Sam Zell Doesn't Like Rent Control

The L.A. Times reports on Sam Zell:

A big difference is that residents own only their four walls. They rent their sites — typically 60 feet by 40 feet at Meadowbrook — from Equity Lifestyle. Meadowbrook rents average about $740 a month.

At Meadowbrook and other Equity Lifestyle properties in Santa Cruz, San Rafael and elsewhere, residents have bridled at rent hikes that they contended were not only unfair but also illegal.

Admirers say that Equity Lifestyle's acquisition of the mobile homes was classic Zell. As owners of mobile-home properties in California in the 1990s saw their revenue growth stymied by municipal rent control, Zell apparently saw something different: politically popular but legally questionable local ordinances that were vulnerable to a challenge.

"They go in and buy places and attack the rent control," said retired aerospace engineer Jim Montague, 75, who moved to Meadowbrook 10 years ago. "They start suing and appealing, and eventually the city can't afford to go on."

That's what happened in Santa Cruz, where after a legal battle lasting more than two years and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, the City Council in 2003 repealed its mobile-home rent control ordinance, which protected De Anza Estates, a 200-site park on a spectacular bluff overlooking the Pacific.

We wonder when Sam Zell is going to take on New York City.