Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)

Citation: Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)
Parent Document: Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 1997-08-26
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5607899/kavanau-v-santa-monica-rent-con... ↗

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The taking has already occurred. Plaintiff has already lost almost $150,000 because of the Board’s action. Both the Fifth Amendment and article I, section 19 impose the obligation to pay just compensation on the governmental entity that takes an owner’s property. Moreover, assuming either (1) that the availability of rent increases might create a benefit *804adequate to permit a conclusion that there has been no taking, or (2) that the obligation to pay just compensation for a taking may be satisfied by shifting the burden to tenants through extraordinary rental increases, there is no assurance here that any present tenants on whom those increases fall will remain and pay the authorized increases. The majority’s assumption that they will do so is unfounded. Also unfounded is the assumption that because plaintiff is allowed to raise the rent for vacant units, he will be able to recover his past losses from new tenants. The higher, presumably market rate, rents paid by new tenants are those which plaintiff would receive in any event since vacant units are no longer subject to rent control except to the extent that the preemptive state law imposes transitional limits. By no stretch of the legal imagination do these higher rents include a premium that will reimburse plaintiff for the past rental income which the Board wrongfully denied him.6

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