Memory of ’94 Quake Fresh at Blighted Sites

More than two years after the Northridge earthquake, nearly 400 quake-damaged buildings in Los Angeles remain vacant and unrepaired, demonstrating the lingering impact of one of the nation’s most expensive disasters.

In quiet, residential neighborhoods and busy commercial strips, the buildings continue to deteriorate under the destructive reign of the elements, vandals and vermin, creating eyesores and potential health hazards.

But repairs and demolition of the vacant buildings may be slow in coming because a federally funded demolition program ended in July and a $321-million city loan program has run out of funds and is on hold pending federal approval of additional money.

Such delays worry neighbors and city officials, who fear the buildings will continue to fester without repairs, attracting vandals and vermin and becoming permanent blemishes on otherwise thriving neighborhoods.

Arthur Johnson, head of the city’s Building and Safety Department, fears that vacant buildings will spread blight to adjacent buildings.

“When there are a few of these buildings, they start to depress values on the block,” he said. “It’s like a cancer. Eventually you have a couple more buildings going down.”

“I’m concerned. We have to find a way to deal with this,” said Councilman Hal Bernson, who heads the council’s Earthquake Recovery Committee.

The level of concern among city officials is so great that last week the City Council instructed Building and Safety officials to develop an inspection program and possibly fines to coax landlords of quake-damaged and abandoned buildings into making repairs more quickly.

Meanwhile, requests for funding to pay for repairs and demolition are moving slowly through federal and city bureaucratic channels.

A city request for an additional $40 million in federal funding to continue the city’s earthquake loan program is under consideration by federal housing officials. But even if approved, the money would be available in May at the earliest.

City Housing Director Gary Squier said any delays will only worsen the condition of blighted buildings, prompting some landlords to give up on making repairs.

“Some people will walk away,” he said. “Eventually, banks will take over and sell the property at a reduced value.”

A request for $2.4 million to demolish vacant buildings that have become public nuisances is currently making its way through the City Council approval process and is expected to be approved next month.

While the vast majority of the vacant buildings are located in the San Fernando Valley communities hardest hit by the Northridge quake, 39 vacant, quake-damaged buildings plague the Hollywood area, while 63 buildings are in South and Central Los Angeles, according to city records.

But the vacant buildings are not concentrated only in low-income communities. They also dot the landscape in upscale, hillside neighborhoods, demonstrating the quake’s across-the-board impact.

The owners of such buildings cite drawn-out disputes with insurance companies, contractors and lenders as the main cause of the postponement of repairs.

Many others simply could not afford the massive repair bills and were hesitant to apply for a city loan for fear of incurring debts they could not repay.

“I don’t have any money, and I don’t feel I should sell my house or get money that I can’t pay back,” Dorothy Wilson told the city’s Building and Safety Commission before the panel voted last week to declare her garage a public nuisance. Earlier, the panel also put her adjacent Pacoima home into the same category.

Commission President Scott Adler told Wilson that he sympathized but could do nothing but begin the process of demolishing the two structures.

“It’s not fair what is happening to you,” he said. “But we can’t let those buildings stand there forever.”

Since the federally funded demolition program ended, the panel has declared 69 vacant, quake-damaged buildings public nuisances. The commission bases such rulings on a list of criteria, including the potential for becoming a blight.

In most cases, the city gives property owners up to 90 days to complete repairs before moving in to demolish a structure.

With $6.5 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city has already razed about 300 buildings that were declared public nuisances and boarded up or fenced 933 others.

But with federal funding running out, city officials say that at least 40 other buildings still must be razed in the next few months. To pay for the demolition, the city plans to bill property owners or place liens on the land if owners cannot or will not pay.

City officials have requested another $2.4 million from Washington to pay for the additional demolition, hoping that the liens and bills to property owners will help pay the money back eventually.

Repairs may also be hampered because the city’s low-interest loan program for quake victims has all but run out of money and is on hold pending federal approval of an additional $40-million allocation.

Because of the shortfall, $20 million in loan applications that have already been processed for 1,000 homes and apartments are unfunded and on hold.

“This tested a lot of people, both emotionally and financially,” said Daniel Gomez, a senior building inspector for the city.

An 11-unit condominium complex on Colbath Avenue in Sherman Oaks illustrates how a building can remain unrepaired.

After the quake, the condo owners and their insurance firm locked horns because the insurer estimated the cost of repairs at half what condo owners felt was needed.

“I spent almost a year going around and around with the insurance company,” said Emily Freeman, president of the condo association.

But after the dispute was settled and the insurance company agreed to increase its payment, Freeman said the owners decided not to repair the building and voted instead to sell it to a developer.

“We voted that we didn’t want to go through with it,” she said. “People had gotten on with their lives and wanted to move on.”

But then, Freeman said, each owner and his or her individual lenders had to agree on the sale price before turning the deed to each condo over to the association.

It was a process that has left many participants emotionally drained. Freeman swore off ever investing in a condominium again.

“I will never buy another condo because it puts you in business with people you don’t know,” she said.

In many other buildings, owners have simply walked away, leaving properties in disrepair. Because lenders have not foreclosed on such abandoned buildings, city officials say the structures remain in limbo.

Efforts to demolish some abandoned buildings have been hampered because the owners cannot be located. By law, the city must notify the owner and any other interested party before it can begin the demolition process.

“In some cases, we just can’t find anyone to take responsibility,” said Phil Kaaianoa, assistant bureau chief for community safety.

Whatever the reason, the damaged and abandoned buildings are getting on their neighbor’s nerves.

Rufus Bowers, owner of a tire repair shop in Pacoima, describes the vermin living in the vacant apartment building across the street as “rats the size of dogs.”

The apartment building, a two-story stucco structure with gaping cracks running along its base, has been fenced up to keep vandals out. Weeds, trash and soggy, discarded clothes litter the site.

Although the building was declared a public nuisance in January, the owner has made no major repairs except slapping a mismatching coat of powder-blue paint on the exterior and onto two nearby trees, according to building officials.

“He says he’s going to get it rebuilt, but he’s been saying that for two years,” said Bowers, as he assessed the crumbling building.

Squier, of the city’s Housing Department, which has administered the earthquake loan program, has been frustrated by the high number of single-family homes that have gone unrepaired.

“We have sent notices, some by certified mail, to the owners of the building, saying they should apply to us for a loan because our funding is running out, and the response has been no applications coming in for single-family homes,” he said.

Squier suspects that many of the homes that were abandoned have been taken over by banks, which then sold the notes on the property to real estate investment trusts.

“The investment trusts are just sitting on the notes until I don’t know when,” he said.