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Lack of affordable housing is a societal problem. As is public <br />transportation, public education or meals and nutritional assistance. <br />Programs to provide this aid are shouldered by all citizens across the <br />tax base. Yet rent control places the burden to provide housing aid on <br />the back of a single business owner, the property owner. We don't <br />require restaurant owners, grocers or bus manufacturers to give away <br />their product or service directly to a low-income consumer; this is an <br />unjust treatment of property owners. <br />Rent control erodes affordable housing. As a governing body <br />considering a rent control housing policy, make no mistake, this will <br />have a chilling effect on investment in Santa Ana. The current state of <br />your rental units will remain the same and slowly begin to deteriorate. <br />Without market incentives to improve properties, deferred <br />maintenance will spread. Even if the owner wants to make <br />improvements and be proactive with maintenance, over time, the lack of <br />capital and cash flow will hinder property owners' ability to maintain <br />high standards. <br />The residents who live in these deteriorating units aren't the only ones <br />that suffer the consequences of rent control. The city is encumbered <br />with blight and decreased property values which lead to lower property <br />tax revenues. Any hopes of securing new units will be lost when <br />investors know the property will be under rent control. It is a lose -lose <br />proposition. <br />Rent control is costly to administer. Our association has dealt with <br />jurisdictions that have enacted rent control and it is extraordinary <br />expensive to administer. In a 2012 study by the San Diego Taxpayer <br />Advocate, Oceanside Rent Control—Costly to Oceanside Taxpayers, An <br />Analysis of the Fiscal Impacts of Rent Control in the City of Oceanside <br />concluded that between 1999-2011 Oceanside Taxpayers have spent <br />and lost $7.5 million as a result of their ordinance and were trending to <br />spend or lose $8 million in the next ten years. <br />Finally, rent control destroys harmony. It is an intangible effect of <br />rent control that is impossible to put a price on, but it is important. Rent <br />control fights can destroy any sense of community and always pits <br />tenant against property owners. It impacts the quality of life tenants <br />