Mass Evictions Seen in Project Voted by Council

The Los Angeles City Council approved a plan Wednesday to transform an entire run-down, crime-ridden neighborhood in an otherwise fashionable area of the San Fernando Valley by making it easier for apartment owners to evict the 3,000 predominantly low-income Latinos who rent there.

The unprecedented plan, approved on a 9-4 vote, calls for turning the neighborhood into a gated middle-class community.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, one of those who voted against the action, said it is racist, and tantamount to “advocating our own apartheid policy.”

But Councilman Hal Bernson said the legislation is needed because, after six years of trying to eliminate crime and poverty in the area, which he represents, through stepped-up police patrols and building inspections, crime and unsightly conditions have persisted.

Seek Exemption

In its vote, the council directed the city attorney to draft an exemption to the city’s rent control law to make it easier for apartment owners to evict tenants in the Bryant Street-Vanalden Avenue neighborhood, a densely populated island of predominantly low-income Latinos in mainly white, middle-class Northridge.

The rent control law currently requires landlords to spend $10,000 per unit on renovation in order to legally evict a tenant. Wednesday’s action, sought by Bernson, would lower the amount to $7,500 for this project.

Bernson said he plans to also ask the council for approval of a $40-million, tax-exempt bond issue to assist the apartment owners in financing renovations of the 650 apartments in the area.

Bernson’s plan requires another vote of the council and the approval of Mayor Tom Bradley before it can take effect.

Several council members said that if the plan works, it could be expanded to other parts of the city.

Opposing the measure, besides Bernardi, were council members Joy Picus, Joel Wachs and Mike Woo.

Calls It Ironic

Bernardi said it is ironic that the council approved Bernson’s proposal one day after it took steps to divest the city of its investments in companies doing business in South Africa because of that nation’s apartheid policy.

“Are we advocating our own individual apartheid policy here?” he asked. Bernardi said the legislation “smacks of racism of the worst kind.”

Woo said he was “offended” by a report from the council’s Governmental Operations Committee that recommended the project, saying that it would help eliminate problems in the area by bringing in a “different class of tenants.”

Bernson vigorously denied any racial motivations. “We’re trying to take an area which has problems and try to clean it up,” he said.

Bernson said he made his proposal more politically palatable by including a provision that requires landlords to pay tenants evicted because of renovations $1,000 or three times the current rent, whichever is greater, to cover the cost of moving. Currently, there is no requirement for landlords to pay relocation benefits if they evict tenants in order to spend at least $10,000 per unit on renovations.

No one from the Bryant-Vanalden area was at City Hall to speak out against the plan.

But more than a dozen residents, interviewed in their neighborhood, said they were surprised by the action. They said they had no idea that they could be faced with eviction, and expressed anger and fear. Most said they are illegal immigrants from Mexico or El Salvador and worry that there is nowhere else for them to live in the San Fernando Valley.

They said they have many questions, but do not know where to turn for answers.

“I don’t know what would happen to us or where we could go,” said Ramona Lunes, 28, a mother of four. “My husband works at an electronics factory in Chatsworth. We don’t have a car. How can we find an apartment that would take my babies? Who can we go to for help?”

Some said that even if they do receive relocation money, they feel that they will be unable to find an apartment where large or extended families can live.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of people here,” said Salvador Morales, 30. “Most of us, we are all Mexicans. I don’t know what will happen to us if we have to leave.

“This is going to be a great problem.”

Modified Proposal

Bernson has been talking about his proposal publicly since last October. He said he originally hoped that all the tenants would be evicted and that the neighborhood would be transformed into a gated village for senior citizens. He later modified his proposal, saying that he wanted to allow “good tenants” chosen at the discretion of the landlords to move into the units, after they are renovated, at higher rents. One of the major apartment owners in the area, Lance Robbins, said he hopes to play a key role in the renovation--revitalizing the neighborhood himself or with other owners.

Robbins is currently being prosecuted by the city on charges that he owns substandard buildings in other neighborhoods, said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.

Bernson said he is aware of the pending actions against Robbins, but added, “I’m not concerned about that.”

Robbins said the criminal and civil charges against him resulted from actions of previous owners. He said he has corrected most of the problems.

Bernson said the legislation includes a provision requiring apartment owners to correct any citations issued by the city for substandard buildings before they can participate in the renovation program.

Times staff writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.