Apartment tenants celebrate while they can
The embattled current and former tenants of the Lincoln Place apartments may not be able to declare victory just yet, but that won’t stop them from whooping it up this Sunday.
Families will gather with one another for coffee, cake and companionship at Penmar Park on Lake Street, knowing their latest court wins have moved them one step closer to regaining the life they all once knew.
“We’ve done our best to support one another through this battle and it hasn’t been easy, but at least on Sunday, we will be able to come together over something positive,” said Sheila Bernard, president of the Lincoln Place Tenant Association and a resident in one of the 12 remaining households at the garden-style campus of more than 40 buildings, constructed in 1951 east of Lincoln Boulevard near Rose Avenue.
The gathering is made possible by two recent decisions — one involving a state appeals court, and the other, elected officials in Los Angeles.
The first occurred on Sept. 19, when a three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that evictions filed by the property owner, AIMCO Venezia, LLC, against the 12 remaining households were unlawful, violating the terms and conditions imposed under the California Environmental Act, or CEQA.
The second decision was made earlier this week, when the Los Angeles City Council voted 11-1 in favor of having the City Attorney not appeal the pro-tenant decision. Los Angeles was named in the lawsuit, along with AIMCO, for failing to enforce tenant protections agreed to as part of a 2002 agreement. Under the agreement, tenants at Lincoln Place were not to be evicted and instead relocated to another unit on the property.
Denver-based AIMCO opted out of the agreement, invoking the Ellis Act, a state law allowing landlords to get out of the rental business by evicting tenants and replacing apartments with condos for purchase. Many tenants left the apartments voluntarily, while others were paid various sums to relocate elsewhere. Those who chose to say — around 80 households — were either evicted or have been living on the property month-to-month, never knowing when they might be next.
410,LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice, urged his Council colleagues to vote against an appeal, asking them to stand up for the rights of tenants who are struggling to find affordable housing. Rosendahl characterized the battle between the tenants and AIMCO as “David versus Goliath.”
“This is a momentous decision,” the councilman said. “In deciding not to appeal … the City Council firmly said that it accepts the court ruling that the tenants should not have been evicted, and that the city of Los Angeles has not just the ability, but the duty and obligation, to protect and defend renters.”
Rosendahl said the evictions carried out by AIMCO in December of 2005 were “brutal and heartless.”
Laura Burns, a documentary filmmaker and researcher, was one of those tenants forced to leave in December. She, along with her husband, had to scramble to find other accommodations, eventually moving out of state to live with family. The couple is desperate to return and hopes the recent court ruling will make that possible.
499,“My husband and I looked at every single apartment that was available in a moderate price range on the entire Westside,” Burns said. “There was no question that Lincoln Place was the very best. It was the closest thing to having your own home.”
AIMCO representatives plan to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, further delaying any attempts by people to move back in. Whether such a scenario will ever take place remains unclear.
“This is such a renegade decision. People came out of the woodwork to support it,” said Patti Shwayder, senior vice president for AIMCO. “All along, we have made offers for the residents to stay anyway and they have rejected that offer.
“If this was all about them staying here, they could have had that and not gone through a lawsuit.”
Tenants reject such claims, saying AIMCO only offered to relocate them to other units on site when negotiations reached a standstill. The offer was rejected because tenants did not feel they could trust the company after it broke agreements made in the past.
There are three separate cases involving tenants and AIMCO that have yet to be decided, Bernard said. Each deals with unlawful evictions.
“This is such a renegade decision. People came out of the woodwork to support it.”
Patti Shwayder, senior vice president for AIMCO
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 5, 2007. Read the original PDF.