Tough Rental Inspections Policy Begins : Housing: Santa Fe Springs will be conducting annual checks of apartments to make sure that they meet health and building codes. The plan is seen leading to rent increases.

In two weeks, this city will begin inspecting apartments before new tenants move into them, exerting an unprecedented degree of control over landlords.

The city also will inspect every rental unit every year to make sure that it complies with state and local health and building codes.

Deficient apartments may no longer be rented. To prevent it, the city will disconnect the utilities if necessary. Owners permitting tenants to live in substandard conditions risk six months in jail and a $500 fine.

The cost of enforcing the new law is likely to cause rent increases, and rent control may be the next step, according to representatives of landlords and tenants.

“The city is getting directly involved in protecting tenant rights,” said Steve Cancian, an organizer for the Coalition for Economic Survival, a countywide tenants group that has pushed for rent control throughout the county. “The city is taking responsibility for not only a reactive response, but a pro-active one.”

The Santa Fe Springs ordinance is modeled after one in Azusa. And cities as far away as Memphis, Tenn., are considering similar regulations, said David Rudisel, Azusa’s community improvement manager.

If the idea does spread, Rudisel said, its effect could be felt across Southern California. The city of Los Angeles alone has at least 700,000 rental units.

Landlord advocates say that what might work for Santa Fe Springs, with 1,100 rental units, or Azusa, with 6,500 units, would be too cumbersome for Los Angeles.

They consider the ordinance costly and unnecessary. Landlords will have to pay $50 per rental unit per year for the annual inspection. Additional inspections will cost $25 apiece. Owners must also pay for any required repairs or maintenance.

“The tenants will ultimately pick up the cost of this, whether it’s the tenants in place or those coming next,” said Trevor Grimm, an attorney who represents landlords. “If you keep increasing costs without allowing landlords to recover costs, there won’t be any rental business.”

Cancian agreed that tenants will face a financial bind because Santa Fe Springs does not limit rent increases. “It’s unfair to make tenants choose between a rent they can afford and a decent home,” he said, adding that rent control would be a logical next step.

Gary Holme, president of the Los Angeles Board of Realtors, objects to further regulation, particularly rent control. “There are already procedures on the books for slumlord problems,” he said. Even without the mandated inspections, city officials have the authority to ensure that apartments are up to code, he said.

Such authority, however, does not provide for needed money and manpower. That’s why the fees under the Santa Fe Springs plan are gauged to make the city’s inspections self-supporting.

“It would be good for the city and the complex as long as the tenants are not charged,” said Walter Sheehan, a tenant at Placita Park Apartments, a government-subsidized complex with senior-citizen renters.

“Most of us are on a low, fixed income,” added Harley Waite, who, like Sheehan, belongs to the Placita Park Tenants Assn. “In the past, we’ve had problems with the management. Now the management is very good.”

Holme said the new ordinance unfairly penalizes good landlords and tenants. “There are a few specific problems,” he said. “Then they pass an ordinance that affects everybody.” Holme said that for professional landlords, permitting substandard housing conditions is bad business.

But Ana Price, assistant director of social services for Santa Fe Springs, said that without the ordinance, “tenants are afraid to come forward and say something. They feel they will be threatened with eviction.”

Under the new ordinance, she said, the city will step forward and assume responsibility for locating substandard living conditions.

And when that happens, said landlord advocate Grimm, the blame will fall to the wrong party. He offered an example: “You can have a missing screen on day one, replace it on day two, and be subject to penalties on day three when it’s missing again.

“Very few owners bust up their own units. You can fix up a building one day and come back and find it virtually demolished the next. The owner gets tagged every time.”

Grimm would prefer a system that more readily imposes the costs of damage on the tenants found to be responsible for it.

Price agreed that some tenants wreak havoc on apartments, including the Florence Fountain Apartments near the corner of Pioneer Boulevard and Florence Avenue. Complaints about that facility helped prompt the adoption of the ordinance.

“They have come in and fixed the laundry room,” she said. “The next day it will be graffiti-ed all over again. They repeatedly fixed the washers. Then tenants jam the washers. They put up some new locks that needed to be put around the pool area to keep younger kids out. The next day the locks would be broken. People have to take more responsibility in respecting the things around them.

“Still, there’s no excuse for the grounds being the way they are. There’s no excuse for there not being hot water or safe electricity for six months.”

Bert Herrera has managed the Florence Fountain Apartments and lived in the complex with his family since December. He said the previous manager’s top priority was eliminating vacancies. “They want to fill up the apartment,” he said. “They take all kinds of people.”

Herrera said he has evicted 17 unsuitable tenants already. “If I take out the bad tenants, I can control it,” he said. “The good tenants, I beg them to stay. I’m here 24 hours. Sunday I take off to go to church. I’ve got a security guard here.”

He said the owners give him “all the support they can give me, but sometimes they’re tired of spending money.”

Good landlords should welcome the new rules, said Fernanco Tarin, the city’s director of housing and community preservation. “The people that do care about their property and do want to make sure their investment is taken care of will not mind the additional $50,” he said. “They’ll also be able to identify the problem tenants.”

Tarin said the greatest problems have come from landlords who are investors from abroad, in part because they are not familiar with local and state law.

However, Azusa officials have encountered difficulties with landlords from places no more distant than Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles.

Rudisel, who supervises the Azusa program, said landlords from outside Azusa typically care less about maintenance because they don’t have to endure personally the effects of the slums they create.

Azusa has shut off utility service to vacant apartments not up to code, Rudisel said. The apartments become unrentable and thus unprofitable until they are improved. The city will go to court to force owners to make repairs in occupied apartments or to common areas.

The Azusa City Council passed that city’s ordinance in February, 1989, and inspections began the following June.

“We found 83% of rental units failed to comply with state housing law and local codes dealing with housing,” Rudisel said. “We’ve gotten over a million dollars in improvements.”

He said inspectors found a wide range of problems including missing smoke detectors, broken windows, rodent infestation and lack of hot water.

Azusa passed its ordinance, he said, because about 90% of complaints about housing involved apartments.

“If it’s the tenant’s fault that something has gone wrong, I think the tenant should be held accountable,” Rudisel said. “Some owners do hold them accountable. We don’t get into that very much. Our goal is to provide decent housing. You’ve got a right to live in decent housing.”