The lowdown on how L.A.’s tenant protections began
Cato Hernández
scours through tons of archives to understand how our region became the way it is today.
Published August 30, 2023 5:00 AM
Coalition for Economic Survival members walk to City Hall ahead of the rent rollback vote on Aug. 16, 1977.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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Topline:
Rent control has been a way for governments to keep prices of tenant costs low, but it’s never just been about fighting for the underdog. We explore key moments that have shaped the controversial protections over decades.
When did rent control start? It depends. There was a federal rent freeze amid WWII, but L.A.’s form of rent control started in the late 1970s, an effort that arose out of frustration with inflation and a combination of other factors that many say benefited landlords more.
Are all rent control laws created equal? Definitely not. Rent control increases are often tied to inflation, but sometimes rates change depending on how you crack the math. Some areas had rules about whether rents could rise between tenants, which was considered a strong measure that ultimately got tossed out in California.
Rent control can either be your friend or your enemy.
The laws are often the bane of landlords who’d like to charge more and a potential safety net for tenants who can’t afford steep rent hikes. But why it’s around isn’t necessarily because politicians want to protect the little guy — rent control has historically been used to mitigate another problem.
RENT CONTROL GUIDE
How much can rent go up in my neighborhood?
Read our rent control guide to find out how much your rent can be legally increased each year, depending on where you live in L.A. County.
If you want a breakdown of how rent control may work in your area today, here’s the guide for that. But in this one, we’ll explore more of the backdrop: how high inflation, wartime efforts and a housing crisis birthed different eras of rent control.
The wartime effect
L.A.’s first round of modern rent control came more than 80 years ago — and it was perhaps the strictest we’ve seen.
When World War II began in 1939, industrial employment ballooned. The Great Depression was easing, so workers migrated to Los Angeles in the tens of thousands for employment. But the surge in population, combined with the war effort, created a perfect housing storm that lasted for years.
More people were coming at a time when our housing stock couldn’t keep up. About 15,000 residential projects went unfinished because labor and supplies were diverted to the war, according to research from the UCLA Luskin Center. With demand way up, many people had no choice but to live in severely overcrowded and unsuitable conditions. The situation was so dire when a federal study was conducted that a veteran shared how he was living in a house with 18 other people while trying to turn a chicken coop into a place to stay.
A 1945 poster letting tenants know about their rights under rent control.
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United States Office of Price Administration
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Illinois Digital Archives, Illinois State Library, and Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias
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The ultimate solution would be more housing, but that would take years to improve. In the interim, the federal government deployed a rent freeze (and other price controls)in 1942 to ensure essentials remained affordable. Alisa Belinkoff Katz, lead author of UCLA’s study of rent control in L.A., says this move made rent control part of the war effort and more acceptable to landlords.
“It was considered sort of the patriotic thing to do, at least at first while the war was going on,” she said. “It became something that was widely publicized and that people were engaged in.”
That publicity campaign helped to make tenants aware of their rights. Landlords and renters were also required to sign a property registration form that recorded the rent amount under the freeze. To Katz, the tenants who kept tabs on compliance, along with federal enforcement, is what made the rent freeze effective.
A line of people outside of the rent control office at Broadway in Los Angeles on Nov. 5, 1942.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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Property owners register their rentals at the Broadway rent control office in Los Angeles on Sept. 25, 1942.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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The support of landlords didn’t last long, though. The L.A. County apartment association’s president at the time, David Culver, complained about treatment in a meeting with landlords, and together they vowed to take action. They argued that the rent cap was too low to afford taxes and maintenance, and some threatened to take their rentals off the market.
Once the war ended, rent control became a ticking clock. After a postwar federal housing act went into effect, allowing local governments to lose the rules, the L.A. City Council voted to decontrol. Residential rents went back under the sway of the market.
Property owners cheer as the L.A. city council votes 10 to 4 in favor of rent decontrol on July 2, 1950. More than 2,500 owners and tenants packed the council chamber.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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‘Stagflation’ in the 1970s and Proposition 13
Decades later, L.A. was in a different predicament.
