1-Year Ban OKd on Loft Conversions

The action will have the largest effect in downtown Los Angeles, where a boom in loft conversions is spreading to the edges of skid row, and raises concerns about the future of the 240 residential hotels that for generations have housed some of Los Angeles' poorest residents.

"We have nothing else," Nat Dickholtz, a resident of the downtown Rosslyn Hotel, told council members before the vote. Dickholtz said he was unable to work because of several disabilities and could barely afford his current rent -- $77.99 a week -- even with government assistance.

According to city estimates, the number of available units has fallen by more than 1,200, or 8% of the total, in recent years, and an additional 2,000 units are under consideration for conversion.

Several long-closed single-room occupancy hotels are being reborn as luxury lofts, and a few of the bigger downtown hotels, such as the Frontier, have converted some low-cost units to market-rate apartments to draw in new loft dwellers.

"As we see downtown, and areas like downtown, undergoing rapid change and growth, we must protect the most vulnerable people, people in danger of becoming homeless," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the moratorium.

The moratorium marks the most concrete step Los Angeles officials have taken to deal with worries that the revitalization of long-neglected urban neighborhoods -- driven in part by the region's hot real estate market -- is displacing the poor.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has proposed a $1-billion housing bond measure to pay for thousands of heavily subsidized apartments aimed at providing housing and social services for transients, some of whom find themselves living in the single-room occupancy hotels downtown and elsewhere.

The moratorium, which goes into effect immediately, will last a year but could be extended for up to a second year as the city drafts a long-term plan for low-cost housing in the city.

Scores of historic buildings in downtown's old bank district have been converted to luxury units, and some developers hoped this gentrification would extend to the dilapidated, once-grand hotels in the area.