An increasing number of rent-controlled units are being converted to condos or torn down in order to allow developers to put up new, bigger condominiums or apartment buildings or clusters of single family homes, leaving a dwindling supply and fewer affordable options for residents of LA County, the LA Times reported on Sunday. Evictions in both LA and in San Francisco are surging as property owners cash in on a rebounding real estate market. This is happening because the state's Ellis Act allows property owners to evict tenants if the owners are demolishing their buildings in order to build something new or if they are getting out of the rental business.
In LA owners filed to remove 378 rent-controlled units from the market last year -- 40% more than in 2012 -- and the numbers are accelerating this year, according to the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department. Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, told the LA Times, "The people who make Los Angeles run -- such as the hotel workers, the service workers, the teachers and the bus drivers and the regular working people -- are being run out of Los Angeles."
Los Angeles passed a rent stabilization ordinance in 1979 because of concerns that rapid rent increases were pricing many out of the city. There are only 638,000 rent-controlled units left and the supply is dwindling because in 1995 the state Legislature barred units built after February 1 from rent control and ended regulations in some cities that had prohibited rent increases if a unit was vacated.
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In LA owners filed to remove 378 rent-controlled units from the market last year -- 40% more than in 2012 -- and the numbers are accelerating this year, according to the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department. Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, told the LA Times, "The people who make Los Angeles run -- such as the hotel workers, the service workers, the teachers and the bus drivers and the regular working people -- are being run out of Los Angeles."
Los Angeles passed a rent stabilization ordinance in 1979 because of concerns that rapid rent increases were pricing many out of the city. There are only 638,000 rent-controlled units left and the supply is dwindling because in 1995 the state Legislature barred units built after February 1 from rent control and ended regulations in some cities that had prohibited rent increases if a unit was vacated.
READ MORE.
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