An oil crisis was going on, aiding a surge in inflation while economic growth was at a snail’s pace. This is when the term “stagflation” was coined (a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation). Among a number of other things that became more expensive, L.A. home prices were skyrocketing along with owners’ property tax bills.
Landlords again organized around this issue. Howard Jarvis, then-executive director of the L.A. County apartment association, went down in history as the champion of 1978’s Proposition 13 — a measure that aimed to cap property tax rates. But in order for it to pass, he knew that the state’s renters — which made up 45% of households, according to Katz’s research — needed to be convinced to vote for the proposition.
Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, co-sponsor of the measure, celebrating after Proposition 13 was declared a winner on June 6, 1978.
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Ken Papaleo
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Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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Landlords got involved to persuade their tenants. They argued that getting their tax bills reduced would trickle down to their tenants, too. Some even offered rent rebates if it was successful. But after Proposition 13 prevailed at the polls, the rose-colored glasses fell off. Despite what they’d said previously, many owners continued to raise their rents — some by more than 20% that same year.
“It should be an incentive to keep rents low, one would think,” Katz said. “But it hasn't worked out that way because property values continue to rise all over the city. [It helps landlords] because their taxes aren’t going up. So if their taxes are stable and their rents are allowed to increase all the time, then of course it helps them.”
In effect, the law was a type of rent control but for landlords, because it lowered their property taxes and limited increases.
Renters feeling the pinch
Demand for tenant protections was high in this decade, especially in middle-class communities. Renters had few rights and people were feeling the pinch.
“Our phone started ringing off the hooks,” said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival. “It appeared that the speculators discovered Los Angeles. They were buying up rental units throughout the area, raising rent, putting a fresh coat of paint on it, some minor repairs, and then selling it again."
Gross was one of the key people leading the fight for rent control and helped organize tenant unions. He says some apartment buildings were getting flipped four to five times a year. And after Proposition 13, he says the “lid blew off” with rent.
It was the first of many broken promises that landlords provided to their tenants.
— Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival
“It was the first of many broken promises that landlords provided to their tenants.”
Renters rallied, urging L.A. leaders to take action. The city council members who represented white, middle-class districts supported the measures, but the ones leading Black and Latino districts did not. Back then, rising rent was viewed as a middle-class problem, and community leaders in lower-income districts worried that rent control would drive away investment in their communities.
Still, the council got enough support to roll back and temporarily freeze rents. Mayor Tom Bradley claimed it was a necessary step to halt “outrageous rent increases.”
The freeze gave the council time to draft a long-term response, which is where the Rent Stabilization Ordinance in place today came from. With this law, landlords can only increase rent in certain properties (built on or before Oct. 1, 1978) generally between 3% and 8%, based on inflation. (There’s a rent freeze on these properties currently because of COVID-19.)
Where we are now
Since the '70s, a lot has changed. Rent control has grown to multiple cities, but so have the legal battles surrounding it.
“It's literally been somewhat of a cat-and-mouse game with landlords,” Gross said. “Because landlords will find loopholes in the law and then use that to evict tenants or increase rent. And then we'd identify those loopholes and we get the city council to close them.”
Property owners looked to change these rules, too, and they got key laws passed from higher up.
New rent laws
1985: The Ellis Act, a California law that allows landlords to evict residential tenants in order to leave the rental business, passes. A landlord filed a lawsuit against Santa Monica, which instituted rent control six years earlier, for refusing to let him demolish his rental property, claiming it was in bad repair. He lost the case when it reached the California Supreme Court, but shortly after the state legislature passed the Ellis Act.
1995: The landlords’ grand slam, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, passes. This was the state legislature’s response to landlords' building frustration with rent control laws, which were more regulated in some cities.
West Hollywood and Santa Monica, had the strict “vacancy control” rule. Under that provision, owners couldn’t raise rents to market rates between tenants, but small increases were allowed during tenancy. The act made that provision illegal statewide.
It literally puts a bullseye target on the back of particularly low-rent, long-term [rentals].
— Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival
“It literally puts a bullseye target on the back of particularly low rent, long-term [rentals],” Gross said on the removal of vacancy control. “If they get those tenants out by any means, they can jack up rents to whatever they want.”
