LOS ANGELES (KNX) - A group of tenants at a West L.A. apartment complex are fighting one of the largest mass evictions the city has seen in years.
Barrington Plaza, a three-building property with 577 occupied units, is being removed from the rental market while its owner, Douglas Emmett Inc., installs fire sprinklers and other safety equipment. The company invoked the Ellis Act to vacate all three buildings while the improvements are made.
The 60-year-old complex has a history of fires, including one in 2020 that led to a college student’s death. The safety upgrades are a condition of the city’s approval of a plan to rebuild eight floors in one building that were damaged in the 2020 fire.
But tenants and advocates say the eviction is a misuse of the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to evict rent-stabilized tenants in order to permanently take the building off the rental market.
“Number one, if you’re not going to rent out these properties any longer, not really sure why you need sprinklers,” said attorney Nima Farahani. “The second [problem] is, they’ve actually said that, in violation of the Ellis Act, they intend to go back into the rental market.”
Miki Goral, who has lived in a rent-controlled unit at Barrington Plaza for 34 years, says that having to leave would disrupt her life.
“It’s a very convenient location for my work, for public transportation,” she said. “I don’t have a car, so I depend on public transportation.”
Most studio apartments in the area cost about $2,600, the L.A. Times reports, while the median rent at Barrington Plaza — which includes studios, one- and two-bedrooms — is $2,295. The sudden entrance of nearly 600 former tenants onto the housing market could drive up rent prices even further.
Under the Ellis Act, if the building goes back on the rental market within five years of the eviction, the previous tenants must be offered a right to return with the same rent they were paying before. But after five years, the landlord can charge the previous tenant the new market rate rent.
A spokesperson for Douglas Emmett Inc. said they don’t have a clear date on which the apartments would be available to rent in the future.
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