The Los Angeles City Council moved Tuesday to impose the first limits on the luxury loft and condo boom that is transforming downtown Los Angeles, giving tentative approval to a moratorium on turning low-priced residential hotels into expensive apartments.
The action comes amid growing concern that available housing for the poor in the downtown area is rapidly dwindling amid the gentrification of the historic neighborhoods around skid row.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday October 20, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 86 words Type of Material: Correction
Residential hotels -- An article in the Oct. 12 Section A about a proposed moratorium on the demolition of low-priced residential hotels in downtown Los Angeles reported that developer Kate Bartolo said the city should consider building housing for the poor in the warehouse district. Bartolo said the housing could be built in outlying areas but did not name a specific location, although others have talked about the warehouse district. The article also said the Bristol Hotel was built in 1927. It was built in 1906.
The vast majority of L.A.'s subsidized single-room-occupancy housing is downtown and in recent years, officials said, the number of available units has fallen by more than 1,200 -- nearly 8% of the total. An additional 2,000 units are under consideration for conversion.
The decline comes as downtown's residential real estate market has exploded, with dozens of derelict bank buildings and decaying hotels in the urban core being refurbished as high-end lofts and condos selling for as much as $1 million. The population of downtown rose from 18,000 to 24,000 in the last few years, according to the Central City Assn. New construction is scheduled to bring more than 30 additional high-rise residential towers to the area in the next few years.
The council unanimously approved a motion to create a citywide ordinance that would place a one-year moratorium on the demolition or conversion of any single-room-occupancy or residential hotels into market-rate rentals and condos. During that year, the city would draft a housing preservation ordinance.
Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the moratorium, said the motion is "an attempt to provide a layer of protection for housing that is quickly going to be extinct. It's a recognition that a balance needs to be achieved."
Several hotels that for years served poor residents have gone upscale recently. In addition, plans call for the loft conversion of the El Dorado-Pacific Grand and transformation of the Bristol into a boutique hotel. Several others could be converted to lofts, including the 512-unit Alexandria, once one of the city's grandest hotels with its 60-foot-high lobby of Italian and Egyptian marble and extravagant gold leaf ceilings.
Such architectural details and rich histories appeal to loft developers, but advocates for the homeless worry that the poor are being pushed out.
"When you take these hotels and you convert them into high-end apartments or dwellings, [the city must] think about those people who are living there," said Anita Nelson, executive director and chief executive of the SRO Housing Corp., a nonprofit housing agency. "They have to go somewhere."
