control law (RCL). 1 The trial court entered judgment for RCB. We reverse the judgment as to SMP’s petition for writ of administrative mandate, and remand the cause to the trial court with directions to enter judgment in favor of SMP. We affirm the judgment as to SMP’s petition…