WEST HOLLYWOOD WAS FOUNDED ON RENTERS RIGHTS, SO WHAT HAPPENED?
By Jerome Cleary
Back in 1984 disenchanted West Hollywood residents living under the rule of the Los Angeles CountyBoard of Supervisors came together to incorporate a new city. This new city would have many reasons to come into being, one namely being 'renters rights' with strict rent control.
Flash forward to the present and this all seems to be a distant memory. Back in the 1990s, landlords were able to basically 'buy' our Democrat-controlled legislature, which sold West Hollywood tenants down the river. Renters rights and rent control was jeopardized by the passage of the Costa Hawkins Act, which severely weakened rent control by instituting vacancy de-control, allowing landlords to move rent controlled units to market rent upon vacancy.
Where once the true vision of renters rights was the mainstay of what West Hollywood was founded on, today a very high percentage of rents are at market rates. Those beleaguered residents who have stayed in the same unit and never moved before the Costa Hawkins Act, live in fear of losing their rent control rent stabilized unit. That fear is well founded. Demolition of rent-controlled units has skyrocketed.
Accordingly, the city of West Hollywood informed the residents last month that nearly 400 rent controlled units were demolished in 2005, up from almost 300 units in 2004. Nearly all of these units were replaced with luxury condominiums.
While landlords used to claim that if they could de-regulate rent controlled apartment units on vacancy, they could afford to maintain and keep up their properties. As many of us know, many landlords, even after they now receive market rents for their newly vacant units have not done any more maintenance than they did almost a decade ago before vacancy de-control. It is common knowledge that many landlords do as little as possible and only suddenly do it when a tenant has filed a rent-decrease application to financially penalize the landlord to fix up the unit or building, or risk rent decreases for not doing so.
Now that the condo market is so hot, landlords seem to have even less incentive to maintain their buildings. We have seen hundreds of units demolished to make way for luxury condos. On West Knoll Drive, 17 rent controlled units have been demolished to make way for 15 luxury condos. That is symptomatic as to what is going on throughout West Hollywood.
West Hollywood does not appear to even be concerned about this trend. City officials have maintained incentives for development because development is the sole source for funding the West Hollywood Housing Corporation, which is responsible for building affordable, low-income housing in our city.
West Hollywood elected office-holders now happily accept big campaign donations from residential developers while bragging how the housing corporation is providing low cost housing. Unfortunately the demolition numbers are far greater than the number of units provided by the housing corporation. The 10 to 15 units built by the Housing Corporation on average each year is far outpaced by demolition due to development.
West Hollywood does require developers to provide affordable units, but it also allows most developers to pay a 'in lieu' fee rather than build the actual unit. This fee is what is used to fund the Housing Corporation. Unfortunately, the fee is only a fraction of the value of an actual unit or the cost of building one. So even if a developer is supposed to provide four units, if he pays an in lieu fee, the housing corporation may only be able to build one unit with the funds provided.
West Hollywood has exacerbated the pressures on stock of rent-controlled buildings by allowing, for instance, half of the units of the Sunset Millennium project’s inclusionary low cost housing requirements to be built off-site. That’s a sweet deal for the developer who will have more room for luxury condos in stead of having to provide all of its low income housing on site.
Of course, this means that the developer will most likely wind up demolishing a rent controlled building in order to build his required low cost units. In other words, low-to-moderate-income people currently living in rent controlled buildings will bear the brunt of the West Hollywood’s generosity to this developer, who happens to be a major contributor to the re-election campaigns of city council members. Your unit may have to be demolished to accommodate the Millennium’s low-income housing requirement.
West Hollywood is used to playing politics with affordable housing. When the La Brea Gateway project was being considered, many residents supported the project because they were told that large numbers of affordable units were promised to be built in Phase 2 of this project. But five years later that housing is nowhere in sight.
West Hollywood now faces a great demographic crisis as long-term, low-to-moderate-income people lose their rent-controlled homes to make way for luxury housing.
These are not faceless people. They are our friends and neighbors who we see at the market, going to work or at the gym. They are creative people that give West Hollywood its character. It is interesting and hard to believe that the West Hollywood that we came to love and know founded on renters rights has now become the city that does not sense that there is any crisis.
