The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to spend nearly $15 million to spare many tenants in a Chinatown building from significant rent hikes, even as several of those residents demanded that the city is doing more to clear their unpaid rent.
By a vote of 14-0, the council agreed to use city funds to limit rent increases for the next 10 years at the Hillside Villa Apartments, where residents have been fighting with their landlord since 2019, when the Previous restrictions on rents for the building have expired. .
The agreement approved Friday would roll back rent increases in many units at Hillside Villa. Additionally, tenants with unpaid rent would avoid eviction proceedings by signing an agreement promising to gradually repay the landlord over the next six years at a 3 percent interest rate, according to the city report.
Tenant advocates and some Hillside Villa residents denounced the deal, saying many could not afford to pay. Residents of 48 of the building’s 124 units still owe $1.4 million in back rent, according to Ann Sewill, who heads the city’s housing department.
For years, many of the building’s tenants have participated in a rent strike, withholding their payments in order to counter sharp rent increases.
Some of those debts have been wiped out in recent years by city and state COVID-19 relief funds. Tenant advocates said more help is needed.
Appearing before the council, one speaker said the repayment requirement would be a “death sentence” for the building’s low-income residents. Another called the deal a “slap in the face.”
“We are really, really unhappy with this deal,” said Rosasela Hernandez, a 17-year resident of Hillside Villa. “We are still at risk of being evicted.”
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Chinatown, said this week that she persuaded the landlord to delay the start of the six-year repayment period by six months. She said she also intends to use $250,000 of her office’s discretionary funds to erase the first year of unpaid rent debt at Hillside Villa, a move that could delay the start of the repayment process until at the end of 2025.
Hernandez said she is looking for other sources of funding to cover remaining rent arrears.
“We are going to look at every stone, every opportunity and every avenue to try to find the resources needed to close this gap,” she said. “It’s inside this building, it’s outside this building.”
Thomas Botz, managing member of 636 NHP, the company that owns the building, said unpaid rent ranges from less than $5,000 for some households to nearly $91,000. After Friday’s vote, Botz praised Hernández for working to find a solution.
“I admire that she stands up for tenants and tries to be there for them,” he said. “She really fought for them.”
Housing officials reported last week that they had reached an agreement with Botz to use city money to bring rent for many Hillside Villa tenants back to 2019 rates.
Hillside Villa served for 30 years as affordable housing under an agreement with municipal authorities. Those rent restrictions expired five years ago, prompting Botz to raise rents, in some cases doubling or tripling the amount.
Tenant activists responded by urging the council to purchase Hillside Villa using eminent domain, a process used by government agencies to acquire private property. Protesters went to the homes of city officials to demand they force a sale. In 2022, the council voted to launch an effort to purchase the building.
Sewill, whose home was picketed several times, ultimately came out against the idea, saying the cost of acquiring the property from a reluctant seller, then repairing it and its refinancing would reach nearly $93 million, or $748,665 per unit.
Not all households in Hillside Villa will benefit from assistance from the city. Seventeen units in the building are occupied by residents who pay market rates. An additional 68 units have already been subsidized with Section 8 rent vouchers — although some of those tenants have also withheld rent, Botz said.
As part of the deal, Botz will have an additional 10 years to repay a $3.5 million redevelopment loan at a 1 percent interest rate. A second loan of $1.85 million will eventually be forgiven, provided the owner meets the terms of its agreement with the city, housing officials said.
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