To the editor: I’m in a household of mom-and-pop, generational house owners of historic flats in Echo Park and Silver Lake. The Metropolis of Los Angeles hire freeze enacted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic is placing us out of enterprise. (“It is Time to Finish LA’s Hire Freeze,” Chief, November 5)
Elevated payments for insurance coverage, utilities, upkeep, repairs and inspections make it very costly to maintain our buildings protected, clear and as much as code. This year-long hire freeze has pressured us to postpone upkeep initiatives, cancel gardening, abandon pest management and hold the constructing to a minimal normal.
We don’t wish to promote, as a result of we’re a part of the group and are happy with our possession. If we do promote, these historic small multi-units will nearly actually be bought by massive funding companies or builders, who will seemingly tear them down and rebuild.
Elevating the hire won’t give us extra revenue. It can solely assist us cowl our growing bills.
Please see our web page of the equation.
Geza Tokes, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Your editorial spoke about hire will increase on rent-stabilized items being held again through the COVID-19 pandemic, and that house owners have struggled to pay for obligatory upkeep.
In actual fact, these limits solely utilized to hire will increase for present tenants. Each time a tenant strikes out, an proprietor can increase the hire for the subsequent tenant to what the market can bear. This kind of enhance has by no means been restricted by the hire stabilization regulation.
So even below the present system, rents inevitably rise over time, after the lengthy, ongoing value march in L.A. Our hire stabilization ordinance, admittedly a blessing few cities have, actually solely skews the upward march and perhaps slows it down a bit.
Folks transfer an terrible lot in LA, and each time somebody leaves a hire stabilized constructing, the house owners have free rein to lift the hire, which I am certain helps these struggling house owners sustain with their rising bills.
Michael Scharf, Los Angeles