Apartment conversions could cause LA renters to lose their homes. The city council just voted to stop these ‘reconstructions’

For many Los Angeles renters, apartment renovations aren’t a cause for celebration. Instead of getting a brand new kitchen or bathroom, renters know this will often be the case get an eviction.

But on Tuesday, the LA City Council decided to reverse these ‘renewals’.

The City Council voted 11-0 to eliminate a local provision that allows landlords to evict tenants in cases where “substantial remodeling work” will take more than 30 days. Instead, landlords could soon be required to temporarily relocate tenants and allow them to return after renovations are completed.

Response to the vote

Tenant advocates applauded the decision. They argued that landlords often use renovation plans as a pretext to get rid of long-term tenants in order to dramatically increase rents for the next residents.

Landlord advocates say the city’s aging housing stock needs repairs, and that requiring landlords to maintain leases during lengthy renovations will put property owners in financial difficulty.

“It would constructively prohibit existing mom-and-pop owners from making the necessary major system repairs by prohibiting raising rents to cover these substantial costs, and consequently removing more naturally occurring affordable housing from the market expel,” says David Kaishchyan. Condo Association of Greater Los Angeles said during the City Council’s public comment period.

Who is covered by the new protection?

Protection against eviction due to renovations already exists for most of the city’s renters, because it is covered by LA rent controlwhich offers a large number of deportation guarantees. In 2005, the city council adopted rules against “renovation” for these tenants.

But so far, that protection does not apply to the rest of the city’s tenants. They are not subject to local rent control regulations because they live in buildings built after the legal closure in 1978.

Renter advocates said more than 200 L.A. households have faced eviction over the past 18 months due to remodeling plans.

Long-term renters in Echo Park face an uncertain future

Lourdes Mata and her family are one of those households. New owners took over their eight-unit building in Echo Park two years ago, she said, and since then they have tried to evict tenants due to renovation plans — so far without success.

“For me it was difficult to experience this because I have never been to court,” Mata said in Spanish. She said she believes the landlord’s ultimate goal is to “get us out of here, change the apartment and raise the rent.”

Mata said her family pays $880 a month for their two-bedroom apartment. She said they moved there 35 years ago, and their previous landlord never raised the rent much.

Under a national law that limits rent increases, Mata’s landlord cannot increase her rent more than 8.9% this year. But if her apartment becomes vacant, her landlord can legally raise the rent to the market rate. Mata said another renovated unit in the building was recently advertised for $3,500 per month.

“It would be very, very difficult for us to rent such an apartment,” said Mata, 59. She said she and her husband, 63, are both no longer able to work.

What happens next

LA already has a program for landlords who plan to make extensive repairs without evicting tenants. That of the city Tenant Habitability Program outlines landlords’ responsibilities to relocate tenants during renovation work.

West LA renters in a recent high-profile eviction case successfully argued they should not be evicted from the Barrington Plaza apartment complex because of plans to install sprinklers. They said their landlord could have instead temporarily relocated them through the Tenant Habitability Program.

Tuesday’s vote directs the city’s housing department to come back to the full City Council with plans to ensure tenants can keep their rent during renovations. That could mean landlords subject to the new eviction limits would have to participate in the Tenant Habitability Program, but such a decision would require a second vote by the full council.

Why it matters to the city’s climate goals

Environmental advocates said these protections will be critical in the years to come what the city needs gas appliances are replaced by electric appliances. Some have raised fears that plans to ‘decarbonise’ buildings could give landlords a reason to remove tenants.

Morgan Goodwin, director of the Sierra Club‘s department in LA and Orange counties wrote in a letter to the City Council ahead of the vote: “As we pursue critical electrification and energy efficiency improvements in the fight against climate change, we must ensure that these efforts do not lead to tenant displacement.”

However, landlords complain that the city’s existing relocation requirements can be burdensome. They said the city is slow to process requests for rent increases from property owners who have incurred huge renovation costs.

Fred Sutton, spokesman for the California Condo Associationwrote in a letter to the City Council: “It is critical that the City avoid adopting programs or processes that do not work as intended, especially when some older buildings are in dire need of renovation.”