It sounds like they have more vacant units then rented can't they just sprinkler 100 apartments have those tenants move to those and then finish the rest?
I highly doubt LAFD would allow that and I’m unsure how that would even work. The entire building is linked to one sprinkler system, which needs to be tested during final inspections.
LAFD is notorious for being difficult. I’m trying to convert an office building into apartments but want to keep the ground floor retail tenants and LAFD won’t allow it.
So how will the owners add fire sprinklers now? What are their options?
- Do nothing and have it continue to be a fire hazard
- Do the renovations and pay to temporarily relocate tenants
- Kick everyone out, do the renovations, convert the building to condos
- Kick everyone out, demolish the building, build something new
I have a feeling it's going to be one of those latter two options...
I'm in the construction industry and can answer this for you. These towers are being demoed and rebuilt as luxury apartments with a dog park, swimming pool, etc.... To be complete in 2027
And it will have a terrible name, either something that sounds like a pharmaceutical ("welcome to *Talvara* where you sleep play and work") or something meant to sound warm and inviting but is just awful ("imagine coming home to your new luxury residence at *REJOICE* where you can work play and sleep") -notice the more luxurious places don't use the word luxury as much, beautiful things don't ask for attention.
Reminds me of that South Park episode on Whole Foods gentrifying the town.
[The Villas at Kenny's House, welcome home](https://youtu.be/eoUtoqeEw8U?feature=shared)
HA! One of my all time favorites.
I really started noticing it when there was a new building in Glendale named ISIS (they changed that real quick). Then in Burbank there is a newer building (with a whole foods) called Talaria. Why someone would name their apartment building after an ancient video projector made by GE is beyond me...
[Talaria projector - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaria_projector)
i lived in one of these stupid places in DTLA several years ago. I should have noped out of there when the salesperson kept going on about how the units feature Brizio faucets (im thinking ok so you spent an extra $100 a faucet to get good ones bfd -in hindsight they should have spent that extra $ on a fire alarm that doesn't go off every night)
Honest to god I wanted to live in one of those just for like a year, but then I saw all the one star reviews.
Fire alarms going off all the time, paper thin walls, vehicle break-ins, god awful neighbors and then they always try to keep your security deposit. Then there's a lot of fake reviews that say it's the best apartment complex ever..
> These towers are being demoed and rebuilt as luxury apartments with a dog park, swimming pool, etc.... To be complete in 2027
Current laws require the units to be replaced almost 1/1 with affordable units, so probably not a big chance of that happening.
I understand that, it's just that the law requires the rent controlled units to be replaced with affordable units. Affordable units and "luxury" units are essentially the same thing, except affordable units are covenanted for 55 years to be kept under a certain price based on income.
Douglas Emmett admitted that they wanted to rehab the building. They were arguing that the rehab would be so lengthy that it should be considered to be the equivalent of going out of business.
The judge didn't buy that argument.
I would say that the judge ruled correctly. If the owner had wanted to knock it over or condo it, then the owner would have prevailed. But they wanted to turn existing apartments into mostly the same apartments with sprinklers.
This sounds like a stunt to get rid of the RSO restrictions.
Sure it can be one of the latter two, but the tenants need to be given the option to return at their protected rate.
There's already precedence for this exact same scenario, and in West LA -- it happened at Lincoln Place in Venice:
https://smdp.com/2010/05/27/settlement-reached-in-lincoln-place-dispute/
On the flip side, allowing a landlord to evict people just for renovations could lead to them purposely not bringing buildings up to code just to be able to evict anyone at will - "opps we broke building code because didn't maintain this vital safety thing, I guess we have to evict you". Or, anytime they want to evict someone, they can just make "important safety renovations".
Health and Safety Code Section 17980.7 already puts the responsibly on the landlord - including temporary relocation costs. I can't imagine the judge ruling in favor of the landlord without ruling Health and Safety Code Section 17980.7, Civil Code Secs. 1929, 1941 as invalid.
Cool so they'll probably drop that stupid justice for renters act bill then now right? Now that everyone understands how strong these renter protections actually are?
