RENT COMMISSION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 1925

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D. C.

The joint subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9.30 o'clock a. m., in the room of the Committee on the District of Columbia, Capitol, Senator L. Heisler Ball presiding.

Present: Senators Ball (chairman), Jones of Washington, and Copeland.

Present also: Representatives Lampert, Hammer, Stalker, and Blanton.

Present also: Richard S. Whaley (chairman), William F. Gude, Oliver Metzerott, and Thomas E. Peeney, members of the Rent Commission; and William T. Sabine, secretary.

Present also: Former Senator Thomas P. Gore.

The joint subcommittee had under consideration S. 3764, a bill to create and establish a commission, as an independent establishment of the Federal Government, to regulate rents in the District of Columbia.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We have asked that the members of the Rent Commission come before us this morning to give what information they can relative to conditions in the District of Columbia. We has also asked the tax assessor of the district, William P. Richards, to be present.

First and personally I would like to have in as concrete form as possible a statement of the assessed value of many of the buildings that have been involved in appeals to the Rent Commission in the last year, the valuation which the owners place upon those buildings, and if possible the cost of the buildings together with the amounts of the trusts now on them, the rents which the commission have allowed for those buildings or apartments, the rents asked by the manager or owner of the apartment previous to the fixing of the rents by the Rent Commission; if possible the overhead expenses, and lastly what policy the Rent Commission has adopted as to allowing rents and the percentage or net allowance which has been made to the owners or managers of such buildings.

I think it would be better to have Mr. Whaley, chairman of the Rent Commission, give us that information as far as possible first and then we will call on Assessor Richards to give us now or send us later data connected with what Mr. Whaley may have to say.

arbitrarily fixing a new and higher rental for the superficial area. In other words, the commission takes the value of the building and fixes the allowance and divides the apartments according to their size into that amount and fixes the rental.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it involve an increase in the value of the building?

Mr. WHALEY. No, sir. Just follow me a moment and you will see. After we have fixed the value of that apartment, the landlord goes in and cuts off one room and makes it into two apartments and charges for this one room and the other part of the apartment double the rent which has been fixed for the whole space by the rent commission.

Senator JONES of Washington. I wish you would give for the apartments where that has been done?

Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. We had a case where that was done and we carried it up to the district attorney and had him prosecute the matter in the municipal court. The man was fined. That was the Princeton apartment house up on W Street.

Senator JONES of Washingon. Is that the only instance?
Mr. WHALEY. That is one instance.

Senator JONES of Washington. I wish you would give for the record a list of those instances.

Let me suggest this, that it be understood that the record of this hearing be printed in the morning, so we may get it, and that it be not held out for revision or anything like that, but that we have the hearings printed so we may get them the next morning after the hearing is had.

Mr. WHALEY. I think in this case we fixed the rent of the apartment at $42.50. Mv recollection of it is that it consisted of three rooms, kitchen, and bath. They cut off one of the rooms and charged something like $90 for the same area. They got from the two apartments, so to speak, $90 instead of the amount fixed by the commission. The object of the section is simply that where a rent has been fixed on an apartment no additional charge shall be made for that area, no matter whether it is subdivided into two apartments or rooms or anything else, unless application is made to the commission to refix it on those rooms. That is the whole object of the section.

Representative BLANTON. Suppose you had three rooms, kitchen, and bath poorly furnished, unpainted, unpapered, the plumbing fixtures in a very insanitary condition, and you fix a rental of $42.50 which you say you fixed in this case. I presume that is the case by reason of the rental you fixed. The landlord goes in there and renovates one of the large rooms, has it repapered, repainted, with splendid new furniture put in it, and everything about it first class, and he then rents that room for $40 a month. Does the chairman of the Rent Commission mean to say that in such a case as that the owner of the property has to come down and get permission from somebody to do that?

Mr. WHALEY. All he has to do is the regular procedure of applying to the commission to refix the rent on that apartment. It is a summary proceeding. He files a petition one day and we immediately go and inspect the property and refix the rent and give credit for everything he has done.

Representative BLANTON. Then if I understand the chairman no owner in a city of 437,000 inhabitants, the Nation's Capital, would ever be permitted to rent an apartment once the rent was fixed by the Rent Commission without its further permission?

Mr. WHALEY. No, sir, because it is a case where the rent has been fixed and he has no right to change it unless the commission changes it for him. If we did not have such a provision as that it would simply be impossible to enforce the law.