The act also prohibited rent control on residential properties built after Feb. 1, 1995, excluded single-family homes and condos, and generally tied city leaders' hands.
“It froze existing local rent control laws,” Katz said. “It had a huge impact because it prohibited what local governments were able to do to protect renters in their jurisdictions.”
It can be tough to easily understand how, when, and where rent control affects you. Everything can change depending on what city you’re in, your building type and when it was built.
Some basics you should be aware of are the main types of rent control:
Rent freeze (rents are not allowed to rise at all in a given period).
Vacancy control (rent can’t rise to market rates between tenants, but smaller increases are allowed during tenancy — this is illegal in California).
Vacancy decontrol (rents can rise to market rates between tenants, and increases are allowed during tenancy — the standard in the state now).
Another way that rent control can change is with how much of the consumer price index, which measures inflation, gets factored in.
For example, the city of L.A. typically lets rent controlled properties increase between 3% and 8% a year, depending on the full rate of inflation. But Katz says that other cities have used a lower percentage of CPI. And the city of L.A. has a freeze on increases in rent controlled buildings until February 2024.
Cities with floors for increases, like L.A., can wind up with a problematic deal for renters and a better one for landlords if rents rise above CPI.
“Several times in the last few years, CPI has actually risen less than 3%, but landlords were allowed to raise the rents by 3%. So that's another question, whether that should be adjusted," Katz said.
Figure out where you stand
Rent control is a tangled web of seemingly boring rules, but it does have real effects. To supporters of the protections, the aim is about keeping things affordable and fair.
“It helps to give some security to tenants in a sense that it extends the protections that homeowners have,” Gross said. “What rent control does is level the playing field.”
If you're a renter and would like to know more about where your home stands with rent control, check out my colleague David Wagner’s cheat sheet to rent hike. If you’re in the city of L.A., you can also put your address into ZIMAS and check the housing tab to see what laws apply.
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published August 1, 2026 5:00 AM
With multiple locations throughout Southern California and global-inspired flavors, Wanderlust is a local favorite among much of the LAist audience.
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Courtesy Wanderlust Creamery
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Topline:
LAist asked AirTalk listeners for their favorite SoCal ice cream spots, and the responses — paired with picks from LAist food writer Gab Chabrán — turned into a sprawling, only-in-SoCal list of scoop shops.
Why it matters: The region's ice cream scene is always evolving — old standbys like Fosselman's and Scoop's are still going strong, but they're now sharing the spotlight with a newer wave of artisanal shops built around Persian, Indonesian, Latino, and Asian American flavor traditions.
Read on…for the mega list spanning Los Angeles and Orange counties.
As summer marches on, expect the heat to stick around.
With these high temps, many of us are searching for a sweet frozen treat to cool off and maybe indulge a little.
I recently sat in for an AirTalk segment with fill-in host Josie Huang, where we both shared some of our local favorites to get ice cream and other frozen treats and heard from listeners who shared theirs.
Take a look and see if your go-to places are here.
Pasadena
A scoop from Kinrose Creamery, dusted with spice and topped with a dried flower.
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Robert Haleblian
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Courtesy Kinrose Creamery
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Kinrose Creamery is one of my personal picks. Owners Maria Oveysi and Moe Kamal make Persian and Egyptian ice cream. Signature flavors include saffron pistachio rose, kanafeh, walnut baklava topped with pashmak (Iranian cotton candy) and sour cherry.
Locations:
140 Mills Pl., Pasadena (Old Town Pasadena)
16915 Ventura Blvd., Encino
Downtown L.A.
Sad Girl Creamery's Strawberry Animal Cookie Sundae layers strawberry tres leches ice cream with strawberry jam, rainbow sprinkles, frosted animal cookies and housemade vanilla bean whipped cream.
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Courtesy Sad Girl Creamery
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Sad Girl Creamery is another one of my picks. Run by SueEllen Mancini, the pop-up ice cream stand is at Smorgasburg every Sunday, hawking Mancini’s nostalgic Latino ice cream novelties. Flavors include her riff on the iconic Choco Taco, along with a Gansito Sundae made with Mexican vanilla ice cream, strawberry-raspberry-hibiscus jam and yellow cake. Mancini always has something worth stopping by for.
