LA City Council Approves $15 Million Deal To Subsidize Hillside Villa Rents

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The L.A. City Council on Friday approved a $15 million deal aimed at assisting tenants in a Chinatown apartment complex who have been fighting rent increases for several years.

What’s in the deal? The city will extend an affordability covenant, paying nearly $15 million to the landlord to subsidize rents for some of the units.

But Hillside Villa tenants argue that another provision of the deal — which will require them to pay back owed rent in monthly installments after a six-month period instead of all at once — could make their payments unaffordable and could leave more renters vulnerable to eviction.

How did we get here? Tenants in the complex have seen their rent increase in recent years. Hillside Villa, originally built as affordable housing in the 1980s with loans from the city, had its 30-year affordability contract expire in 2019. Rents increased by as much as 300%, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said Friday.

The Hillside Villa Tenants Association wants the city to use eminent domain to purchase the property from the building’s landlord Tom Botz outright. But Botz told LAist last year that he's not willing to sell the 124-unit property.

What this could mean for future housing: Hernandez warned that Hillside Villa was just the tip of the iceberg as other similar deals with other properties will also soon expire.

“I have shared my concern that Hillside Villa is far from an isolated incident, it is a canary in the coalmine," Hernandez said. "Across our districts we have thousands of units with affordability covenants that will expire in the coming years. This is a looming cliff that will only worsen our current housing affordability crisis.”

What’s next: Hernandez introduced a separate motion Friday to create an emergency rental assistance program for tenants owing more than six months of back rent because of expiring affordability contracts.