FALLEN UNITS WERE UP TO CODE

Activists and Los Angeles city officials questioned Thursday how it was possible that an apartment building that collapsed Sunday was deemed in compliance by the housing department within the last year.

“It’s mind-boggling to me how it could have been passed just a few months earlier and now it has collapsed,” said Albert Lowe of the tenants’ rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

The 101-year-old fourplex is owned by Frank McHugh, who last fall was convicted of numerous health and safety violations and ordered by a judge to divest himself of all 150-plus rental properties he owned in the city.

Tenants and their advocates have long complained that city officials allowed the landlord to get away with making superficial repairs to his buildings while doing little to improve their living conditions.

Lowe said the history of this building -- which was deemed safe to inhabit in May -- “shows the limitations of the city’s inspection process.”

Councilman Ed Reyes, who represents the area west of downtown where the building fell, said “it’s very upsetting. . . . Maybe we have to change how these buildings are being inspected.”

McHugh could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Harold Greenberg, said he had no information about the collapsed building.

But in general, Greenberg said, tenants also must take some responsibility for the condition of apartment buildings.

“Like most things in life, it’s gray,” he said. “Everybody talks about the slumlord. What about the tenants from hell?”

Inspectors are still trying to determine what caused the second story of the 1624 S. Westmoreland Ave. building to fold onto the first just after 8 p.m. Sunday.

The head of the city’s housing department, Mercedes Marquez, said Thursday her inspectors had done everything right in this case, ordering numerous repairs last spring after they were called to the property by a tenant who lives in an adjoining duplex.

Housing inspectors are not trained to detect structural problems, she said.

That job lies with the city’s Department of Building and Safety, which does not routinely inspect apartment buildings unless asked to do so by the housing department or another agency.

Marquez said her inspectors did not refer the case to building and safety because when they visited the property last spring, they did not see any obvious problems such as cracks in the foundation or rotting wood.

Marquez said her inspectors did find numerous violations involving electrical equipment, plumbing, sanitation, maintenance and weatherproofing. Inspectors issued orders for the landlord to fix them.

On May 1, according to city records, the housing department declared the building in full compliance.

Less than nine months later it fell, leaving more than a dozen people homeless. Officials say they are grateful no one was killed or seriously injured.

Real estate listings show the property has been for sale for months. McHugh was asking $650,000 for the fourplex before it collapsed.

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jessica.garrison@latimes.com