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Strange Rent Control Saga Ends

By Lookout Staff

December 5 – The tenants of a 28-unit rent-control apartment building on Santa Monica’s exclusive north coast can return home after the owners -- who were on an alleged religious mission to build 40 luxury condominiums for Jewish persons from the Middle East -- struck a settlement with the City.

Under the settlement, Khaim Hashalom (OKH) will return all units at the Teriton Apartments to the jurisdiction of the Rent Control Board at their former rates and allow all 25 tenants, many of them seniors, to return to the complex at San Vicente Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, one of the most exclusive pieces of real estate in the city.

OKH also will rescind its Notice of Intention to withdraw the building from the rental market and must keep it on the market for at least three years with an additional one-year grace period for all tenants, including one who has lived in the complex since it was built in 1949.

In addition, OKH will adopt a comprehensive written fair housing policy and provide the City Attorney with reports on its status with the IRS and with copies of all rental agreements and applications, according to the settlement.

“This comprehensive agreement has many parts, fixed and moving,” said Deputy City Attorney Gary Rhoades, “but the most important part is that each and every Teriton tenant gets their home back if they want.

“OKH’s scheme to evict the tenants was odd, complicated, and, hopefully, one of a kind,” said Rhoades. “I give the defendants and their attorneys credit for eventually working with us to carefully undo what they did.”

Filed in Superior Court in July 2006, the City’s lawsuit alleged a “housing discrimination scheme with transparency unusual for the post-Civil Rights Act era.”

According to the plaintiffs, the landlord “not only committed an egregious type of housing discrimination against its tenants -- terminating their tenancies because of their race, religion, and national origin -- but the corporation also repeatedly informed the tenants that it was forcing them out to make room for Jewish persons from the Middle East.”

The complaint also alleged that OKH had falsely claimed it was a religious organization to “defraud its tenants, many of whom are elderly and disabled, as well as the Santa Monica community.”

In addition to the City’s complaint, the tenants filed a separate lawsuit against OKH in federal court where they obtained an injunction stopping any evictions pending trial.

The unusual saga began in November 2005, when the property owners filed a demolition permit that automatically triggered a City review. As a result, the property was designated as a historical landmark, halting the wrecking ball.

OKH bought the Teriton in April 2006, three months after it incorporated as a non-profit religious organization, according to the suit.

The new landlord then claimed that, as a religious organization, it was exempt from historic landmark preservation laws and allowed to demolish a landmarked building, paving the way for 40 luxury condominiums.

(A Superior Court judge eventually denied OKH’s petition challenging the City Council’s landmark determination, a decision OKH appealed.)

After receiving eviction notices, several Teriton tenants filed complaints with the City Attorney’s office.

“A big part of the credit goes to the tenants themselves for their courage and persistence in this long matter,” Rhoades said.

The settlement agreement establishes formulas and mandatory mediations under which each tenant was able to negotiate for his or her monetary restitution, Rhoades said.

 

“OKH’s scheme to evict the tenants was odd, complicated, and, hopefully, one of a kind.” Gary Rhoades

 

 

 

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