Location: ROW DTLA, 777 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles
Leimert Park
Listener Camille emailed to recommendAll Chill, a shop specializing in small-batch and artisanal ice cream, with a built-in hip-hop museum (yup!). The shop ties the flavors to the neighborhood's cultural identity. Fan favorites include bean pie and, as a non-dairy option, cognac and currant.
Location: 3415 W. 43rd Place, Los Angeles
Arcadia
626 Ice Cream is another of my picks. Founded in 2020 by Amber Tan and Waldo Yan after both lost hospitality jobs in the pandemic, the duo took over the longtime Ace Frozen Yogurt space. With a completely reimagined space and menu, flavors include black sesame, roasted green tea, Yakult, lychee strawberry, mango calamansi, and malted chocolate.
Location: 160 E. Duarte Rd., Ste. E, Arcadia
Atwater Village
Wanderlust's Tokyo Rainbow Sherbet blends ramune soda, tart yuzu and creamy strawberry Calpis, inspired by Tokyo summers and childhood conbini treats.
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Courtesy Wanderlust Creamery
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Listener Ann-Marie from Whittier emailed to sayWanderlust Creamery is like a “travelogue featuring flavors from all over the world, and the quality is top-notch. When you walk outside and eat a cone, it doesn't instantly start melting like so many other places' ice cream." Signature flavors include sticky rice mango, Japanese Neapolitan, and Vietnamese Rocky Road.
Locations: Atwater Village, Costa Mesa, Venice, Irvine, Sawtelle, Pasadena, Tarzana, Topanga Social
Altadena
Camille's email also flaggedBulgarini. Owner Leo Bulgarini, a Rome native and trained sommelier, places sourcing as his gelato shop’s reigning ethos — think Bronte pistachios from Sicily, Vestri chocolate from Florence, and Hawaiian macadamia for his various creations. And if you're interested in making a whole meal around your visit, the shop also serves a small pasta menu and tasting dinners a few nights a week.
Owner Tai Kim may have quietly started the artisanal ice cream revolution when he opened the firstScoops over 20 years ago. The original has since closed, but two more locations have opened since — one in Highland Park, where Kim still makes the ice cream for all Scoops locations, and one in Chinatown. As listener Marty from Mt. Washington put it in an email, Scoops "make[s] different flavors all the time, very unusual flavors, and they make non-dairy options too" — case in point, the shop's signature Grape-Nuts–infused brown bread (my personal favorite) and its basil coconut.
Locations:
5105 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park)
727 N. Broadway, Ste. 125, Los Angeles (Chinatown)
AWAN is another of my picks. 100% vegan, gluten-free, Indonesian-inspired. Started as a West Hollywood walk-up window; now has brick-and-mortars in Larchmont and Venice. Signature flavors include Balinese vanilla, chocolate Oreo, soursop mango ripple, and blue yuzu.
"Definitely Fosselman's in Alhambra. Chocolate-covered strawberry is the best," listener Vicki from San Gabriel emailed to say. Josie backed her up, noting the shop still has that 1950s fountain-soda-shop vibe.
"Mateo's Ice Cream and Paletas," listener Loretta emailed. Founded in 2000, Mateo's specializes in Latin American-style ice cream and paletas — think mango chile, black sapote, and horchata, alongside more classic flavors.
Locations:
1250 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles (Koreatown)
4234 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (Mid-City)
4929 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City
11551 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles (West L.A.)
Tarzana
"I just had the roasted strawberry and also pistachio baklava. Delicious," listener Caroline from Woodland Hills emailed aboutMagpies Softserve. Founded by chefs Warren and Rose Schwartz, Magpies also has locations in Silver Lake and Highland Park.
Locations:
2660 Griffith Park Blvd., Los Angeles (Silver Lake)
5049 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park)
18971 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana
Culver City / West 3rd Street
"Lately I've fallen in love with Ginger's Divine Ice Cream," listener Jerome from Laurel Canyon emailed. The shop started in Culver City before adding a Mid-City/West 3rd Street location near the Beverly Center.
