Zane to Pasadena: You Are the Spark!

Denny Zane at the Pasadena Tenants Union Monthly Meeting (Photo – Staff).

The growing pressure on tenants in the city of Pasadena—manifest in double-digit rent increases, evictions, and the reluctant abandonment of apartments—brought a group of concerned Pasadena residents to hear Denny Zane, rent-control advocate, and former city council member and mayor of Santa Monica.

By Garrett Rowlan

Zane addressed a meeting of the Pasadena Tenants Union on August 10 at Troop Memorial Church. He told how rent control was achieved in Santa Monica, and how the same might be done in what he called Santa Monica’s “sibling city.”

Zane had no quick fix to Pasadena’s rent problem. He stressed boots on the ground to circulate petitions, showing up at city council meetings, and actively campaigning for city council candidates that support rent control measures.

They protect
money,
we’re protecting
communities

That’s how they did it in Santa Monica, going back to the 1981 when rent control advocates won four seats on the Santa Monica City Council, the fruits of a movement begun in the seventies and boosted by events following the passage of Proposition 13, when Prop 13 advocate Howard Jarvis promised renters that their rents would not go up because property taxes would be kept down. They weren’t, and renters reacted. “There’s nothing like rising rents to mobilize renters,” Zane said.

Denny Zane speaking at the Pasadena Tenants Union in Pasadena (Photo – Staff).

Santa Monica has been a beacon for those looking for ways to secure tenants’ rights ever since. Of course, there have been setbacks, such as redevelopment that didn’t provide for low-income housing, the turning of dwellings to commercial buildings, and the conversion of units to higher rates after they are vacated. Zane summoned up the issues between developers and renters as “they protect money, we’re protecting communities.”

Zane’s talk pointed out strategies for success and suggested that the people who showed up to hear him, some forty in all, could be the spark that grows a movement for change. Above all, Zane emphasized one thing. “Get started,” he said.