JURY TRIAL SET FOR REMAINING LINCOLN PLACE TENANTS


A jury trial, to be held on Jan. 17 at Malibu Superior Court, will determine whether the owner of Lincoln Place acted in good faith using the Ellis Act to evict the tenants.

The trial pits AIMCO, a Denver corporation, against the remaining senior and disabled tenants of Lincoln Place.
On Dec. 15, Superior Court Judge Patricia Collins ruled that Lincoln Place tenants are entitled to a trial by jury on the issue of whether rental giant AIMCO acted in good faith in evicting 13 households - mostly elderly and disabled - under the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to evict tenants, subject to certain protections to prevent abuse of the Act.
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 that the landlord must honestly intend to permanently remove the units from the rental market. The Ellis Act does not permit the landlord to do any of the following:
1) Remove less than all the units in a building;
2) Evict the tenants in order to increase the sale price of the building;
3) Evict the tenants so that new tenants can be brought in at a higher rent (in other words, to circumvent rent control);
4) Interfere with the city’s power to regulate land use, including redevelopment entitlements.
In their defense against unlawful detainer actions, the tenants say that AIMCO, one of the largest apartment owners in the country, is violating Los Angeles rent control laws.
Sheila Bernard, president of the Lincoln Place Tenants Association (LPTA) explains, “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 on the backs of seniors and the disabled, many of whom have lived here for more than 25 years.”
AIMCO had challenged the tenants’ right to a jury trial. Amanda Seward, the pro bono attorney who has joined the legal team defending the tenants, said, “AIMCO’s challenge was rejected by the court, making way to a full trial on the issue of AIMCO’s good faith.”

In a separate legal action, LPTA and one family sued AIMCO and the city to enforce the tenant protection conditions agreed to by the owner when the city approved a redevelopment plan of Lincoln Place. That plan gave the landlord the right to certain land use entitlements in exchange for AIMCO’s agreement that it would not evict the tenants. Under the tenant protection conditions, the owner promised to allow tenants that wanted to remain on the property that they would have the right to relocate to comparable or better units within Lincoln Place at their current rent. AIMCO has refused to abide by these conditions and the city has refused to enforce them.

These lawsuits ask the court to clarify the interaction of the California Environmental Quality Act or “CEQA,” and the Ellis Act. CEQA requires cities to mitigate the damages of development on the environment, including the impact on the rental market. These two suits are:
1) Marlin v AIMCO, a suit for declaratory relief on whether AIMCO can evict the tenants in violation of the mitigation measures spelled out in the Lincoln Place Redevelopment Project, and,
2) LPTA v City of LA and AIMCO, in which the tenants ask the court to mandate that the City of LA cease its collusion with AIMCO in illegally evicting the tenants, and that the court stop AIMCO from engaging in the unfair business practice of illegally evicting the tenants.
On December 6, 2005 AIMCO had the Sheriff’s Department lock out 52 households (21 children and 65 adults) from Lincoln Place. More evictions followed. Fifty-four of these evictions are currently on appeal.
The tenants hope that when the dust settles on these cases, the hundreds of families who have been driven from Lincoln Place by AIMCO will have the opportunity to return to the historic apartment complex, which has offered thousands of low-and-moderate-income families stability and community in Venice since 1950.

Posted: Mon - January 1, 2007 at 05:10 PM          


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