Working-class tenants trying to stop the demolition of their rent-controlled apartment building say the building owner has agreed to meet with them this month to hear their concerns.
The dispute between about 40 tenants in Los Angeles’ Eagle Rock neighborhood and their landlord, who has won approval to build a new affordable housing project at the site, marks a hurdle in the city’s plans to dramatically increase its stock of affordable rentals. The property’s owner plans to build 141 units to be rented to tenants who earn 80% or less of the area’s median income. The project is part of a city policy that expedites approvals for affordable housing construction. There are 17 units in the current building.
Current tenants have been offered payments of up to $20,000 for relocation, the tenants say, and would have the right to return to the building when it is completed, which could take up to three years.
But the current tenants say rents in Los Angeles are so high that they would not be able to find a place to live for long, even with the relocation payment.
The office of Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district, has arranged a meeting with the owner and tenants to discuss the tenants’ concerns. Though the owner and tenants have agreed to meet, a date has not been set, said Chelsea Lucktenberg, a deputy for Hernandez.
The Los Angeles Tenants’ Union, an advocacy group working with the tenants, wants California Landmark Group, which bought the property in 2016, to withdraw its developer’s application to build over the current 17 rent-controlled units and instead to sell the property to a community land trust.
A community land trust is a nonprofit organization that owns land for a group of people, usually low- to moderate-income families. These residents would buy and own only the physical homes on that land, and not the land itself, helping keep housing costs down. Councilmember Hernandez supports the tenants’ demands, Lucktenberg said.
California Landmark Group did not respond by the time of publication to emails and phone messages requesting comment. According to Lucktenberg, the developers have said they will not move forward with the project until they have met with the tenants.
Celena Juarez, who has lived at the property for 32 years, said she does not think tenants would be able to afford the rent in the new building when it opens.
California Landmark Group has not said how much the future rent might be. If tenants come back, they would pay their original rent for a year, then market rate. New tenants in the building are now paying about $2,500 a month, Juarez said. That rate is two to five times what some longer-term tenants are paying.
Juarez, who lives with her kids and grandchildren, said many of the tenants are low income. They’re especially nervous now that the recent fires are putting increasing strain on the rental market, she added.
“There’s a crisis going on,” Juarez said. “You’re really going to try to throw us on the street right now?”
Johanna Olivares, who lives in a one-bedroom unit with her husband and 5-year-old son, considers her neighbors “like family.” She said she is afraid to lose the peace, security and community of the neighborhood, and even of ending up homeless. She also said she has several medical conditions that limit her ability to work, and her doctors are all nearby.
Another tenant, Nancy Calderon, who is retired and has lived in her apartment for 15 years, said she is “very depressed” and wakes up some days stressed about where she’d go if she had to leave.
“We’re waiting to see if the bombs are going to fall on us,” Calderon said.
This proposed project at Toland Way is to be a seven-story, “100% affordable” housing complex approved under Mayor Karen Bass’ executive directive 1 (ED1), which was designed to expedite approval of affordable housing projects and shelters in Los Angeles to address the city’s housing crisis.
“100% affordable housing,” as defined by ED1, are projects with all units affordable to renters who earn less than limits set in the city’s rent and income schedules, generally from about $50,000 to $116,000 a year for a household.
Juarez’s household of three adults and two kids brings in under $50,000 a year, she said.
After backlash from different L.A. tenant advocacy and homeowner groups, ED1 was amended in July 2024 to prohibit building over properties with 12 or more rent-controlled units.
But these revisions came too late. The Eagle Rock project would not go forward now under these changes, but because the developers filed their application in December 2023 and the updates are not retroactive, the project is exempt from them.
Housing policy analyst and advocate Joan Ling said California Landmark Group likely figured they could make some money off ED1, as they are getting a “sweet deal” from the density bonus that ED1 offers — being able to build more units than normally allowed under local zoning laws. But she also said developers usually avoid properties that have been around for a long time, as they aren’t “politically feasible” to build over.
“If I were developing, I wouldn’t have touched this project,” Ling said. “It just doesn’t seem smart.”
Tenants getting priced out is a common occurrence in Los Angeles especially, but developers have a right to pay them to leave as long as they do everything by the book, said Ling. There are also more than 200 rent-controlled units in the city targeted for ED1 projects that have been approved, according to the ED1’s ongoing case summary, but they are not protected from demolition as these properties have fewer than 12 rent-stabilized units
Supporters of ED1, like Ling, say that it is overall still a good policy as it applies to where many people don’t already live. Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, which works to support housing policy, argues that it’s not ED1 at fault per se for the situation at Toland Way.
“The problem is local laws allowing demolition of rent-controlled properties,” Trauss said. “When they were writing ED1 or any land use law, nothing stops L.A. from passing laws locally that are more protective of low-income tenants than state law.”
The amendments made last year to ED1 should give tenants more protections, said Clara Karger, spokesperson for the mayor’s office.
“Mayor Bass is working to keep Angelenos housed as we build more housing,” Karger said in an emailed statement. “Mayor Bass announced in 2024 that homelessness was down for the first time in six years and a record number of people were assisted with tenant protections to keep their housing.”
Councilmember Hernandez introduced an interim control ordinance in April 2024 that was designed to temporarily prohibit demolition of rent-controlled units in her district. The ordinance couldn’t protect the Toland Way tenants, however, because it is overridden by the state’s Housing Crisis Act, passed in 2019. Under this legislation, which aims to increase housing development the project was allowed to move forward, said Hernandez deputy Lucktenberg.
“Of course we want to streamline affordable housing. It just can’t come at the expense of our [rent-controlled] units,” said Lucktenberg.
Sally Juarez, Celena’s mother, who has lived at the property for 48 years, said the tenants are open to the idea of a community land trust, but not everyone may be able to afford to buy and own their homes. They’re also willing to have another nonprofit buy the property but have not discussed details.
