still living at the post-World War II complex just south of the Santa Monica city limits.
The residents are fighting their evictions, claiming that Denver-based rental giant Apartment Investment and Management Company (AIMCO),which owns Lincoln Place, did not act in good faith when it ordered mostly elderly and disabled tenants to leave the property under the Ellis Act,a state law that allows landlords to get out of the rental business.
Rent control laws in Los Angeles require that all landlords who evict tenants under the Ellis Act must establish that they are acting in good faith, meaning, in relation to the Ellis Act, that the landlord must honestly intend to permanently remove the units from the rental market, attorneys for the tenants said.
The Ellis Act does not permit the landlord to do any of the following: • Remove less than all the units in a building; • Evict the tenants in order to increase the sale price of the building; • Evict the tenants so that new tenants can be brought in at a higher rent (in other words, to circumvent rent control); • Interfere with the city’s power to regulate land use, including redevelopment entitlements.
In their defense against unlawful detainer actions filed by AIMCO, tenants allege that AIMCO is evicting the tenants under the Ellis Act so that they can sell the property for profit.
Sheila Bernard, president of the Lincoln Place Tenants Association said “that all over the country, AIMCO purchases older garden apartments, upgrades units from low rent to high rent units and obtains local concessions to increase density, and often then sells the property to the highest bidder.
“They see rent control as an obstacle to their plans to maximize profits,and at Lincoln Place, on the backs of seniors and the disabled, many of them whom have lived in this garden apartment community for more than 25 years.”
Representatives from AIMCO could not be reached for comment, however, in prior interviews they have said tenants have been offered generous relocation packages that go above and beyond that required by law.
Many tenants have refused to accept those offers — around $13,000 for some — out of fear that they would be forced to move into an apartment that was too expensive for those on a fixed income. Many living in Lincoln Place were paying well below market rate rent because of rent control.
Lincoln Place, a garden-style campus of 52 buildings built in 1951, was originally backed by the Federal Housing Authority to support World War II veterans and their families. However, it always has been privately owned.
Once offering 795 affordable apartments, the site has been largely abandoned in the face of an ongoing legal debacle that began shortly after 1993, when the property owner proposed a redevelopment plan that called for 850 units to be built on the site, most of which would be market-rate condominiums.
Tenants are currently appealing another case against the City of Los Angeles for allegedly failing to enforce conditions of a redevelopment approval which prohibits AIMCO from evicting tenants against their will.
That lawsuit is based on a landmark ruling by the state court of appeals last year, which said that mitigation conditions were “not mere expressions of hope,” and that developers are not allowed to “piecemeal” conditions of the California Environmental Quality Control Act.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.