Rent Control & Property Rights

Since the demise of the Lochner3 era, property rights have received considerably less constitutional protection than have personal liberty rights, such as freedom of speech and free exercise of religion, which receive preferential treatment through strict judicial scrutiny of restrictive governmental actions. When regulations of property are challenged under the due process clause, courts generally defer to legislatures, finding such regulations invalid uses of the police power only if they are not rationally related to a legitimate public purpose.4

The Supreme Court first upheld rent control decades ago as a temporary, emergency response to the housing shortages and rent increases that followed the two world wars. The subject has remained controversial, however, as housing shortages have persisted well into the post-war period and as more and more cities have adopted rent control ordinances.5

This growing judicial scrutiny of rent contro

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cceptance of eviction controls. They also have broad implications for review of economic regulation generally.32 At least two lower courts have anticipated an emerging activism in this area. In Hall v. Santa Barbara, the Ninth Circuit held that eviction provisions in a mobile home rent control law effected a taking of park owners' property. Similarly, in Ross v. City of Berkeley,33 a district court ruled that a commercial rent control law that precluded eviction for owner occupancy violated the takings clause. The Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Hall, coupled with its failure to address the eviction law in Pennell v. City of San Jose, leaves many questions unresolved, virtually guaranteeing future litigation.34 The statute in Hall is a manifest constitutional travesty. Before the imposition of the ordinance, the market value of the landlord's interest reflected the potential appreciation in the value of the plot after expiration of the lease. After the ordinance, the landlord was in effect demoted to a secured creditor whose rate of return, while variable, was strictly limited by the percentage increases allowable under the ordinance. The difference in value between the former equity and the present security intere
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 6143
Approximate Pages = 25 (250 words per page)

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