Tenants Come First, Building Owner Told

In a case that highlights a “gray area” of city regulations, a Los Angeles landlord was ordered Wednesday to restore utilities and stop eviction proceedings against tenants in a building that he is renovating pending a further court hearing.

Superior Court Judge Ricardo A. Torres issued a temporary restraining order against Daniel Lerner of DL Investments, owner of an apartment building at 706 S. Normandie Ave., saying that water, gas, electricity and other services must be restored and eviction proceedings against tenants who have withheld rent because of poor conditions must be halted.

“These people are suffering irreparable harm,” Torres said.

A hearing was set for April 24.

A group of 12 tenants filed a lawsuit against Lerner for creating “uninhabitable and unsafe conditions” while renovating the 75-unit, 60-year-old property.

Outside the sprawling, five-story building Wednesday, 33-year-old Joaquin Torres, a hospital worker who lives there and is one of the tenants suing, said conditions have been “terrible” since last November, when workers tore the heater out of his $486-a-month apartment. He, his wife and children were without heat all winter, he said.

In the months that followed, his family and other tenants, he said, have endured constant water shut-offs, holes in walls and ceilings and an infestation of rats. Most tenants left, Torres said, adding, “We don’t have enough money to move.” About 15 families remain.

City officials differ on whether the conditions at the building make it an unfit place to live, however.

James Carney, chief building inspector for the Department of Building and Safety, said Wednesday of 706 S. Normandie: “There is no safety hazard to the tenants currently.”

Barbara Zeidman, director of the city’s Rent Stabilization Division, said: “I think the building is unsafe.

“There is somewhat of a philosophical difference between Building and Safety and us as to whether or not these buildings can be lived in while work is going on,” she added, calling it a “gray area” in city regulations.

As more landlords do such renovations, she said, either to gentrify inner-city buildings or bring them in compliance with the city’s 1981 earthquake safety ordinance, situations similar to those in Lerner’s building are “beginning to emerge as a problem.” Her office received 20 tenant complaints on the issue in the last month alone, she added.

Although safety of tenants is the general guideline, Al Akasura, chief of the Building and Safety Department’s earthquake division, said: “There isn’t a law that says . . . this constitutes endangering tenants and this doesn’t.”

The South Normandie building is one of 7,792 apartment buildings citywide needing seismic upgrading. Lerner obtained permits for seismic upgrading and remodeling last fall.

Landlords may evict tenants if they can show rehabilitation work is being done amounting to at least $10,000 per unit, officials say, but they then must pay from $1,000 to $2,500 to help displaced tenants relocate.

Tenants in Lerner’s building received no offers of relocation assistance, said Kim Savage, a Legal Aid Foundation attorney representing the tenants. She charged that the owner is trying to “circumvent” paying it.

Aaron Bovshow, Lerner’s attorney, said the work being done and the disruption caused to the tenants is unavoidable because “you have to do that for the seismic upgrade.”

“Then move them out and pay for it,” Judge Torres said.