The Brief

Last May, the landlord of Barrington Plaza, on Los Angeles’ pricy Westside, affixed notices to the doors of 577 apartments, initiating the largest mass eviction from rent control housing in the city in at least four decades.

Following tenant protest, City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the district, sought guidance from the office of Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto over whether the city had grounds to intervene in the evictions. Feldstein Soto’s office argued that the evictions were legal, suggesting there was little the city could do to prevent them from taking place. But some experts, including the general counsel for the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, say the city of Los Angeles is failing to use the powers it has to challenge the evictions and ought to do so, given the scope of the impact on tenants and the city’s affordable housing stock.

The city could launch an investigation into whether the evictions violate state and local law; it could join an ongoing tenant lawsuit against the landlord, file its own civil action to halt the evictions, or even withhold building permits to ensure the landlord complies with renter protections, according to several lawyers familiar with California tenant law consulted by Capital & Main.

Leah Simon-Weisberg, who is the elected chair of the Berkeley Rent Board and a tenant attorney, is concerned about the precedent that the Barrington Plaza eviction sets. “Can you imagine if the city really doesn’t do anything about this, what is this going to mean? Is every big building just going to go empty?”

Former Councilman Mike Bonin, who represented the 11th Council District, where Barrington Plaza is located, before his retirement in 2022, called Feldstein Soto’s legal determination “bad advice” that threatens the city’s efforts to combat homelessness. “You literally cannot make progress in the fight against homelessness if you lose affordable housing,” he said in an interview last fall.

Los Angeles’ response to the eviction stands in contrast to those of two neighboring cities. Last fall, West Hollywood and Santa Monica, both with high concentrations of renters, passed resolutions supporting the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association lawsuit filed against Douglas Emmett Inc. for violating local renter protection laws.

Douglas Emmett Inc. has said the evictions are needed so that the $2.5 billion publicly traded company can make much-needed safety upgrades, including adding fire sprinklers to the buildings. There have been two fires at the complex within seven years. In 2020, a foreign exchange student died after one of the towers caught fire.

The company has said that the city mandated the $300 million fire safety upgrade, but city building officials told Capital & Main that the fire safety improvements are not, in fact, required. When asked to provide evidence of the requirement, Douglas Emmett declined to do so. Company spokesperson Eric Rose cited pending litigation with the company’s insurance companies as the reason.

In an email to Capital & Main, Rose said, “We stand by all previous comments.” He cited a news release that was part of a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last May, which said the work was required by the city but did not specify why that was the case.

Douglas Emmett has also said that the fire safety upgrade is expansive and requires the buildings to be empty. Fire safety experts said in interviews and in an internal city email obtained by Capital & Main that fire sprinklers can be installed in the complex for a fraction of the cost cited by Douglas Emmett. A fire safety expert also said that the work can be done without emptying the building.

In May, Douglas Emmett invoked the Ellis Act, a 1985 state law that is used by landlords covered by rent control who wish to remove their properties from the rental market. Once Barrington Plaza is removed from the rental market, its owner will be freed from some requirements for rent-controlled buildings. They include offering tenants temporary replacement housing or a per diem when planning a major renovation and allowing tenants to return when the renovation is complete.

Douglas Emmet’s invocation of the Ellis Act drew a lawsuit from tenants, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in June. At issue is whether the property will be permanently removed from the rental market. The tenants argue that this is what the 1985 state law requires. They claim the landlord intends to evict the tenants, renovate the building and, once the renovations are completed, re-rent the property in violation of the law.

In legal filings, Douglas Emmett disputes the tenants’ interpretation of the Ellis Act, and says the law merely prohibits them from “promptly” re-renting the property. The company argues that, considering the anticipated four-year renovation and uncertainty about Barrington Plaza’s future use, Douglas Emmett is in compliance with the law’s requirements.

Councilmember Park’s office issued a statement saying that as soon as Douglas Emmett invoked the Ellis Act in May, she “took immediate action to safeguard the rights of tenants, including asking our City Attorney to explore all options to intervene in the eviction.” But Barrington Plaza tenants say she has not acted forcefully enough to oppose the evictions. In 2022, Douglas Emmett donated $566,000 to an independent expenditure campaign that supported Park. In the same election cycle, the company gave $200,000 to an independent expenditure committee targeting Feldstein Soto’s opponent, Faisal Gill.

In an emailed statement to Capital & Main, the City Attorney’s Office said it is “unable to discuss our legal strategy with anyone except our clients.” But in September, Elaine Zhong, a deputy Los Angeles city attorney, told members of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, “The Ellis Act allows the owner to do these evictions.”