Mr. GORE. I did not quite understand the statement. May I ask a question at this point?

The CHAIRMAN. I think that so far as the hearing is concerned only members of the committee should be entitled to ask questions. You will have your hearing later, Mr. Gore.

Representative HAMMER. Permit me to suggest that after the witness closes and completes his direct testimony, Senator Gore should have an opportunity to ask such questions as he sees proper. I think it will facilitate matters very much if we give him a reasonable length of time. I merely make that suggestion.

The CHAIRMAN. My only objection to that procedure is that we have only two hours in which to hear the members of the Rent Commission. The time is fixed and published for the other hearings, and we must get through within the time limit.

Representative HAMMER. But would it not expedite matters and facilitate matters very greatly if at the close of Mr. Whaley's direct testimony Mr. Gore be permitted to ask certain questions?

The CHAIRMAN. That is for the committee to decide, but personally I should not think so.

Representative BLANTON. If we had plenty of time that would be the case, but all of the spare time the committee has in those two hours will probably be occupied by members of the committee. I want to ask some questions myself as a member of the committee. I am going to cover the ground pretty thoroughly when I get to asking questions.

Representative HAMMER. I think we will get along better to wait until he completes his direct statement anyway.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Whaley.

Mr. WHALEY. Section 46 provides that

The commission shall make, publish, and promulgate such rules, regulations, and orders governing the maintenance and operation of rental property and apartments as will tend to promote the health, morals, peace, comfort, and welfare of the community, and any violation thereof which shall continue to exist after 10 days' notice in writing to remove the same, served upon the owner or his agent, either personally or by registered mail, shall be punished by a fine to be imposed by the commission of not exceeding $25 for each and every day after the service of said notice until such violation shall be removed.

It is essential that the commission be given this power to enforce its regulations by penalty; otherwise they would be a nullity. For the past six years landlords as a general rule have absolutely refused to make any repairs, to do any repairing, plastering, or papering. For the sake of squeezing the last dollar out of the property they have failed to furnish proper heat, and in many cases no heat at all.

Senator JONES of Washington. Do you say that is the general rule followed by the landlord?

Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; I did not say that.

Senator JONES of Washington. That is what I understood you to say.

Mr. BLANTON. He said for the last six years that had been the rule.

Mr. WHALEY. I said for the past six years the landlords as a general rule had failed to make repairs.

Senator JONES of Washington. That is what I meant.

Mr. WHALEY. I thought you meant about heat and other things. Representative BLANTON. I understood Senator Jones to say, and I agree with him, that this record ought to go just like it is without any revision at all and be printed in the morning. We do not want any revision of it.

Senator JONES of Washington. They will not have time to revise. Representative BLANTON. Let it go in and be printed just as it is and speak for itself.

Senator JONES of Washington. If anyone should find when it is printed that it makes a contrary statement to that intended, it may be corrected, but we want to get the record printed in the morning. The CHAIRMAN. Is it your point to send the hearings just as quickly as they are typewritten to be printed, so we can get them without any correction by anybody?

Representative BLANTON. Yes. This is the reason why I made the point following Senator Jones. Senator Jones understood Mr. Whaley correctly. He said " as a general rule." I understood him correctly when he said "for the past six years." If he attempts to qualify that as he did here we can not get anywhere with this hearing at all.

The CHAIRMAN. But he did not say as a general rule failed to supply heat. He said as a general rule they failed to make repairs. Representative HAMMER. That is very different from the way Senator Jones understood it.

Mr. WHALEY. That was with reference to the heat. Senator JONES of Washington. I do not have in mind that you would try to make your testimony different from what it was. That never occurred to me at all. I just wanted to see if I had understood you correctly.

Representative BLANTON. We understand language for what it

means.

Mr. WHALEY. I do not want to correct a thing in the record. I want to let it go just as it is.

Mr. HAMMER. Our stenographers are very fine and I never saw better, but last year Mr. Deal, who was attorney for the tenants, made a statement in the record which appeared under the head of "Mr. Hammer." I was made to appear, so far as the record was concerned, as being attorney and filing a brief for the landlords. I can see no objection, if a witness wants to do so, to letting him revise the proof, if it is convenient, to correct clerical errors. I can see no objection to any of the witnesses revising their statements. There certainly could be no objection to that. I call attention to that because of the fact of that mistake which was made in my own case, which was due to the fact that I myself did not read the proof. Mistakes of that kind are apt to happen and ought to be prevented if they can by a revision of the proof.