Council OKs Ending Surcharge at Woodland Hills Complex

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

Council members voted 12 to 0 in favor of the rollback, which must be approved by Mayor Tom Bradley.

Tenants of the 474-unit complex, the Woodland Hills Tennis Club, have battled for seven years to end a $9-to-$22-a-month surcharge.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, whose district includes the complex, argued that the rent increases at the complex were supposed to last only five years. But the ordinance was later changed, allowing property owners to make the increases permanent.

“I don’t think anyone would be happy paying for anything forever and ever, long after the cost was recovered,” Beatrice Lifshin, president of the complex’s tenants council, told the City Council.

The surcharge was approved by the city in 1982 so that the landlord could recover the cost of improvements to the complex at 22122 Erwin St.

Barbara Zeidman, the city’s rent control director, joined the city attorney’s office in questioning the legality of the council’s action Wednesday. “They granted a right in 1982 which they are now taking away,” she said.

“Just as Mrs. Picus argued that these tenants were told these increases would be temporary, she forgets the second half of that sentence, ‘unless hardship is granted,’ ” Zeidman said.

She said the owner of the Woodland Hills complex, GBW Properties of Los Angeles, received a hardship exemption.

Although 4,000 other units--slightly less than 1% of the total rental units in the city--also were affected by the council action, the Woodland Hills complex has been in the forefront of the controversy because of its large number of elderly tenants, who Picus said cannot afford the higher rents.

Tenants at the Woodland Hills complex also filed a suit against the surcharge. Last year, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in their favor, but the landlord has appealed.