Alison Regan, general counsel for Santa Monica Rent Control Board, agrees with the tenants’ interpretation of the state law. “If you’re kicking out all of your tenants, you have to actually intend to get out of the residential rental market,” said Regan. “You can’t use it to take those rental units off the market temporarily, and then renovate them and then return them back to the rental market, which seems to be what’s happening here.”

Last May, the planning department quietly approved exterior remodeling plans for Barrington Plaza that include new balconies, glazed windows and a revamped pool area with cabanas. The proposed new name, Landmark Plaza, aligns Barrington Plaza with its upscale neighbor, the Landmark, a Douglas Emmett tower leasing one bedroom apartments for $5,750 per month, according to Apartments.com.

“They want to push everyone out and transform the building into a high-priced luxury building and jack up rent,” said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES), which is supporting the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association in its lawsuit.

Deepika Sharma, director of the Housing Law & Policy Clinic at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, said that the city is well positioned to scrutinize the mass displacement because it houses the departments with oversight over the renovations and the evictions. “I believe the L.A. city attorney could file a case and, at a minimum, make an inquiry,” said Sharma. Such actions would be “in the city’s interest to preserve the remaining affordable housing that we have.”

The Ellis Act is sometimes invoked by landlords who wish to convert their properties to condominiums. So far, the city’s planning department has not received any requests to subdivide Barrington Plaza to make way for condo units, a process that can take from nine months to more than a year.

In an email to Capital & Main, Douglas Emmett spokesperson Eric Rose said once the units are taken off the rental market the company will “have options as to how those units will change, be rehabilitated through new life safety measures or become something different.”

Douglas Emmett hasn’t “told the city of Los Angeles that they’re actually getting out of the residential rental market, and all the evidence is to the contrary,” Regan said. “What the courts have said when they’ve interpreted the Ellis Act, is that you have to use this act in good faith.”

Most tenants left the complex in September, but tenants who are at least 62 years old or have a disability have until May 8 to depart. Barrington Plaza’s three towers include 712 apartments, including those that have remained empty since the 2020 fire.

The Ellis Act has resulted in the removal of over 29,714 rent-controlled units from the market in the city of Los Angeles since 2001, according to a collaborative research effort by CES and the Eviction Mapping Project. In its application to trigger the Ellis Act, Douglas Emmett checked a box indicating it was undecided as to the property’s future use. Regan said that the law should be amended so that landlords who invoke it must say what they intend to do with their properties.

Under the Ellis Act, if Barrington Plaza re-enters the rental market within two years, the company is obligated to pay damages to former tenants. Up until five years, the company must offer the units to the evicted tenants at the same rate that they were paying when they left their homes. Between five and 10 years, landlords are required to offer a right of return, but they can charge market rent. For some landlords, it might be worth the wait.

“If you wait five years and one day, then there are no consequences for you,” Regan said. She said that the Ellis Act creates incentives “for landlords to do this cost benefit analysis and see if it’s worth it to them to sort of be coy about what they plan to do with the property.” Still, the law is designed for landlords that intend to permanently exit the rental market, she added.

Mayor Karen Bass, who has made the construction and preservation of affordable housing a priority, told Spectrum News in a statement in June that the evictions would “worsen the housing crisis” and “make it more difficult for people to find housing that’s available and affordable to them.” Her office said in an email that the mayor’s office has and “will continue to receive legal advice from the City Attorney on the site.”

“It would be hard, I think, for her to have a legal position that’s different than the city attorney’s legal position,” said Jim Newton, a former Los Angeles Times columnist and a veteran observer of Los Angeles City Hall. “But there’s nothing that prevents her from having a public or political position that’s different.”

When asked whether the city was contemplating any legal actions against Douglas Emmett, Ivor Pine, Feldstein Soto’s deputy communications director, said in an email that the City Attorney’s Office “will advise the city’s decision makers if we become aware of any issues that involve violations of the Ellis Act or any other legal issues that fall within the City Attorney’s jurisdiction.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant denied the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the evictions in August, writing in his opinion that the tenants would have to move out anyway to allow for the renovations. The case could be decided as early as mid-April, according to Frances Campbell of Campbell & Farahani, LLP, an Agoura Hills-based law firm that is representing the tenants.

Robert Lawrence, a tenant who faces a May 8 move-out date, said city leaders’ response to the eviction has been “completely disappointing and underwhelming in terms of what they’ve done for us.”

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.