Illegal Apartment Issue: A Balance Should Be Found

It’s been two months since two Sun Valley girls and their grandmother were killed when a fire raced through the illegal garage apartment they called home. Built without the proper permit, the apartment lacked the means of escape demanded by building codes. Other family members watched Maria Gonzalez and her two granddaughters die as flames trapped them just out of reach.

As many as 40,000 families across Los Angeles live in illegal dwellings like the Sun Valley garage apartment. Unable to afford traditional housing, families pack themselves into single rooms--some nicely remodeled, but many mere hovels with buckets for toilets and electric power supplied through extension cords. Today, the City Council has the opportunity to take a first bold step toward tackling a problem it has ignored for too long.

A task force established after the Sun Valley fire--which followed a December fire in Watts that killed five--will report to council committees that solving the problem demands short-term fixes and careful long-term planning--neither of which promise to be popular with homeowners in a city that has long cherished the sanctity of its single-family neighborhoods. The bottom line: Los Angeles needs more affordable housing, but until that happens the city must ensure that nontraditional dwellings are safe and clean. That means writing legislation that will enable them to become legal and then enforcing the law.

No one disputes that living in a bootleg apartment is less than ideal. Despite a 7% citywide vacancy rate, many families cannot afford the average rent of $850 for a two-bedroom apartment. Waiting lists for subsidized housing can be years long. The choice then becomes the street or a cheap bootleg. The council should immediately seek to raise awareness among tenants and owners alike that simple fixes can save lives. Multi-language brochures in Department of Water & Power bills can be a quick and effective way of showing how a smoke detector or adequate ventilation can make units safer.

That needs to be followed by aggressive safety scrutiny and continuing education. Part of the problem is that building inspectors rarely have time to search neighborhoods for illegal units. Solution: Recruit workers who know neighborhoods intimately--meter readers, for instance--to report illegal dwellings to building and safety inspectors who can then work with owners to bring the units up to code. The stickiest issue of all, though, is what to do with no-permit units once they are safe. Perhaps the best course is to offer interim occupancy permits, which would allow owners to make improvements and rent the units until the council can decide on a long-term strategy.

And that might take years because it means grappling with rigid zoning laws that no longer reflect the realities of Los Angeles. The question is whether the council has the courage to legalize well-built flats--either on a case-by-case basis or by changing the zoning in certain neighborhoods. The easy course is to do nothing, but it’s also a deadly course.