Over half of Los Angeles's population are renters, and many of those tenants are at risk, thanks to rising Ellis Act evictions. The state law, which allows for owners of rent-controlled buildings to boot tenants to take the rental units off the market (to become condos or a hotel or so the building can be torn down), has been invoked with increasing frequency lately. Since 2013, these kinds of evictions have doubled in LA.
In response, the city's housing department is stepping up to try and make sure that these evictions, if they're done at all, are at least being done to the letter of the law, says KPCC.
For starters, the Housing + Community Investment Department's Anna Ortega says, the department would like for the city to require property owners who evict tenants using the Ellis Act to turn in yearly status reports, theoretically making it easier to make sure that they haven't violated the rules regarding such evictions. Recent cases of property owners putting the apartments on Airbnb shortly after booting rent-controlled tenants show why this requirement is necessary.
Ortega would also like the city to support efforts to amend the Ellis Act statewide so that it requires one-year notice for all tenants prior to eviction. Right now, one-year notice is only required for tenants who are disabled or elderly.
LA's recently made some changes to its own resources for renters aimed at chipping away at the issue of Ellis Act evictions. The city's zoning and planning website, ZIMAS, now lists a building's rent stabilization status and whether or not the owner has invoked the Ellis Act. (The latter might help clarify in cases where owners have threatened eviction but where proceedings for Ellis Act evictions haven't really gotten underway yet; this isn't uncommon in San Francisco, where these evictions are also on the rise again after already sweeping the city.)
About 80 percent of the approximately 880,000 multifamily units in the city are under rent control, according to the city's Housing and Community Investment Department. Last year, almost 1,100 units went off the market in LA by way of Ellis Act evictions.
- LA housing officials suggest policies to discourage evictions [SCPR]
- LA Rent-Control Evictions Have Doubled Since 2013 [Curbed LA]
- Los Angeles Has Mapped Every Building's Rent Control Status [Curbed LA]
Comments
Rent Control has been a horrible idea in LA. Some people have obviously benefited but that benefit has not been spread equitably. It has deterred investment and left whole neighborhoods to slowly rot.
By RXBXUXNX on 04.21.16 1:34pm
Yes because allowing the market to control prices is surely working. Yea…right. It’s undeniable now that incomes are not rising nearly as fast as housing/rental costs. I always love how people blanketly condemn regulations, as if all are bad. Only reason this happens is b/c those people have the memories and attention spans of gold fish. Those regulations were created to combat serious issues. Removing/condemning them, without proposing an alternative is pointless and illogical. Kind of like the far Right extremist in congress voting to repeal Obamacare without proposing a fix to it, or the issues which caused Obamacare to be created. Come on ppl, don’t just condemn.
By USCTrojan90 on 04.21.16 3:08pm
I’d hardly call LA’s housing situation a "free market". The zoning and approvals process (combined with very narrow financing options) have cut out all the smaller, community-oriented developers from the market.
Most developers need to have very deep pockets, so they can waste years on soft costs before they even break ground. Of course they’re going to build primarily for luxury renters. There’s no money to be made otherwise.
I’m fine with rent control, but it’s really just a band-aid on a much larger problem.
By corner soul on 04.22.16 10:47am
I don’t know if this was intentional or not. The building pictured is the "Glen-Donald" and was built as an Own-Your-Own by Lionel Mayall. It was never a rental building. It is located at 2121 James M. Wood Blvd. 90006.
By oldtennishoes on 04.21.16 4:22pm
Let’s do the math:
80% of 880,000 = 704,000.
1,100 of 704,000 = .15%
Yep, we’ve got a crisis. /s
By I Like Buildings on 04.21.16 5:21pm
I wish every city had rent control; such as it is. I’m in a building I just moved into, but where the owners decided they wanted more money. They refuse to allow re-signing of yearly leases and have jacked up rents by $500. 5 tenants are moving because of this. The rents are already astronomical.
By CodyAmore on 04.21.16 5:58pm
If you go to the Transparent California website and search Anna E Ortega Director of Enforcement you can see the bureaucracy that rent control has created. Her salary for 2014 was $167,731.68 including benefits and her colleagues fall into the same range. Of course they have to make up a "crisis" (see the figures above .15% of 880,000 units) to justify these salaries and also to cover up for the fact that in the City of Los Angeles by and large has approved luxury developments such as those built by Geoff Palmer instead of building affordable housing or promoting adaptive reuse of historic structures for low and moderate income renters. Instead the city and the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department is intent on scapegoating owners of buildings built before 1978 and recently renters, homeowners and retirees who are participating in Airbnb to make ends meet. As it is becoming an increasingly bureaucratic minefield to own a pre-1978 building of course owners of these buildings are going to be tempted to sell to developers who will tear them down and build luxury housing that is not subject to rent control.
By lahope on 04.21.16 6:35pm
That salary is insane! However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an affordable housing crisis. The Ellis Act has led to egregious abuse and mass evictions for decades (Google "Lincoln Place" and learn all you need to know about the Ellis Act), and city officials are absolutely right to curtail it. I’m all for Air BnB in theory, but the landlords referenced above are simply using the Ellis Act to wrongfully evict tenants so they can turn maximum profit on the units during a housing shortage, which is abhorrent.
Additionally, anyone who purchased one of these properties post-1978 has absolutely NO reason to complain – and that includes quite a few landlords.
By Hindinwood on 04.22.16 1:19pm
The housing crisis is not because of the Ellis Act, it’s because of the zoning. Don’t confuse the symptom with the disease.
Let’s fix the zoning and allow loads of new dense development, and scrap rent control and the need for Ellis.
By goingup on 04.23.16 3:48am
Rent control only benefit local politicians (protect voting pool) at the cost of younger generation and private owners. We need better quality living APTs but the newer ones are just as bad (no reason to build better ones when you have demand like west side)
By High Rent on 04.22.16 8:16pm