By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

March 11, 2015 – For the second time in as many months, the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office is suing landlords for allegedly taking parking from disabled tenants in an effort to force them out of rent- controlled units.

Earlier this week, the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Consumer Protection Division filed suit against the landlords of an apartment building at 918 7th  Street who allegedly told two disabled tenants who live in separate units that they would have to share a tandem parking space.

Deputy City Attorney Gary Rhoades said the incidents form a “striking” pattern. Some cases involve parking.  But not all, Rhoades said.

One case,  for instance, involves a landlord trying to remove a dog used for therapeutic reasons by a disabled tenant in a rent-controlled unit, said Rhoades.

The dog “is an emotional support animal” whose purpose is to help with such medical conditions as depression, he said.

Forcing the animal’s removal is a violation of the city’s Housing Anti-Discrimination Ordinance and the Tenant Harassment Ordinance, Rhoades said.

The City Attorney’s office is also involved in a second, similar case, Rhoades said, adding that no additional details would be released because the City is in negotiations with the landlords in both incidents.

“It’s a striking pattern,” Rhoades said. “Generally, we’re seeing both denials and unnecessary delays by owners in responding to tenants’ requests for reasonable accommodations.”

In the case filed by the Consumer Protection Division this week, the tenants provided medical documentation to the landlords showing they needed unshared parking spaces close to their units due to their disabilities, Rhoades said.

The landlords, however, would not agree to restore the previous parking arrangement, Rhoades said.

“The lawsuit arises from the defendants’ refusal to grant their tenants reasonable parking accommodations based on their disabilities, for attempting to take away a parking amenity that is part of the tenants’ leases, and for targeting tenants with disabilities who have recently asserted their fair housing rights,” the complaint said.

The two tenants fought a similar move last year, the complaint also alleges.

The tenants’ names are being withheld at the request of the City Attorney. The complaint is being filed against Ben Leeds (doing business as Ben Leeds Property Management), Fidel Alonso and Crenshaw Two, LLC.

A representative of Ben Leeds Properties, who declined to give his name, said he had contacted the firm’s attorneys and “it’s not what they are saying. I can give you no further information at this time.”

The two tenants have been in the building since 1982 and 1995, before a State law went into full effect in 1999 that allows landlords to raise the rents of most vacated units to market rates.

The City’s Rent Control website shows 12 units at the apartment building. Three are between $732 and $799 a month. The rest range from about $2,000 to $3,364.

In early February, the same division of the City Attorney’s Office filed suit against a different landlord for allegedly attempting to force a disabled tenant out of a rent-controlled unit by taking removing her parking space.

The lawsuit is set for a hearing in Santa Monica Superior Court on May 26. It alleges the landlord took away the tenant’s parking space without justification, forcing her to park on the street.

Tenant groups and others claim that escalating rents have prompted unfair treatment of tenants in rent-controlled units in an effort to evict them, even when there are no legal grounds to do so.

Rhoades  pointed to the landmark case of tenant Paul Aron, whose landlord, Barbara Bills and her WIB Holdings LLC,  attempted to evict him because of improvements and renovations he’d made to his “as is” apartment  at 2637 Centinela Avenue. He had lived in the unit 24 years.

Three of the units at the building rented for between $650 and $700, but most were well above $1,000 and topped out at $2,195 a month.

A 12-person jury found that the landlord had waived her right to evict Aron and believed that her attempt to evict was done with malice.

The City of Santa Monica is currently pursuing Bills and WIB Holdings in court on three counts of tenant harassment.