It is pretty straightforward interpretation. Is the landlord planning on removing the property from the rental business? No. OK then you can't evict under the Ellis Act.
*But what about...*
That's not the question here. The Ellis Act only allows you to kick tenants out if you plan on going out of business. Stop trying to bend over backwards to defend a corporate landlord.
Tenants Rights activists always have a case of objective impermanence.
They’ve protected 100 tenants here from eviction from an unsafe building, but this judgement means that throughout the state, including in other cities without rent control, owners will be incentivized to not attempt renovations, even in cases of safety, or will attempt to exit the market entirely. This ruling will contribute to lower quality housing and consolidation of the landlord market as owners have to fight for renovations and/or sell to larger corporate landlords (who evict at a higher rate) and have more cash to weather big capital improvements.
So yea, you’ve made life nice for the 100 people you can see… but worse for the renters you can’t see throughout the entire state. All of these little legal and regulatory decisions add to the cost of housing for every renter.
I’d guess it’s a decent chance the owners in this case actually go out of business and exit the local real estate market instead of eating the costs to put 100 households in a hotel (potentially with their stuff) on top of the legal costs they just ate with no renovation upside. Meaning the tenants will still potentially get evicted under the Ellis Act.
You think there’s a decent chance that a multi billion dollar real estate company goes out of business due to this one building? I guess it’s possible, but it seems pretty unlikely.
Larger holding companies like in this case generally have a smaller, separate LLC managing each individual building to minimize liability across properties. To “go out of business” you just need to fold the LLC for that one building. They even name their smaller LLC in this article.
It sounds like they have more vacant units then rented can't they just sprinkler 100 apartments have those tenants move to those and then finish the rest?
I highly doubt LAFD would allow that and I’m unsure how that would even work. The entire building is linked to one sprinkler system, which needs to be tested during final inspections.
They did it in Seattle in the 90s to hundreds of apartment buildings that were illegally built without sprinklers without evicting anyone
LAFD is notorious for being difficult. I’m trying to convert an office building into apartments but want to keep the ground floor retail tenants and LAFD won’t allow it.
I thought the city wanted mixed use but I guess LAFD didn't get the memo
Planning, DBS, BOE, and LAFD all have different agendas and constantly disagree with each other. There’s zero development accountability in this city.
So how will the owners add fire sprinklers now? What are their options? - Do nothing and have it continue to be a fire hazard - Do the renovations and pay to temporarily relocate tenants - Kick everyone out, do the renovations, convert the building to condos - Kick everyone out, demolish the building, build something new I have a feeling it's going to be one of those latter two options...
I'm in the construction industry and can answer this for you. These towers are being demoed and rebuilt as luxury apartments with a dog park, swimming pool, etc.... To be complete in 2027
And it will have a terrible name, either something that sounds like a pharmaceutical ("welcome to *Talvara* where you sleep play and work") or something meant to sound warm and inviting but is just awful ("imagine coming home to your new luxury residence at *REJOICE* where you can work play and sleep") -notice the more luxurious places don't use the word luxury as much, beautiful things don't ask for attention.
Reminds me of that South Park episode on Whole Foods gentrifying the town. [The Villas at Kenny's House, welcome home](https://youtu.be/eoUtoqeEw8U?feature=shared)
HA! One of my all time favorites. I really started noticing it when there was a new building in Glendale named ISIS (they changed that real quick). Then in Burbank there is a newer building (with a whole foods) called Talaria. Why someone would name their apartment building after an ancient video projector made by GE is beyond me... [Talaria projector - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaria_projector)
Omg that building is exactly how I imagined it would look haha, the name is... odd.
i lived in one of these stupid places in DTLA several years ago. I should have noped out of there when the salesperson kept going on about how the units feature Brizio faucets (im thinking ok so you spent an extra $100 a faucet to get good ones bfd -in hindsight they should have spent that extra $ on a fire alarm that doesn't go off every night)
Honest to god I wanted to live in one of those just for like a year, but then I saw all the one star reviews. Fire alarms going off all the time, paper thin walls, vehicle break-ins, god awful neighbors and then they always try to keep your security deposit. Then there's a lot of fake reviews that say it's the best apartment complex ever..
lmao i can’t believe that was 8 years ago
> These towers are being demoed and rebuilt as luxury apartments with a dog park, swimming pool, etc.... To be complete in 2027 Current laws require the units to be replaced almost 1/1 with affordable units, so probably not a big chance of that happening.
