In an action intended to close a loophole and protect middle-income tenants, a Los Angeles City Council committee moved Tuesday to expand rent control to apartments that are built to replace torn-down units.
If approved by the full council and the mayor, the measure would add another aspect to the city's rent control law, which now applies only to buildings constructed prior to 1979.
The council is scheduled to take up the matter today.
The proposal is widely opposed by building owners and the real estate community, which say that it would discourage housing construction.
The law would allow building owners to set the initial rents at market rate for the new units, probably making rents far higher than in the buildings they replace. Future increases would be subject to the city's rent control law, which limits how much rents can be raised each year.
State law gives landlords the right to go out of business by taking their units off the rental housing market. But city officials say some owners are demolishing their older buildings and then constructing rent control-free apartments.
"This is about closing a legal loophole," said Council President Eric Garcetti, who sits on the housing committee, which recommended the measure Tuesday.
"This is about people signing an affidavit that they are leaving the apartment market and then coming back into it," he said.
The proposed ordinance is the latest effort to protect affordable housing in a city where average rents are about $1,500 a month. In a related move last month, the council doubled and tripled the relocation fees paid to tenants evicted from apartments being converted to condominiums.
Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the city Housing Department, said the latest proposal wouldn't help the lowest-income tenants because they would be unable to afford the new units. But the law would help keep rents in check in future years to help middle-class tenants, she said.
The ordinance also would offer owners the option of setting aside up to 20% of their apartments for low-income tenants. If they did that, the rest of the building's units would be exempted from rent controls.
Building owners, business interests and the real estate industry are fighting the proposal, which they say would violate another state law and would discourage home construction in housing-starved Los Angeles.