Tocumbo didn't come up on air, but it's worth including. The shop takes its name from the small municipality in Michoacán that's considered the epicenter of Mexican ice cream and paletas — there's even a giant popsicle monument there. Siblings Jennifer Clausen-Quiroz and Ricky Quiroz started Tocumbo to continue that tradition, using recipes sourced directly from Michoacán. Standouts include ice cream sundaes made with Gansitos (chocolate-dipped snack cakes filled with cream and jam) and a wide selection of paletas, including chamoy, and a chocolate ice cream made with chocolate imported from Zacatecas.
Location: 956 S. Euclid St., Anaheim
Laguna Beach
"Gelato Paradiso in Laguna Beach is the cutest little shop right on the PCH and the flavors are always rotating. My favorite lately has been their take on the Biscoff – Biscotti-flavored ice cream. It is divine," said Fahim Khan, an LAist producer.
Location: 448 S. Coast Hwy, Ste. A, Laguna Beach
Multiple locations
Handel's is Josie’s family standby — a homemade ice-cream chain that's been scooping since 1945, with dozens of locations across SoCal. Her family always gets the four-mini-scoop sampler (mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, rocky road, and mango) when they can't agree on just one flavor.
"I'm aSalt & Straw diehard. The quality is unmatched," said Lindsay Wright, LAist senior producer, citing the Portland-born chain's rotating, offbeat flavors as the draw.
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published August 1, 2026 5:00 AM
Artist Betye Saar with one of her new collages at Baum/ Silverman Gallery in May 1981.
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Ken Hively
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Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
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Topline:
Lots of work by groundbreaking artist Betye Saar on view now in L.A., but not for long. Here’s the list.
Why it matters: The artist died on Sunday, July 26, at 99, after a long career of shaking up the art world and inspiring generations of artists.
Why now: Saar was receiving accolades — and galleries had organized shows ahead of her 100th birthday this week. Her work is up now for the public to see at LACMA, The Huntington, the Hammer, and galleries like Hauser & Wirth, and Karma . The most extensive L.A. exhibit is at Roberts Projects which includes more than 200 pieces, including fashion, wearable art, jewelry and photos from the 1950s to the 1970s.
The last piece: The Huntington has a piece by Saar titled "Drifting Toward Twilight," through Nov. 30, 2027. Saar worked with the ideas of memory and transition including spiritual transition.
Betye Saar’s long art career was the subject of media profiles and art shows in the years and months leading up to a milestone birthday this week. She died Sunday, July 26, four days before she would have turned 100.
Betye Saar in her studio in Los Angeles on January 22, 2026.
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David Sprague
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Courtesy Roberts Projects
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Saar had deep roots in Southern California. She was born, raised and educated in the Los Angeles area. She was firmly rooted in the region and in various Black communities, but her art was not provincial.
Saar took on the global, national and regional issues that affected Black Americans in her drawings, paintings and assemblages. She redefined, broke apart and juxtaposed issues related to stereotypes and racism, as well as mysticism and spirituality.
She exhibited widely in the U.S., and her pieces are in the permanent collections of many museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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The next few weeks provide a unique opportunity for people who live in or are visiting L.A. to see a wide spectrum of Saar’s work — from the fashion, jewelry and costume designs she created early in her art career to the final commissioned piece she made a few years before her death.
It’s a work that takes on the concepts of memory and transition.
A piece in the museum Betye Saar grew up going to
Saar grew up in Pasadena, and when she was young, she frequented The Huntington in nearby San Marino. In 2023 the museum unveiled one of Saar's pieces, titled "Drifting Toward Twilight," on display through Nov. 30, 2027.
To create the work, Saar used found objects, metal cages and animal horns, and placed them inside a wooden canoe. The vessel rests on a bed of branches and twigs she collected from the grounds of The Huntington. The piece is displayed in a room where the walls have been painted in three shades of blue and where the lights subtly change, illuminating seven shapes representing the stages of the moon.
The piece Drifting Toward Twilight was Betye Saar's last commissioned piece before she died. It's on display at the Huntington until the fall of 2027.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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“She's basically drawing up a scene for us in our minds, so that as we engage with the installation," said Lauren Cross, the Huntington’s associate curator of American decorative arts. "We are in the canoe on a journey with her, traveling along, and experiencing the work with her.”
