Votes for Rollbacks at Woodland Hills Complex : Council Lowers Rents, Raises Legal Issues

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday tentatively approved a rollback in rents at a Woodland Hills apartment complex that houses mostly elderly tenants, even though the city attorney’s office questioned the legality of the move.

The action is the latest chapter in a nearly seven-year battle by tenants of the 474-unit Woodland Hills Tennis Club to end a $9 to $22 a month “temporary” rent increase that has been made permanent.

The surcharge was approved by the city so that the landlord could recover the cost of improvements to the complex of six four-story buildings at 22122 Erwin St.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, in an emotional appeal on behalf of her constituents, argued that the surcharge was supposed to last only five years. But the ordinance later was changed, allowing property owners make the surcharges permanent.

“They were told it was a five-year payment,” Picus said. “Now, they have to pay it forever.

“We’re talking about what is right and just for the tenants,” she said.

Picus noted that the city is prosecuting the owner of the complex for a leaky roof that forced tenants out of the building during April’s rainstorms. New roofs were financed from the surcharge.

“Imagine how you’d feel paying for an increase, being told it is temporary, then being told it is permanent and then having what you’re paying for not even do the job it was supposed to do,” she told her colleagues.

Barbara Zeidman, the city’s rent control director, however, joined the city attorney’s office in expressing concern about the legality of the council’s action.

She argued that the council is treating the owner of the Woodland Hills complex and the owners of 261 other buildings similarly affected differently from other landlords, who have been allowed to increase rents permanently for capital improvements. The city attorney’s office, in a written opinion, had similar concerns.

However, Councilman Joel Wachs argued: “There is not a single landlord who is going to be hurt” by the council’s action “because they already have recovered their cost.”

“I do not normally like to cross the city attorney,” Picus said in an interview after the meeting. “But it’s clear to me that the cause is just.”

Although 261 other buildings across the city were affected by the council action, the Woodland Hills Tennis Club has been in the forefront of the controversy because of its large number of elderly tenants who Picus said are unable to afford the higher rent.

After the 10-0 vote, tenants from the Tennis Club--which Beatrice Lifshin, president of the complex’s tenants council, said is “a fancy name for a very ordinary complex”--were cautiously optimistic.

“It isn’t definite,” Faye Hanerfeld, 76, who has paid a $21.99 surcharge for the past 6 1/2 years, said of the council’s action. She noted that the city attorney’s office has raised legal questions and the rollback must come back to the council for another vote.

Tenants have filed suit against the surcharge. Last year, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in their favor, but the landlord, GBW Properties of Los Angeles, has appealed.