Jerome Cleary is an actor, writer and comic at The World Famous Comedy Store-www.freecomedytickets.com and can be reached at: jeromeclearytalk@aol.com
Back in 1984 disenchanted West Hollywood residents living under the rule of the Los Angeles CountyBoard of Supervisors came together to incorporate a new city. This new city would have many reasons to come into being, one namely being 'renters rights' with strict rent control.
Flash forward to the present and this all seems to be a distant memory. Back in the 1990s, landlords were able to basically 'buy' our Democrat-controlled legislature, which sold West Hollywood tenants down the river. Renters rights and rent control was jeopardized by the passage of the Costa Hawkins Act, which severely weakened rent control by instituting vacancy de-control, allowing landlords to move rent controlled units to market rent upon vacancy.
Where once the true vision of renters rights was the mainstay of what West Hollywood was founded on, today a very high percentage of rents are at market rates. Those beleaguered residents who have stayed in the same unit and never moved before the Costa Hawkins Act, live in fear of losing their rent control rent stabilized unit. That fear is well founded. Demolition of rent-controlled units has skyrocketed.
Accordingly, the city of West Hollywood informed the residents last month that nearly 400 rent controlled units were demolished in 2005, up from almost 300 units in 2004. Nearly all of these units were replaced with luxury condominiums.
While landlords used to claim that if they could de-regulate rent controlled apartment units on vacancy, they could afford to maintain and keep up their properties. As many of us know, many landlords, even after they now receive market rents for their newly vacant units have not done any more maintenance than they did almost a decade ago before vacancy de-control. It is common knowledge that many landlords do as little as possible and only suddenly do it when a tenant has filed a rent-decrease application to financially penalize the landlord to fix up the unit or building, or risk rent decreases for not doing so.
Now that the condo market is so hot, landlords seem to have even less incentive to maintain their buildings. We have seen hundreds of units demolished to make way for luxury condos. On West Knoll Drive, 17 rent controlled units have been demolished to make way for 15 luxury condos. That is symptomatic as to what is going on throughout West Hollywood.
West Hollywood does not appear to even be concerned about this trend. City officials have maintained incentives for development because development is the sole source for funding the West Hollywood Housing Corporation, which is responsible for building affordable, low-income housing in our city.
West Hollywood elected office-holders now happily accept big campaign donations from residential developers while bragging how the housing corporation is providing low cost housing. Unfortunately the demolition numbers are far greater than the number of units provided by the housing corporation. The 10 to 15 units built by the Housing Corporation on average each year is far outpaced by demolition due to development.
West Hollywood does require developers to provide affordable units, but it also allows most developers to pay a 'in lieu' fee rather than build the actual unit. This fee is what is used to fund the Housing Corporation. Unfortunately, the fee is only a fraction of the value of an actual unit or the cost of building one. So even if a developer is supposed to provide four units, if he pays an in lieu fee, the housing corporation may only be able to build one unit with the funds provided.
West Hollywood has exacerbated the pressures on stock of rent-controlled buildings by allowing, for instance, half of the units of the Sunset Millennium project’s inclusionary low cost housing requirements to be built off-site. That’s a sweet deal for the developer who will have more room for luxury condos in stead of having to provide all of its low income housing on site.
Of course, this means that the developer will most likely wind up demolishing a rent controlled building in order to build his required low cost units. In other words, low-to-moderate-income people currently living in rent controlled buildings will bear the brunt of the West Hollywood’s generosity to this developer, who happens to be a major contributor to the re-election campaigns of city council members. Your unit may have to be demolished to accommodate the Millennium’s low-income housing requirement.
West Hollywood is used to playing politics with affordable housing. When the La Brea Gateway project was being considered, many residents supported the project because they were told that large numbers of affordable units were promised to be built in Phase 2 of this project. But five years later that housing is nowhere in sight.
West Hollywood now faces a great demographic crisis as long-term, low-to-moderate-income people lose their rent-controlled homes to make way for luxury housing.
These are not faceless people. They are our friends and neighbors who we see at the market, going to work or at the gym. They are creative people that give West Hollywood its character. It is interesting and hard to believe that the West Hollywood that we came to love and know founded on renters rights has now become the city that does not sense that there is any crisis.
Jerome Cleary is an actor, writer and comic at The World Famous Comedy Store-www.freecomedytickets.com and can be reached at: jeromeclearytalk@aol.com
posted by JeromeCleary @ 1:05 AM
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