Burbank Tenants Face Dilemma

For 10 years, the Promenade apartment complex, one of the most prominent buildings in downtown Burbank, has set aside nearly 80 units for poor and moderate-income residents as part of a deal in which the city helped finance construction costs.

But as of this month, notices have gone out that the owner will exercise its right to end the arrangement, leaving residents with a grim choice: come up with more rent, or move.

“I’ve been crying a lot,” said Rene Kirkpatrick, a 76-year-old resident who said she had planned to stay in the complex until she died.

Kirkpatrick lives on monthly Social Security payments of $644, and pays 30% of that for her one-bedroom unit at the Promenade, which is advertised as a “luxury” apartment complex with pool, spa and gym. Federal rent subsidies make up the remainder of her rent.

Rents for Section 8 tenants are based on tenants’ income, and most Section 8 one-bedroom units at the Promenade rent at between $600 and $650 per month--far less than similar units on the open market.

The Burbank City Council has hired a consultant to help relocate the tenants, and the city and the apartment owner, PMG Properties of Chatsworth, will split the cost of providing a $500 grant to each of the Section 8 tenants to help them move.

But that has not stopped tenants from mounting a crusade to stay in the Promenade units at 350 S. San Fernando Road.

Emphasizing that many of their number are elderly or disabled--and underscoring the point by appearing before the council in wheelchairs or carrying oxygen tanks--the tenants have persuaded city leaders to look into alternatives to moving them out.

While the city can’t violate its long-standing agreement with the apartment owner, it may be able to use city funds to help some Promenade tenants stay or offer additional assistance, Councilman Dave Golonski said. The council has voted to consider alternatives in coming months.

“I think this is kind of a travesty,” Golonski said. “Here we are looking for low-income housing, and clearly this is working well.”

PMG did not return repeated phone calls. But no one in the city disputes the company has a legal right to step out of the affordable-housing agreement.

PMG inherited a deal struck with the developer of the 400-unit Promenade in 1985 to set aside 20% of the units for low- and moderate-income housing for 10 years, starting in 1988.

In exchange, the city helped the developer finance construction with $36 million in tax-exempt city redevelopment bonds, providing the developer with favorable financing terms. The bonds are secured by a bank’s letter of credit, and the city is not a guarantor, said Stephen Helvey, assistant city manager. But the developer benefits from the tax exemption on interest payments, and so has been obligated to provide a public benefit--until now.

At the time, city officials saw it as a convenient way to encourage residential development in downtown Burbank. But today a new council is facing the consequences.

The close ties between the long-term tenants have helped them mount an effective challenge to the city’s plans.

Within hours of one tenant learning of the relocation plans, her neighbors had posted fliers throughout the building. Tenants met in worried discussions at poolside, and peppered each other with phone calls, they said. “I want to keep my home,” said Margaret Stephens, a resident of a moderate-income unit.

“A 20-year agreement would have been better,” said Mayor Bob Kramer, who has suggested relocating some Promenade tenants into senior housing in the city.

The apartment complex is not a typical low-income housing project. In addition to the pool and gym, units are carpeted and have central heat and air-conditioning. The grounds are neatly landscaped. And the majority of tenants, who don’t qualify for subsidies, pay a premium market rate to live there.

What was not foreseen 10 years ago was that many of the low- and moderate-income tenants who moved in when the building opened would still be there nearly a decade later. Many said they had no idea the building would cease to offer affordable-housing assistance after 10 years.

In the meantime, they’ve formed a close-knit community.

“This is a family. When one person is sick, we make sure they are taken care of,” said Tanya Kleiman, 52. “Three or four people have keys to my apartment. Can you imagine? When they don’t see me, they check on me.”

Kleiman, who has diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, pays one-third of her $668 monthly disability check to live at the Promenade. She wants to stay not because of the pool or gym, she said, but because she fears being forced to move alone into a dangerous neighborhood.

Before she moved into the Promenade, she said, the best Section 8 housing she could find was in a neighborhood where gunshots often rang out at night.

“Everyone knew I was by myself. I was very afraid,” said Kleiman, who uses a cane to walk. “I would walk up and down in the apartment at night checking windows and doors, waiting for someone to throw a rock through my window.”

Rents on the 53 units set aside for moderate-income residents are to be raised in stages beginning in March, until the targeted market rate of up to $950 on a one-bedroom apartment is reached. The moderate-income tenants, whose median annual income is about $28,000 per family, have more means to move themselves, said Linda Simmons of the city’s Housing Authority.

The others--tenants such as Kleiman, at the lowest end of the income scale--will continue to receive help from the Section 8 program, but must find new housing by April.

The tenants are among 1,014 families for whom the Burbank Housing Authority administers Section 8 coupons. An additional 10,000 families nationwide have applied to Burbank for Section 8 help but have been placed on a waiting list, Simmons said.

The Promenade tenants “are very fortunate. They are fortunate to be on Section 8, and they are fortunate to live in the Promenade apartments,” she said.