By Michael J. Tittinger
Daily Press Staff Writer

VENICE — In case there was any doubt as to whether the 50 or so remaining tenants being evicted from Lincoln Place Apartments planned to go quietly into the night, a group of united residents filed suit this week against both the property owners and city of Los Angeles in efforts to stay put.

On Thursday, the Lincoln Place Tenants Association (LPTA) took their case to Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles, charging the buildings’ owners with attempting to circumvent earlier agreements made with the city and tenants regarding the scale of the complex redevelopment project, and City Hall with failing to enforce those agreed upon terms.

According to LPTA president Sheila Bernard, 80 units have already been evicted, 58 of which were locked out by the Sheriff’s Department on Dec. 6, 2005. The remaining tenants of Lincoln Place — a garden court complex on Elkgrove Avenue constructed between 1949 and 1951 — are considered either elderly or disabled, given a year to vacate their homes under current eviction laws.

Still, they fear they may soon meet a similar fate with Apartment Investment and Management Company (AIMCO) — the nation’s largest private landlord — as the filing of unlawful detainers can begin as soon as September 1.

“This is not over. We are not letting this be over,” said a defiant Bernard on Friday. “We want justice to be done.”

AIMCO plans to redevelop the 35-acre property, placing condominiums and luxury apartments on site with 140 low-income units. AIMCO has typically declined to comment on negotiations with tenants because of a gag order imposed by the mediator.

In previous interviews, Patti Schwayder, vice president of government relations and communications for AIMCO, said the company offered a “generous” relocation package to tenants, which has played a large part in the site’s declining occupancy. AIMCO has also offered 140 units of affordable housing to former tenants.

The suit filed this week was brought under the California Environmental Quality Act, on behalf of longtime tenant Ingrid Mueller. Among its charges are that Los Angeles is illegally refusing to enforce redevelopment conditions, including comprehensive tenant protections it had previously worked out with the owners. The protections, the suit alleges, had been offered in 2002 by the developer as an inducement in order to gain approval from the city to redevelop the apartment complex as apartments and condominiums.

AIMCO, however, was just a 50-percent owner of the 52-building complex at the time the redevelopment tract map was approved, and is sole owner today.

The steadfast tenants contend City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is backing down to AIMCO in the company’s efforts to increase the density of the project and render the tract map null and void because it was never recorded.

“I wouldn’t say all the members of the city have turned their backs,” explained Bernard. “Councilman (Bill) Rosendahl has been in our corner from the start. The mayor’s office has been supportive. The Council has been supportive. The City Attorney’s office has been rebuked for its legal opinion, but they’re not changing their wrong story.”

According to the LPTA, the Court of Appeals in August of 2005 ruled that mitigating measures on the property adopted by the City Council are not “mere expressions of hope” but must be enforced, regardless of whether the map was recorded or not.

The court ruled that the city and AIMCO had violated the conditions of the project approval when AIMCO demolished five Lincoln Place buildings in 2003, and that the Denver-based apartment giant had the legal obligation to comply with the conditions of redevelopment that they had originally signed for in 2002, unless the project is revised through public hearings.

City officials, the tenants charge, have continually reneged on their promises made in 2002, and refuse to challenge the “esoteric” interpretation of subdivision laws. As a result, the remaining elderly and disabled tenants have been living under the threat of eviction for more than a year while AIMCO negotiates a better deal and increased profits.

Jonathan Diamond, a spokesman for Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, said on Friday that his office had yet to see the suit, but hasn’t given up on finding an amiable solution to what has become “an ongoing issue.”

“We have been working with the mayor’s office and City Council to find a mediated solution,” said Diamond. “We feel we have been receptive to their (tenants’) concerns, participating in all the mediation efforts. We don’t think we’ve turned our backs on them at all.

“We’re hopeful this can all still be worked out.”

Meanwhile, the restless tenants still occupying less than one-tenth of the remaining 696 units — there were 795 units prior to demolition — aren’t so hopeful.

The tenants charge in Thursday’s lawsuit that Delgadillo’s office, despite losing the appeals case, has persisted in advising the City Council in hush-hush “closed sessions” that the tenant conditions are somehow different than the demolition conditions, therefore, they are not enforceable. They further contend that Delgadillo has caved to the threats of a lawsuit from AIMCO’s attorneys — Latham & Watkins — rather than getting their backs.

On May 30, the City Council voted down a motion by Councilman Bill Rosendahl (8-5) to record the tract map conditions, despite strong support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and fellow Council members Janice Hahn, José Huizar, Tom LaBonge and Tony Cardenas.

Rosendahl’s chief of staff, Mike Bonim, said on Friday that his office had yet to receive a copy of the lawsuit.

“The fight has now shifted from the Council Chamber to the courtroom,” said Bernard, a tenant of Lincoln Place since 1988. “AIMCO’s threats of expensive lawsuits have been effective against the city. We don’t think AIMCO’s threats will be so effective with a judge.

“It’s a shame we have to do what the city attorney should be doing to protect the city’s people from real estate speculators.”

The lawsuit asks the court to order Los Angeles officials to enforce the mitigation measures it adopted in 2002. It seeks an injunction against all eviction proceedings until the tenant relocation measures have been complied with or modified in a public hearing, in line with the Court of Appeals opinion.

It also seeks an order restraining AIMCO’s evictions under the Unfair Business Practices Act.

“At issue is whether the public can trust that conditions imposed on a project’s approval will actually be enforced,” said Mueller, a 62-year-old disabled tenant. “Both AIMCO and the city promised me I could stay at Lincoln Place when they blessed this grandiose redevelopment scheme. Then they turned around and evicted most of the tenants and tore down some of the buildings to make way for their condos before the court stopped them.

“I look to the court to make them stand by their promises to keep me and the other remaining elderly and disabled tenants in our homes and our community,” said Mueller. “At this stage in our lives, being evicted is terrifying.”

The case of Lincoln Place has served as a rallying cry for renter groups in the wake of the state’s Ellis Act, which allows owners to evict tenants in order to get out of the landlord business.

Lincoln Place Apartments, completed in 1951 by Modernist architects Ralph Vaughn and Heth Wharton, was originally backed by the Federal Housing Authority to support World War II veterans and their families. However, it has been privately owned since. There are 45 buildings remaining following demolition.

The site has been largely abandoned in the face of the ongoing legal battle between residents and the owner that began shortly after 1992, when AIMCO proposed a redevelopment plan that called for 850 total units, most of which would be market-rate condos.

According to the LPTA, the project developer specifically offered and agreed not to evict tenants, but City Attorney Delgadillo failed to stop the demolitions and was handed a rebuke by the Court of Appeals last summer. The court subsequently ordered the city and AIMCO to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees for forcing them to act as a “private attorney general” to enforce state law.

Now, according to the LPTA, Delgadillo is refusing to enforce the tenant protections adopted by the City Council in 2002, and has provoked another lawsuit against the city by the tenants to enforce the same state laws.

“We just want for the city to uphold the laws and protect its people,” said Bernard. “We want the tenants to remain in their homes, and for the evicted tenants to be able to come back. We want the evictions to stop.”