Westside : THANKS FOR SHARING

Call it a cop-out or call it Solomonic. At least it’s a decision.

After months of wrangling, Santa Monica officials have decided who will pay for the earthquake retrofitting of about 2,000 “dingbats”--boxy apartment houses that jut out over carports, seemingly suspended in midair.

The cost will be shared by landlords and tenants.

In May, a divided rent board passed a regulation allowing affected landlords to raise rents to the point where tenants, in effect, would be covering retrofit costs. Later, several board members said they were going to reverse the decision and make landlords pay the full cost of stabilizing the buildings.

But in a surprise 3-2 vote last week, the board decided landlords and tenants will split the bill. The new regulation is expected to go into effect Aug. 1.