Cross said Saar was working with the idea of transitions, including spiritual transition related to death.
A 16-minute video created for this exhibit, based on Betye Saar’s life as an artist, plays in a room next to the gallery.
A mother and an artist
The exhibit that’s likely to give the deepest view of Saar’s art is on view for a few more weeks.
A piece made in 1969 by Betye Saar on view at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.
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Robert Wedemeyer
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Courtesy of the artist andRoberts Projects, LosAngeles
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"Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar" is at Roberts Projects until Aug. 22. It features more than 200 objects, including costume designs, photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historic materials from the 1950s to the 1970s as Saar was becoming a nationally recognized artist.
The show demonstrates how deeply Saar created for stage productions in L.A. such as for the Inner City Cultural Center, a multicultural performing arts group started after the 1965 Watts Rebellion.
The decorative art she created would have defined a remarkable career, but then around the late 1960s she moved on to assemblages, works made with found objects. These works took on lifelong areas of interests such as spirituality and racism.
The piece Souvenir of Friendship (1977) by Betye Saar is on view at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A. until August 16.
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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
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One of the most poignant pieces, titled "I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break," from 1998, is on display at LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries. Saar uses a vintage ironing board, wood clothespins, a flat iron and a white bedsheet to comment on women’s work, slavery’s dehumanization and the enduring racism that seems to infuse much of U.S. society.
Detail from the piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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“Betye is very much alive in her work,"said Carol S. Eliel, senior curator emerita of modern art at LACMA. "There's so much of her personality, her fierceness … she had an iron spine. She was a very gentle, lovely, beautiful person, but you could not steamroll her and I think the work reflects that.
Betye Saar in North African dress in 1968 in a photo that's on display at Roberts Projects.
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Carol A. Beers
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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.
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“It makes me happy that someone who had such a long and rich and productive career will live on through these amazing works,” she said.
The LACMA piece is part of the museum's permanent collection. Much of the other work by Saar in L.A. will come down in the next month and a half.
Here’s a guide to help you plan a Betye Saar L.A. art tour.
Places in L.A. where you can see Betye Saar’s work now
Roberts Projects has the most extensive collection of Saar’s work currently on display in L.A. "Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar" is up until Aug. 22 and features more than 200 objects, including costume designs, photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historic materials from the 1950s to the 1970s, as Saar was becoming a nationally recognized artist.
Karma gallery in West Hollywood has a piece by Saar in its group show Dictation from the Other Side up through Sept. 12.
[online] L.A.’s California African American Museum (CAAM) has shown Saar’s work and has great resources about her life and art.
[online] The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles owns one piece by Betye Saar, according to the museum.
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Cato Hernández
covers important issues that affect the everyday lives of Southern Californians.
Published July 31, 2026 4:55 PM
Construction workers build a home to replace one destroyed by the Eaton Fire on March 19, 2026, in Altadena.
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David McNew
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Duplex projects will be allowed to move forward once again in two Southern California cities affected by last year’s fires. It comes after advocates for denser housing challenged the legality of the local restrictions on state law.
What is SB 9? The state housing law SB 9 allows single-family homeowners to subdivide their lots and build duplexes. They can create up to four units in some cases.
How this started: After the Palisades and Eaton fires, local jurisdictions were allowed to suspend SB 9 projects in certain areas. Advocates for increased housing development sued them and the state, alleging the bans were not legal.
About the result: Pasadena and Malibu are now backing out of the lawsuit, agreeing to settle with the plaintiffs. The two cities have until the end of September to repeal their SB 9 bans. L.A. County, the city of L.A. and the state are still fighting the lawsuit. However, a proposed state housing bill could impact what happens next in Altadena.
Read on…. to learn more about what the settlement means.
Duplex projects will be allowed to move forward once again in two Southern California cities affected by last year’s fires. The change of course is the result of a court showdown between advocates for denser housing and local elected officials who wanted to ban more units from cropping up in burn zones.
The cities of Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to settle with the plaintiffs who brought forward a lawsuit that challenges local jurisdictions’ suspension of Senate Bill 9 in high fire risk zones, according to documents obtained by LAist.
Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the result will help residents get more out of their properties.
“I want them to know that they can build,” Trauss said.
How we got here
SB 9 allows single-family homeowners across the state to build duplexes and split their lots. It became state law in 2021. SB 9 applicants can use the law to create up to four units where a single-family home once stood, in some cases. The law takes away the ability of local governments to block these projects.
However, after the 2025 fires, some homeowners affected by the fires erupted with anger over the prospect of their burned-down neighborhoods being rebuilt with denser housing. They argued more homes — and the additional residents that come with them — would clog evacuations and hurt neighborhood character.
In July 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order giving local leaders the power to block the law in very high fire hazard areas within the Palisades and Eaton fire burn zones.
Elected officials in L.A. city, the county of L.A., Pasadena and Malibu followed suit and adopted policies to stop processing SB 9 applications in those areas.
Advocates for increased housing development, including YIMBY Law, sued the governments, alleging they didn’t have the authority to suspend laws passed by the legislature.
Trauss told LAist housing advocates believe the order is being misused for political purposes.
“ It chips away at the policy,” she said. “Especially in the Palisades, everybody could watch the political back-and-forth that caused that to happen.”
The backlash on social media to SB 9 projects in the Palisades was led by former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the fire and later mounted an unsuccessful campaign for L.A. mayor.
What the settlement means
According to the settlement documents, Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to repeal the local ordinances that blocked SB 9 projects by the end of September. The settlements still require City Council action to undo those bans.
The cities are also supposed to process any pending SB 9 applications that were submitted, paused or rejected.
Another plaintiff in the lawsuit — Andrew Slocum, CEO of Green Development Company — said he thinks Newsom never should have signed the executive order in the first place.
Slocum said he hopes to see recovering homeowners have more options when rebuilding their properties. Last year, he told LAist he was working with homeowners on SB 9 projects.
The settlement “allows for the people to hopefully be able to come back and resubmit that application,” Slocum said, “because most people who are doing SB 9 are the homeowners themselves.”
The Pasadena City Council took the first step toward repeal on July 20, according to city spokesperson Lisa Derderian. She said they’ll start processing SB 9 applications once the vote is finalized.
“The City reached a conditional settlement with YIMBY in recognition of the uncertainty inherent in litigation and the significant passage of time since the Eaton Fire in January 2025,” she said in a statement.
LAist contacted officials in the city of Malibu for comment but has not heard back.
What’s next
The county and city of L.A. are still fighting the lawsuit. They control land use in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, home to the lion’s share of properties affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.
State officials also continue to defend the restrictions. Newsom’s office stands behind the executive order and plans to defend it in court, according to a state official.
Trauss said the parties met for a trial setting conference a few days ago.
“ I want the folks in the county and in the city of L.A. who could build … to have hope,” she said.
The Cinerama Dome – one of the most famous movie theaters in the world – has been closed since the COVID pandemic. But it's now got a new lease on life, thanks to SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
The backstory: The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 by William Forman – the founder of Pacific Theaters, who had popularized drive-in cinemas. Forman commissioned a French architect who had studied under R. Buckminster Fuller, a designer of other geodesic structures. The theater was originally made to showcase Cinerama, a format developed in the 1950s that was part of the widescreen craze designed to lure viewers away from television and back to cinemas. Parent company Pacific Theatres and Aclight Cinemas filed for bankruptcy in 2021.
New life for the Dome: The studio announced it will lease, restore and reopen the famous theater in 2028; Alamo Drafthouse plans to program and operate it and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex. Sony has promised to preserve the Cinerama Dome's history while ensuring its future.
One Hollywood icon is prepping for a comeback. The Cinerama Dome – one of the most famous movie theaters in the world – has been closed since the COVID pandemic. But it's now got a new lease on life, thanks to SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
The studio announced it will lease, restore and reopen the famous theater in 2028; Alamo Drafthouse plans to program and operate it and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex.
"Hot damn! We're bringing the Dome back, baby," SONY Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman said in a statement. "We believe in moviegoing down to our soul, and no venue on Earth stands more for that than the one-of-a-kind Dome."
