The $91 Million Fight to Reconsider Rent Control in California
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California real estate developer Bob Champion did something last year that he says put other builders “in a tizzy”: He agreed to impose rent control on new apartments he’s planning in Hollywood.
The project calls for tearing down an existing apartment complex to make way for a new residential tower, hotel, shops and restaurants a block from the Capitol Records building. Tenants organized against it, so Champion made a bold gesture to win over opponents. In addition to putting the whole development under rent control, he agreed to help defray costs for displaced residents during construction and let them return to the new property at their previous rents. It was -- as one tenant told a real estate blog last November -- “frankly beyond our expectations.”