June 9, 2006

Contact:
Sheila Bernard (LPTA President) - (310) 871-6368
Laura Burns (LPTA) - (310) 392-5079
John Murdock (Attorney) - (310) 450-1859

LINCOLN PLACE TENANTS FILE LAWSUITS AGAINST LANDLORD AIMCO AND CITY OFFICIALS

Groundbreaking Lawsuit Asserts Evictions Are Illegal Under California Environmental Quality Act

LOS ANGELES ­ The Lincoln Place Tenants Association (LPTA) yesterday filed suit against the City of Los Angeles and owner AIMCO to protect tenants from eviction in accordance with a recent Court of Appeals published opinion, Lincoln Place Tenants Assn. v. City of Los Angeles. In September, 50 senior and disabled tenant households are facing eviction proceedings.

The suit, brought under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by Santa Monica attorney John Murdock on behalf of LPTA and disabled tenant Ingrid Mueller, says the City is illegally refusing to enforce redevelopment conditions, including comprehensive tenant protections it had worked out with the owners. The protections had been offered by the developer as an inducement to the city in order to gain approval  to redevelop the apartment complex as apartments and condominiums. AIMCO (Apartment Investment and Management Company), the nation's largest private landlord, was 50% owner at the time the redevelopment tract map was approved, and is sole owner today.

In a direct about-face on the promises made in 2002, AIMCO now wants to increase the density of the project and claims the tenants can be evicted because the tract map has no legal weight until AIMCO chooses to "record" it. The city, reneging on solemn promises made in 2002, refuses to challenge this interpretation of esoteric subdivision laws. As a result, the elderly and disabled tenants have been living under the notices of eviction for more than a year while AIMCO negotiates for more density and greater profits from the project. LPTA has decided to put an end to this cruel harassment by confronting AIMCO in court.

However, the Court of Appeals in August 2005 held that mitigating measures on the property adopted by the City Council are not "mere expressions of hope" but must be enforced, regardless of whether the map is recorded or not. The Court ruled that the City and AIMCO had violated the conditions of the project approval when AIMCO demolished five Lincoln Place buildings in 2003, and that the Denver-based apartment giant had the legal obligation to comply with the conditions of redevelopment that they had originally signed for in 2002 unless the project is revised through public hearings. The purpose of those hearings, according to the Court, would be to determine whether the conditions were no longer necessary or needed to be modified due to new evidence brought out in the hearings.

Under the same logic, the project condition giving tenants the right to remain at the affordably-priced 35-acre Venice apartment complex is equally enforceable unless new evidence is presented to show they need no protection. The city and AIMCO do not see it that way.

The City Attorney, who lost the Appeals case, has persisted in advising the City Council in hush-hush "closed sessions" that the tenant conditions are somehow different than the demolition conditions, therefore they are not enforceable, and has apparently caved to the threats of a lawsuit from AIMCO's attorneys at Latham & Watkins instead of fighting to enforce them. As a result, on May 30, the Council voted down a motion by Councilman Bill Rosendahl (8-5) to record the tract map conditions, despite strong support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilmembers Janice Hahn, José Huizar, Tom LaBonge and Tony Cardenas.

"The fight has now shifted from the Council Chamber to the courtroom," says tenant leader Sheila Bernard. "AIMCO's threats of expensive lawsuits have been effective against the City. We don't think AIMCO's threats will be so effective with a judge. It's a shame we have to do what the City Attorney should be doing to protect the City's people from real estate speculators."

The suit asks the court to order the City to enforce the mitigation measures it adopted in 2002. It seeks an injunction against all eviction proceedings until the tenant relocation measures have been complied with or modified in a public  hearing, in line with the Court of Appeals opinion. It also seeks an order restraining  AIMCO's evictions under the Unfair Business Practices Act.  

"At issue is whether the public can trust that conditions imposed on a project approval will actually be enforced by the City," said Ingrid Mueller, a 62 year old disabled tenant who is also a plaintiff in the case. "Both AIMCO and the City promised me I could stay at Lincoln Place when they blessed this grandiose redevelopment scheme. Then they turned around and evicted most of the tenants and tore down some of the buildings to make way for their condos before the court stopped them. I look to the court to make them stand by their promises to keep me and the other remaining elderly and disabled tenants in our homes and our community. At this stage in our lives, being evicted is terrifying."

On December 6, 2005, 58 households were locked out of their apartments by the sheriff, and the existing 50 remaining elderly and disabled households may face the same, beginning with the filing of unlawful detainers as early as September 1. After mediation talks ended unsuccessfully in May 2006, AIMCO stated its intention to move forward with the evictions.

This action takes place against the background of a drastic loss of affordable housing in Los Angeles, much of it due to condo developments facilitated by the state's Ellis Act, which allows owners to evict tenants in order to get out of the landlord business. Over 11,000 households have been evicted over the last 5 years, and the Lincoln Place situation, where the project developer specifically offered and agreed not to evict tenants, has galvanized renters across Los Angeles.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo had failed to stop the demolitions and was handed a stinging rebuke by the Court of Appeals last summer. The court subsequently ordered the City and AIMCO to pay the plaintiffs' attorney fees for forcing them to act as a "private attorney general" to enforce state law. Now, for reasons which remain unclear to the tenants, he is refusing to enforce the tenant protections adopted by the City Council in 2002, and has provoked another lawsuit against the City by the tenants to enforce the same state laws.

Lincoln Place Apartments is a garden court complex built from 1949 to 1951 by the noted Modernist architects Ralph Vaughn and Heth Wharton, in Venice, California and is a designated historical resource of the State of California.

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© Lincoln Place Tenants Association
Email: info@lincolnplace.net