"There's a lot of passion behind this theater," says Michael O'Leary, who heads Cinema United, the global association of movie theater owners. He says while the Cinerama Dome's closing was a symbol of the pandemic, its recovery is proof the pandemic is behind us and movie theater-going is back.
"It's really exciting," agrees Escott Norton, former executive director and current board member of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. "There's been a lot of people waiting with baited breath to see when the dome is going to reopen. People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience."
As an LA native and former film production designer, Norton has great memories of going to the Cinerama Dome. He says it was always an immersive experience to watch movies inside the geodesic-shaped auditorium designed to show wide screen movies.
"When I saw Close Encounters on this giant screen curved around me, it knocked my socks off," he says, adding he was also blown away watching Apocalypse Now at the Dome. "The movie opens up with this wide screen of just a quiet jungle, birds tweeting and then it explodes. Being surrounded by that on the curved screen, it still gives me tingles thinking about it."
The Cinerama Dome in October 2021.
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Mario Tama
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The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 by William Forman – the founder of Pacific Theaters, who had popularized drive-in cinemas. Forman commissioned a French architect who had studied under R. Buckminster Fuller, a designer of other geodesic structures. The theater was originally made to showcase Cinerama, a format developed in the 1950s that was part of the widescreen craze designed to lure viewers away from television and back to cinemas.
Forman was able to get the theater constructed in 16 weeks … just in time for the world premiere of a madcap comedy called, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The movie ran four hours long, with an intermission. Filmmakers had originally planned to use the Cinerama format, but abandoned it, shooting in Ultra Panavision 70 millimeter instead.
Still, it featured a who's who of comedy at the time – including Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Milton Berle, and Buddy Hackett. Buster Keaton even makes a ten second cameo. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World played at the Cinerama Dome, the brand new theater, for two years without stopping," recalled Karen Sharpe, the widow of the movie's director, Stanley Kramer. The former TV actress and producer spoke at a rally to preserve the Cinerama Dome last year, and talked about the star-studded premiere.
"It was a real happening," she remembered. "Bobby Kennedy came, Adlai Stevenson came and President and Mrs. Kennedy accepted the invitation to attend the opening. A few days before, they called to say 'So sorry, we have to [decline] the invitation because President and Mrs. Kennedy have to go to Dallas.' And we know what happened in Dallas."
And fans were treated to countless premieres and special events, like when filmmaker Quentin Tarantino personally welcomed audiences to his 2019 feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For the film, he included exterior shots of the Dome.
Two years later, after the Cinerama Dome's operators went bankrupt during the pandemic, Tarantino talked about how it was one of his favorite LA landmarks.
"I don't know if I could 100% afford it, but I would love to own the Cinerama Dome," he said on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM. "That would be fantastic."
Tarantino already owns two other historic LA cinemas. But other preservationists and activists have been working to revive the dormant theater. Many of them credit the efforts of Benjamin Steinberg, a 27-year-old filmmaker and actor who appeared on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
"The Cinerama Dome is the most famous movie theater in the world," Steinberg said, standing outside the boarded-up theater. "It seemed like it was going to be a demolition by neglect. So I was, like, something has to be done."
Steinberg created a campaign to save the Cinerama Dome. He organized a few street rallies, and wrote an online petition that amassed more than 30,000 signatures.
Ben Steinberg projected images onto the dome as part of a campaign to save the theater.
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Ben Steinberg
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Then in March, Steinberg went even further to get the attention of the Forman family, which still owns the property: he projected images of the owners' faces onto the outside of the Dome, asking them to reopen the theater.
"We actually projected it for two hours and then they called the police on us," Steinberg explains. "We didn't get arrested; The police just said that the ownership considered it an escalation and harassment. I never wanted to anger the owner, so we stopped immediately."
Steinberg's stunt created a lot of buzz, and may have moved the needle, says theater preservationist Norton. His group had been consulting with architects on restoration plans in hopes that someone would save the day.
"We were all working behind the scenes. But Ben Steinberg really got on board on social media to save the dome," says Norton. "I'm very happy he did. You know, you sort of have to rattle the chains sometimes."
Meanwhile, Sony has promised to preserve the Cinerama Dome's history while ensuring its future.
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