Condo Conversions Threaten L.B.

By Joe Segura, Press-Telegram, Long Beach, Calif.

Oct. 21–LONG BEACH — Janice Williams is raising three children and works 32 hours of overtime each week to pay her monthly $1,375 rental tab.

Aside from basics, such as food, she can afford little else.

"We’re sleeping on the floor," she told the Planning Commission hearing last Thursday night. "And we don’t even have a refrigerator."

Williams is paying $480 more each month in rent for an apartment in Lakewood after she was forced to move out of her Long Beach apartment due to a condominium conversion and a lack of good units in safe neighborhoods.

"You are driving people out of Long Beach," she said.

Williams is not alone.

Affordable housing advocates — under the umbrella of Housing Long Beach Coalition and community agencies represented by the Legal Aid Foundation — have been fighting condo conversions, contending that low-income residents are being displaced at an alarming rate.

The coalition advocates want a moratorium on conversions when the city’s rental vacancy rate dips below 5 percent — and that push at the commission’s meeting last week introduced a new drive for lifetime leases for the elderly and disabled.

Those lifetime leases — described by one commission member as a "hot-potato political button" — are not central to the fundamental changes being sought.

Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal, a longtime advocate for affordable housing, predicted that the issue would require considerable time.

"That needs a lot more discussion," she said Friday.

The affordable housing coalition has charged that tenants are not being notified by the city or the condominium-conversion applicants, but instead are often given 30-day eviction notices.

Advocates also contend that converters have forced tenants to sign waivers of their rights to relocation assistance or that the tenants are receiving a fraction of their entitlements, which should reach about $3,700.

Williams told the Planning Commission that nearly half of her relocation money is still unpaid — four weeks after she was forced to move.

The payments are not administered by city staffers, she said, adding that a firm handling the payments told her that relocation funds have been depleted.

"They don’t have a timeline to pay the monies," said Williams, who depends on that resource to purchase beds. (She rented a refrigerator after her testimony before the commission.)

At the direction of the City Council in July, the Planning Department, affordable housing advocates and Apartment Association officials have been combing through and discussing the conversion policies.

City staff drafted revised procedures and policies that are designed to eliminate alleged abuses that are leading to hardships for some residents.

The city and advocates agree on some things, including that the conversion notices should be re-written in plain language and translated into Spanish and Khmer, and that the Housing Services Bureau will send an application packet to all tenants following approval of a conversion that would allow the residents to apply for relocation benefits. (That task had been supposedly handled by conversion applicants.)

However, there’s a dispute over whether there should be a freeze on conversions triggered by the city’s housing vacancy rate, a key issue for the affordable housing advocates.

The Planning Department opposes any vacancy-based moratorium on conversions at this point in time.

Planning and Building Director Suzanne Frick told the commission that there have been 2,174 conversions approved in recent years, but added by only 482 units have been converted.

In a report to the commission, Frick said her "staff will continue to monitor conversion activities and the overall production of new housing developments to ensure that an adequate supply of housing units at all socio-economic levels are provided in Long Beach."

Frick noted that housing experts consider "the optimal vacancy rate" to be around 2 percent for single-family homes and about 6 percent for multi-family units.

"This level of vacancy is needed to allow for fluidity in the marketplace," she reported. "If the vacancy rate is lower, then prospective tenants cannot find suitable rental units when they try to move."

The 2000 U.S. Census, Frick added, pegged the rental vacancy rate in Long Beach at 4.2 percent. However, she added, the American Community Survey indicates a vacancy of 4.6 percent in 2005 and 3.7 percent in 2006.

"The vacancy rates in Long Beach are generally lower than those in other communities," Frick stated. "In part this is due to the higher level of affordability and greater demand for housing in the Long Beach area."

Legal Aid senior attorney Susanne M. Browne countered that the city’s vacancies are so few that displaced low-income residents often have dismal choices, including being moved to other communities a considerable distance from jobs in Long Beach.

"The only thing out there are very, very expensive units that they can’t afford," she said, adding that other units are either substandard or ban rentals to tenants with children.

Browne strongly disagreed with Frick’s opposition to a proposed limit on conversions.

"The city’s conclusion is faulty for a number of reasons," she said.

"As soon as these units obtain their remaining approvals, they will be depleted from our rental stock, lowering our vacancy rate," Browne added.

The attorney also suggested that a converted unit that ends up back on the rental market because it could not be sold will have a higher rent because of the upgrades and "will not be affordable to those who were displaced from the units."

The moratorium debate will next head to the City Council.

Meanwhile, Planning Department staff suggested that the commission and council order the staff to "continue to review and improve the administrative process for tenant relocation."

There should be an emphasis on "ensuring that relocation benefits are available" prior to requiring qualified tenants to move.

Browne applauded the city’s effort to upgrade the conversion regulations — adopted in 1983 — but she insisted that more needs to be done.

"Tenants are not aware of what they are waiving when they sign these waivers," she said, adding the relocation funds are not paid until tenants move.

"This makes it very difficult for tenants to relocate, since they need the money in advance for moving costs, such as a security deposit and first month’s rent," Browne said.

The push for corrective action has the support of the majority on the council, including Lowenthal and 7th District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga.

"I want to see remedies of this as soon as possible," said Lowenthal, who represents the 1st District.

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