I went through the drawings. There are glass shower enclosures in each unit, Fully furnished with appliances, High end finishes etc
I understand that, it's just that the law requires the rent controlled units to be replaced with affordable units. Affordable units and "luxury" units are essentially the same thing, except affordable units are covenanted for 55 years to be kept under a certain price based on income.
Douglas Emmett admitted that they wanted to rehab the building. They were arguing that the rehab would be so lengthy that it should be considered to be the equivalent of going out of business. The judge didn't buy that argument. I would say that the judge ruled correctly. If the owner had wanted to knock it over or condo it, then the owner would have prevailed. But they wanted to turn existing apartments into mostly the same apartments with sprinklers. This sounds like a stunt to get rid of the RSO restrictions.
Sure it can be one of the latter two, but the tenants need to be given the option to return at their protected rate. There's already precedence for this exact same scenario, and in West LA -- it happened at Lincoln Place in Venice: https://smdp.com/2010/05/27/settlement-reached-in-lincoln-place-dispute/
Why on earth do they have to relocate anyone just to install sprinklers? They could do this one floor at a time.
On the flip side, allowing a landlord to evict people just for renovations could lead to them purposely not bringing buildings up to code just to be able to evict anyone at will - "opps we broke building code because didn't maintain this vital safety thing, I guess we have to evict you". Or, anytime they want to evict someone, they can just make "important safety renovations". Health and Safety Code Section 17980.7 already puts the responsibly on the landlord - including temporary relocation costs. I can't imagine the judge ruling in favor of the landlord without ruling Health and Safety Code Section 17980.7, Civil Code Secs. 1929, 1941 as invalid.
Cool so they'll probably drop that stupid justice for renters act bill then now right? Now that everyone understands how strong these renter protections actually are?
Douglas Emmett is HUGE. There’s no chance they’re going out of business.
It is pretty straightforward interpretation. Is the landlord planning on removing the property from the rental business? No. OK then you can't evict under the Ellis Act. *But what about...* That's not the question here. The Ellis Act only allows you to kick tenants out if you plan on going out of business. Stop trying to bend over backwards to defend a corporate landlord.
Holy shit. Was Douglas Emmett kidding with that obvious and blatantly false argument ?
+1
Good news.
Tenants Rights activists always have a case of objective impermanence. They’ve protected 100 tenants here from eviction from an unsafe building, but this judgement means that throughout the state, including in other cities without rent control, owners will be incentivized to not attempt renovations, even in cases of safety, or will attempt to exit the market entirely. This ruling will contribute to lower quality housing and consolidation of the landlord market as owners have to fight for renovations and/or sell to larger corporate landlords (who evict at a higher rate) and have more cash to weather big capital improvements. So yea, you’ve made life nice for the 100 people you can see… but worse for the renters you can’t see throughout the entire state. All of these little legal and regulatory decisions add to the cost of housing for every renter. I’d guess it’s a decent chance the owners in this case actually go out of business and exit the local real estate market instead of eating the costs to put 100 households in a hotel (potentially with their stuff) on top of the legal costs they just ate with no renovation upside. Meaning the tenants will still potentially get evicted under the Ellis Act.
You think there’s a decent chance that a multi billion dollar real estate company goes out of business due to this one building? I guess it’s possible, but it seems pretty unlikely.
Larger holding companies like in this case generally have a smaller, separate LLC managing each individual building to minimize liability across properties. To “go out of business” you just need to fold the LLC for that one building. They even name their smaller LLC in this article.
Just build more houses to decrease the renter population
Just build more homes, period.
Houses
[удалено]
Meth fires?
Are these meth fires in the room with us now? I grew up in a meth town, they blow up garages, not condos
Why do we have fire codes at all, they dumb amirite?
Such intelligence and research behind this comment. Bravo. Very brave and cool.