Posted on 08/18/2014 9:08:59 PM PDT by Steelfish
Landlords, Tenants Unite On Amnesty Plan For Illegal Apartments
Each year, the Los Angeles housing department discovers 600 to 700 unapproved apartments. Above, this building on South Corinth Avenue was found to have bootleg apartments in 2008. It's now under different management. (Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times) By EMILY ALPERT REYES Los Angeles landlords and tenants have formed an unusual alliance seeking amnesty for illegal apartments The L.A. apartment amnesty plan would require units to meet safety standards but free them from other rules An unusual alliance of landlords and tenants wants Los Angeles to ease the way for bootlegged apartments to become legal.
Each year, the city housing department discovers 600 to 700 such apartments, units created without city approval.
Landlords argue that many of these nonconforming apartments are perfectly safe. And tenant advocates say they often provide rare patches of affordable housing in a city of whopping rents.
Together, they are pushing for Los Angeles to provide a kind of amnesty for unapproved apartments. It would require such units to meet safety standards but free them from some other rules, such as parking requirements, that often trip them up in city codes and sometimes force residents out of their homes.
If you follow this lawless path, you'd very quickly see the quality of life deteriorate for residents in lawful, permitted apartments. - Steve Sann, chairman of the Westwood Community Council Right now, "the quick remedy is to evict the tenants and rip out the unit" when the city uncovers an illegal apartment, said Amos Hartston, chief counsel and director of legal services at Inner City Law Center. If the city smooths the way to fix up and permit such units, "it's a potential win-win."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I guess we’ll find out how safe these apartments really are when the Big One finally hits the Los Angeles basin.
Any tenant who supports widespread amnesty will shortly be on a rent escalator as demand increases, but the stock of dwellings, not so much. Then what? Blame the greedy landlords?
Rent control.
This is what a demolition squad was made for. BOMB VOYAGE, illegals! take your lice with you!
Illegal Aliens are part of a bio-warfare plot. Obamola will be here on a mass scale within weeks.
Calm down...The “Illegals” in the article refers to apartments not registered as such, not illegal immigrants.
Foreign invaders see themselves as above all American laws and they and their media & political allies keep trying to claim they are “immigrants” and not invaders?
But it would not be uncommon for illegal immigrants to live there.
The underlying problem is that housing costs in CA and/or LA are extremely high. The main reason for population loss in CA is high housing costs.
They talk about landlords chopping apts up but tenants also do it. To save rent money, a tenant sublets to additional tenants, smaller "personal areas" are created by erecting walls and the kitchen and baths become "common areas". Then one of the "sub-tenants" make improvements to his "personal area" by adding a shower stall and toilet. Then another. Then another. None of it is code.
When they move out, the landlord will re-rent it as a chopped up apt. Why would the landlord pay to tear it all out when he can leave it in and raise the rent.
The article points out that these regs don't apply to garage apts and granny flats. Those are everywhere in LA. I lived in one of those LA garage apts many decades ago. It was smaller than the master bedroom in the house in which I presently live. And next door to that garage apt was a garage apt occupied by a woman and her 3 daughters. I never could figure out how all 4 of them lived there.
You can't read the Orwellian media without also reading what they are not writing!
The LA politicians and the LA Times had no problem with those housing laws for many decades - until now! Why "amnesty" now? Why was it fine for past LA residents to live under those housing laws and not the LA residents of today?
The answer is carefully concealed from the reader of the article. It is the demographic change supercharged by the illegal invasion from south of the border. A new population who believes no American laws should apply to them. From the wikipedia article on Los Angeles [Link]:
But the LA Times must not make the factual connection to the immigration variety of "illegal" - since it would be damaging to prospects for that very other form of "amnesty" they so strongly support in so many other articles.Racial composition 2010 1990 1970 1940 Asian 11.3% 9.8% 3 .6% 2.2% Black/African American 9.6% 14.0% 17.9% 4.2% Hispanic or Latino 48.5% 39.9% 17.1% 7.1% White Non-Hispanic 28.7% 37.3% 61.1% 86.3%
CA does have a lot of illegals because it is a border state and has a very large population. But you need to look at percentages.
There are two numbers, percentage of illegals of total population and percentage of illegal workers in the workforce.
Top five states in descending order(2010):
1. Nevada- 7.2% of pop & 10.0% of workforce
2. California- 6.8% of pop & 9.7% of workforce
3. Texas- 6.7% of pop & 9.0% of workforce
4. New Jersey- 6.2% of pop & 8.6% of workforce
5. Arizona- 6.0% of pop & 7.4% of workforce.
Illegals peaked in 2008 and began to fall so these 2010 numbers are higher than today's numbers. But as the economy continues to improve, the numbers will rise. It is possible that the numbers in Texas has already begun to rise because Texas has been creating a lot of energy jobs.
As for statistics on illegals, they've been BS for years. Even going back to the 1986 Amnesty, when the “statistics” said there were 2 million here to be legalized, but when the numbers came in on how many were granted that Amnesty it was over 3 million.
All the groups, corporations, institutions and governmental agencies paying for or conducting the surveys from which the statistic come are pro-amnesty (even when they pretend neutrality) and as a result we get and under-counted number.
If any form of Amnesty comes to pass, any fool who went along with it based on those statistics will learn how many illegals there actually were and how they were duped by BS statistics.
generally “latino” is code for illegal aliens.
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